2023
Nature, Society and Ideology
Name: Nature, Society and Ideology
Code: PAO10044O
6 ECTS
Duration: 15 weeks/156 hours
Scientific Area:
Environment and Ecology Sciences
Teaching languages: Portuguese
Languages of tutoring support: Portuguese, English
Regime de Frequência: E-learning
Presentation
This course aims to provide a perspective on the relationship between human communities and natural realities, paying attention to the ways of knowing, power and acting that so much affect the ways in which societies imagine themselves in relation to the natural, and how the natural is experienced, symbolized and used. It intends to debate the discourses, the situations de facto and the contemporary political ideologies on the issue of development and sustainability.
Sustainable Development Goals
Learning Goals
This unit intends to enable, at first, a simultaneously historical, anthropological and sociological perspective of the relations between human communities and natural realities, paying attention to the ways of knowing, power and acting that so much affect the ways in which societies imagine themselves before the natural, as the natural is lived, symbolized and used. A second part attempts to debate the discourses, de facto situations and contemporary political ideologies on the issue of development and sustainability, addressing social and cultural dynamics, in order to enable a greater understanding of international asymmetries and environmental inequalities.
Contents
Knowledge, power and action: beliefs and convictions, ways of knowing
Ideologies, as ways of articulating nature and society
I. Nature, knowledge and power in Western History, from archaic times to the Middle Ages. Sacred places, cities and bordering spaces. Wars, commerce, pilgrimages
From the limited world to the infinite universe. Urbanization of social life, changes in the agricultural landscape, industrialization and transports. The world plantation system
The experience of Nature at its multiple levels - from comfort to transcendence, as a reaction to the modern world. Attempts at urban reform, suburbanization and the diffuse urban
Stages of awareness of the ecological crisis. Ecological activism and ethics of life, animal, environmental
II. Nature, development and contemporary social dynamics
The New International Economic Order
The increase in international asymmetries. Global development strategies
The ecological alarm signs
From resistance to developmentalism to denial
Ideologies, as ways of articulating nature and society
I. Nature, knowledge and power in Western History, from archaic times to the Middle Ages. Sacred places, cities and bordering spaces. Wars, commerce, pilgrimages
From the limited world to the infinite universe. Urbanization of social life, changes in the agricultural landscape, industrialization and transports. The world plantation system
The experience of Nature at its multiple levels - from comfort to transcendence, as a reaction to the modern world. Attempts at urban reform, suburbanization and the diffuse urban
Stages of awareness of the ecological crisis. Ecological activism and ethics of life, animal, environmental
II. Nature, development and contemporary social dynamics
The New International Economic Order
The increase in international asymmetries. Global development strategies
The ecological alarm signs
From resistance to developmentalism to denial
Teaching Methods
The teaching of this course is developed entirely online and using constructivist teaching methodologies
that place great emphasis on the collaborative construction of knowledge.
E-student evaluation will be continuous, and within each module there will be mandatory reading and video viewing
A discussion forum will be implemented, enabling e-students to develop their ideas about the concepts under study. Each topic will be used as a starting point for developments of group projects. At the end of each topic there will be a formative assessment and summative assessment.
The end result (100%) of the course will be the average of the grades obtained by the e-student on each topic.
that place great emphasis on the collaborative construction of knowledge.
E-student evaluation will be continuous, and within each module there will be mandatory reading and video viewing
A discussion forum will be implemented, enabling e-students to develop their ideas about the concepts under study. Each topic will be used as a starting point for developments of group projects. At the end of each topic there will be a formative assessment and summative assessment.
The end result (100%) of the course will be the average of the grades obtained by the e-student on each topic.
Teaching Staff
