Environmental Anthropology
CSI 160T Land Stories, Land Rights
Humans have long identified with the land on which they live. Yet different people tell different stories of themselves, their histories, their relations with the land and the land itself. Whose stories are heard while others are silenced? How do told and untold stories affect access and rights to land or decisions about land use? This course will explore cases from around the world, examining debates such as creation and use of national parks, urban development, environmental justice, and questions of indigenous rights versus economic development. We will examine our own histories, experiences with, and concepts of land and nature to frame the course. We will use Hampshire’s history as a case study to think about our connections to land and history. Concepts such as “nature,” “environment,” and “community” will be unpacked and critically examined from multiple cultural perspectives.
CSI 232 Rivers of Life and Death
Rivers have become sites of contention surrounding how they can best serve the people living along them and the nations through which they flow. For some, they provide cultural meanings and livelihoods; for others, they represent progress in the ways they can be developed and used. We will critically examine several case studies of rivers to unpack the cultural, environmental, economic, and identity conflicts that arise worldwide as people’s concepts of rivers collide. Issues explored will include colonization and trade, indigenous histories and rights, economic development and dams, water rights, environmental debates, and transnationalism. The rivers we will look at may include the Connecticut, the Mekong (Southeast Asia), the Yamuna (India), the Nile (Egypt), and the Los Angeles Rivers, each bringing different stories of meaning, conflict, development, and environmentalism. Theories from anthropology, history, human rights and agrarian studies will inform our explorations of these rivers and their controversies.
CSI/HACU 241 Designing for Life: Sustainable Agriculture, Ecology, and Design in Northern Thailand
This two-semester course, with a supplemental Jan-term field component in Thailand, investigates the intersections of design (building and land use), anthropology/social justice, and ecology, with a focus on a case study in Northern Thailand. The fall semester will build background and theoretical knowledge in these areas generally and our case study in Thailand specifically. Students will critically examine ways in which design is influenced by cultural, historical, and ecological factors. We will learn about social justice issues in Southeast Asia that are impacted by structural forms of agriculture, climate change, economics, and social structure. How can architectural and land use design empower rural peoples? What does resilience look like for rural farmers who face significant economic, social, and ecological change? Second semester will be project based with students working in interdisciplinary teams of anthropology/ecology/architecture students. Instructor permission required, with prerequisites for architecture students and a background in either Asian studies, ethnographic methods, and/or ecology for other students. Over January, selected students will accompany the faculty to our field site in Northern Thailand for primary research. Co-taught with Five College Assistant Professor of Sustainable Architecture, Naomi Darling.
Religion and Environment
CSI 151 Culture, Religion, and Environmentalism
This course explores how cultures and religions influence theoretical and social concepts of nature and the environment. Efforts to preserve, protect and/or define natural spaces around the world shed insight into the development of the concept of environmentalism. Often equated in the global north with nature conservation and sustainable development, environmentalism takes different forms in various social and cultural settings. How people respond to environmental problems (and even how such problems are defined) can vary across class, ethnicity, geographic setting, and religious understandings. Through examining religious and cultural concepts of natural and social environments cross-culturally, diverse modes of thinking and acting will be examined through specific cases. Each student will design, research, and write (with a draft) an analytical paper on a related topic, in addition to several shorter essays.
CSI 220 Buddhism and Environment
Scholars, practitioners and activists worldwide debate the relationship between Buddhism and environment, some arguing that ecological sensitivities are inherent in the teachings of the religion, while others see these as modern aberrations. We will examine Buddhist perspectives on nature and Buddhist responses to environmental issues. Looking at Buddhist activities in specific settings, we will consider how the religion both informed and was influenced by culture, politics, economics and concerns of local people facing environmental issues. Cases studies will be drawn from Southeast, East Asia, the Himalayas, and the United States.
Buddhist Studies
CSI 143 Buddhism and Society in Asia
This course examines how the beliefs and practices of Buddhism adapted to and influenced Asian societies and their religious (and political) cultures. Rather than defining Buddhism strictly as a scriptural religious philosophy, this course will move beyond canonical boundaries and focus on historical and contemporary practices. We will begin with the history of how Buddhism spread across Asia and adapted to each new society. Topics of examination include temple economy, spirit healing, clerical marriage, roles of women, Buddhist rituals, body immolation, nationalism, practical morality, and the relationship between monastic communities and laity, among others.
RELI 161/ANTH 213 Life and Times of a Buddhist Farmer (Amherst College Spring 2020)
For many, the predominant image of Buddhism is a religion focused on the next life and relieving suffering through meditation practice. Yet the majority of Buddhists in the world use the religion to create meaning in their immediate lives, guiding them through practical problems and life cycle changes. This course examines the role of Buddhism in rural life in Asia and Buddhist communities in the United States. We will ask how Buddhist communities work, including the roles of monastics, lay spiritual leaders, and lay people. Numerous rituals structure elements of rural life, from life cycle rites, particularly funerals, to New Year celebrations, to planting and harvesting ceremonies. In many rural communities, Buddhist practices and rituals intersect with other belief systems, including animism, Brahmanism, Confucianism, and Shintoism, depending on the location. Cases from across the Buddhist world will provide empirical examples through which we can study how people interpret and practice the religion. Topics include Buddhist agriculture in Thailand, Japan, and the United States; how funerals inform daily life in rural Cambodia; and the question of vegetarianism in Tibet. In the process, students will be introduced to basic Buddhist concepts, diversity within Buddhist schools of thought, and how Buddhism has evolved as a lived religion in specific social contexts.
CSI 277 Socially Engaged Buddhism
How is Buddhism engaged in the world? This course explores how Buddhism is being used in Asia and the United States to address contemporary issues such as human rights, environmentalism, economic development and race and gender relations. Buddhist concepts such as morality, interdependence, and liberation will be examined in comparison with Western ideas of human rights, democracy, and freedom. We will explore how globalization and cultural traditions influence religious and cultural change as people deal with social problems. A case study approach will be used to look at progressive and conservative responses to social change within their broader cultural, historical and political contexts.