GEOG 3635 - Contemporary Southeast Asia: Environmental Politics

Should the Mekong River be dammed for development? Should Indonesian forests be cleared for industrial plantations? Who will control the natural resources of the South China Sea? Who will capture and consume the benefits of natural resource development, from electricity to timber, rubber to palm oil to fish fillets? Who manages the conservation schemes? Who will bear the costs, and when? These questions bridge key concerns from Southeast Asian studies as well as from Political Ecology and Human and Environmental Geography. This course seeks to draw insights from both fields in order to ground contemporary debates and struggles over resource control in the landscapes and institutions of a diverse and globally connected region. Aimed at both Asian Studies majors and students with interests in global environmental politics, development, and sustainability, this course uses case studies from a range of landscapes across mainland and island Southeast Asia to examine a range of pressing problems. The course is organized into multi-week modules focused on grounding key concepts, the governance of the Mekong River, agrarian landscapes, and transnational connections.