James Cook University Subject Handbook - 2003

AN2013:03

Culture, Knowledge and Environment *

26 hours lectures, 12 hours tutorials. Semester 2.

Staff: Dr D Miles, Dr R Bastin (Townsville campus); Dr M Wood (Cairns campus).

This subject explores the key concepts and debates concerning the nature of knowledge, how it relates to ecological and other ideological issues and the position of indigenous knowledge systems in these concerns. Science will be examined as a culturally specific approach to the environment and its protection and preservation. Indigenous knowledge systems, modes of production and conceptions of technology will be explored to assess what they may offer in terms of generating new approaches to environmental management issues. Some of the guiding ideas relating to key concepts such as ‘human being’, ‘nature’, ‘ecology’, ‘civilised’, ‘wild’, ‘resource’ and ‘conservation’ will be examined from a historical and cultural perspective. The focus of the subject is to understand eco-cosmologies in a variety of cultural contexts ranging from Australia to Asia and to explore the intersection of local with global environmental politics.

Learning Objectives:

1. to appreciate the diversity of knowlege systems, modes of production and conceptions of technology and how these relate to environmental concerns;
2. to identify issues associated with culturally specific approaches to the environment and to locate them in a broader global context;
3. to understand and critique popular representations of science and place these in the context of debates about the nature of reality;
4. to view indigenous conceptual schemes and practices in a non-hierarchical manner;
5. to become familiar with how indigenous and scientific knowledge intersect and the extent to which bureaucratic and political contexts determine the relevance given to each.

Assessment by tutorial participation (20%); class test (30%); essay (50%).