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No set of natural resources is as fundamental to human (and non-human) life as the primary “nexus” of food, water, and energy; essential in reproducing the cycles of biological production and consumption vital to virtually all life on earth. The economic, political, and cultural dimensions of how we interact with these three resources reflect our social, historical, and global interconnections back to us – in the practices, paradigms, and forms of meaning through which societies interpret and navigate the complex relationships with nature, and each other, upon which our survival depends.
In this course, we unpack how various societies throughout history have produced social natures through their relationship to these essential resources, and how the power-laden practices that govern the cultivation, extraction, and flow of these resources have shaped socio-ecological relations in different parts of the world. We also explore how these practices inform the ways in which sustainable development institutions and social movements alike analyze and address dynamics of risk and vulnerability to stochastic events such as war, famine and climate change; and set the stage for emerging social conflicts and contradictions between production and distribution, abundance and scarcity, profit and sustainability in a time of emergent planetary crisis.
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