AANB11074U Sustainability in the Social and Human Sciences

The course introduces students to the contribution that social sciences can make to the issue of sustainability and sustainable natural resource management. The course will be given by 3  teachers (anthropologist, sociologist and political scientist). It will consist of a first module on the socio-cultural aspects of sustainability and behaviour change; a second module on how questions and problems of sustainability have arisen on societal agendas through the intervention of techno-scientific expertise – thus raising questions as to how such knowledges work (or do not work) in everyday life; and a third module on the governance of climate change at the global, regional, national and local levels, and on the importance of both state and non-state actors for agenda setting and implementation of climate change policies.

Some of the themes covered in the course will be:

• Natural, social and economic sustainability

• The contextual relativity of sustainability

• The tragedy of the commons, and environmental and social justice

• Sustainable behaviour change

• Trust and the public understanding of global environmental science

• Techno-scientific change and everyday practices of (un-)sustainability

• Environmental NGOs and the framing of sustainability knowledges

• Climate politics at multiple scales (UN, EU, nation states)

• Transnational climate policy networks of state and non-state actors

• Climate change interventions as public policy innovations