The world we inhabit in the United States offers a wealth of consumer goods and experiences that promise to break negative environmental and social patterns and help us build and participate in more sustainable livelihoods. For instance, by joining a conservation organization, buying shares in a local food CSA, supporting ecotourism in rural communities, or purchasing products that are certified as socially or environmentally responsible, we are told that humans and nature can coexist in ways that are mutually beneficial. However, human-nature relationships are complex and most of these kinds of projects oversimplify these relationships or overpromise on the benefits to both nature and people. Similarly, in the Global North, societies of the Global South are often portrayed as having more inherently “sustainable” lifestyles that are now being corrupted by rapid economic growth and a lack of appreciation for the importance of nature to human well-being. This view again oversimplifies the human-nature relationship and suggests that socio-ecological sustainability will only be achieved through intervention.
The goal of this OCS program is to give students the interdisciplinary tools to investigate the complexities of human-nature relationships and appreciate the opportunities as well as challenges inherent in creating sustainable livelihoods. We have chosen to design a team-taught interdisciplinary course in Minnesota (US) and Oaxaca (MX) because each provides excellent case studies of socio-ecological systems. Additionally, these locations provide the opportunity to “know our neighbors” both locally and globally to compare and contrast approaches to building socio-ecological resilience in the Global North and Global South. This program will expose students to examples that engage with the idea of sustainability in socio-ecological systems in a way that is critical, yet inspiring and unexpected. We are particularly interested in tearing down myths such as the assumption that humans and nature are always in opposition to each other, that socio-ecological resilience is only relevant to human well-being in the developing world, that rigorous interdisciplinary collaborations are difficult across qualitative and quantitative disciplines, that innovation can only come from Western forms of knowledge, or that the Global South is a place of hopelessness.
Humans and nature are frequently portrayed in direct opposition to each other. For instance, protected areas often aim to exclude certain kinds of human uses from a park’s boundaries, and perceived human-free areas of the world are generally considered more valuable than those that harbor long-term human habitation. Yet some of the most important work in environmental studies over the past couple of decades has contested the idea that humans are always a negative force in nature or that only human-free areas are worth studying or protecting. In fact, many innovative conservation propositions are coming from cases studies that purposefully combine socio-cultural and ecological processes in their analysis. These studies, known as coupled human and natural systems (CHNS) or socio-ecological systems, have emerged to address the complexity of relationships between social and ecological systems.
Pedagogically speaking, this approach also provides an ideal venue to teach students the importance of interdisciplinary research as it purposely combines methodologies and theoretical approaches from the social and natural sciences, disciplines traditionally separated from one another. Our proposed OCS program, which is designed to compare local (Minnesota) and international (Oaxaca) socio-ecological systems, has the main goal of exposing students to this kind of purposeful interdisciplinarity. This program also capitalizes on the expertise of two faculty members that have ample experience in studying CHNS from two disciplinary traditions: ecology and anthropology. Given these synergies our proposed program has three explicit learning goals:
- Appreciate and compare the intricacies of two sustainable socio-ecological systems located in the Global North (Minnesota) and Global South (Oaxaca).
- Learn the methodological tools and techniques available for documenting and examining the sustainability of a socio-ecological system.
- Engage with Western and non-Western forms of knowing, using, and conserving the natural environment.
We expect to enrich student learning by providing a series of hand-on experiences that provide the following personal development goals:
- Develop a practical and working knowledge of the different ways in which the concept of sustainability is conceptualized, measured and traced in real world scenarios.
- Acquire a sophisticated and critical understanding of the logic and intricacies of different forms of knowledge, be it Western, non-Western or a combination of both.
- Understand the diverse kinds of professional opportunities, and training needed, that exist within the world of sustainable development initiatives.
- Engage in transformative positionality exercises to develop a better appreciation for the kinds of rural livelihoods we interact with through our desire to engage in more sustainable lives with both our rural neighbors in Minnesota as well as our immediate southern neighbors in Mexico. In other words, we hope to develop a better understanding around what an ethical and reflective cultural exchange looks like, one that goes beyond superficial interactions which are often unidirectional in nature.
This program is open to all students but preference will be given to those interested in conservation and sustainable development issues in Latin America. Students are encouraged to take at least one course in Spanish before participation in the program.
ENTS 250: Food, Forests and Resilience: Systems of Socio-Ecological Sustainability in Minnesota and Oaxaca (Fall 2022) (6 credits)
The course will explore how the idea of sustainability is complicated when evaluated through a socio-ecological framework that combines anthropology and ecology. To highlight this complexity, the course is designed to provide a comparative framework to understand and analyze sustainable socio-ecological propositions in Minnesota and Oaxaca. Key conceptual areas explored include: coupled human-natural systems, resilience (ecological and cultural), self-determination, and social justice across stakeholders. The course includes a series of fieldtrips to nearby projects of interest.
Instructors: Dan Hernández & Constanza Ocampo-Raeder
ENTS 251: Field Study in Sustainability in Oaxaca (Winter 2023) (6 credits)
A field-based investigation of socio-ecological systems in Oaxaca, Mexico that will allow students to draw comparisons with similar systems in Minnesota. During winter break, we will visit the city of Oaxaca and neighboring villages to document and research systems of agriculture, sustainable forestry, and ecotourism, emphasizing the integration of methodologies in anthropology and ecology. Following the winter break trip, students will complete and present their research projects.
Instructors: Dan Hernandez & Constanza Ocampo-Raeder
Daniel Hernández, Professor of Biology
Daniel Hernández is an ecosystem ecologist studying the restoration and management of grasslands. His current research includes investigating the consequences of nitrogen deposition and cattle grazing on serpentine grasslands in California and the role of mammalian herbivores in the structure and function of restored prairies in the Arb. He teaches courses on Ecosystems Ecology, Global Change Biology, Conservation Biology, Grassland Ecology, and Introductory Biology.
Constanza Ocampo-Raeder, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Constanza Ocampo-Raeder is an environmental anthropologist that investigates how people manage local resources and how these activities impact different kinds of environments. Her current work aims to uncover cultural rules and behaviors that govern resource management practices as well as trace the impact of global conservation and development policies on these systems. Most of her work focuses in Latin America. She teaches courses on The Anthropology of Good Intentions, Environmental Anthropology, The Anthropology of Food, Anthropological Thought and Theory as well as Introduction to Anthropology.
Students will stay in hostels as well as one short homestay in one of the communities visited.
Our time in Oaxaca will be spent in the city of Oaxaca as well as two neighboring Zapotec communities (Analco and Teotitlán del Valle) within the valley that manage a series of sustainable food, forestry, non-timber forest products, and ecotourism initiatives.
The Sierra Norte of Oaxaca is one of the most biodiverse, culturally diverse, and linguistically diverse areas in the Americas.
Since the 1990’s, Oaxaca has been a hub for innovative sustainable conservation programs given its unique biological and cultural diversity, history of community-based organization that has consistently subverted corporate and government interests (e.g., three quarters of the municipalities in the state of Oaxaca are ruled by an indigenous political system called usos and costumbres and are sites of cultural and creative production). For these reasons, it is home for major conservation and sustainable development organization (e.g. The Forest Stewardship Council, or FSC, had its first major headquarters here), conferences and festivals every year. Currently, there are over 2,500 conservation and development NGO’s in Oaxaca; making this state a site of innovation and true inspiration for anyone interested in seeing how grassroots initiatives, often non-Western in nature, can be successful. In other words, exposure to Oaxaca will give students a rare window into a message rarely fully imparted in the Global North: that innovation, success and new ways of conceptualizing sustainability can also come from the Global South. Oaxaca is also the point of origin for corn agriculture and currently harbors the highest diversity of corn varieties (several hundred varieties), even still cultivating teocinte, corn’s ancestor.
The program will center on evaluating the socio-ecological system of two Zapotec indigenous communities. In these communities, we will learn about their social, historical, and ecological characteristics, as well as engage in actually documenting and studying the management of four key socio-ecological zones: subsistence farming (milpa, maize cultivation that is heavily intercropped), house-gardens/tree orchards, timber and non-timber forest extraction, and sustainable enterprises such as textile production and ecotourism ventures. Student research will emphasize the use of interdisciplinary approaches in anthropology and ecology to study the motivation, implementation, and implications of land use and management.
In addition to activities taking place in these communities, the program has also scheduled activities in the city of Oaxaca to meet with historians, artists, activists, and government officials. This will be complemented by short trips in the vicinity that will teach students how to prepare and cook key crops encountered in the field (e.g., making and preparing different kinds of tortillas and maize based foods, pre-Hispanic and contemporary styles of chocolate, as well as eat at avant guarde restaurants that are engaged in revalorizing Mexico’s heritage foods.
The program will take place during the first part of December. Specific dates will be communicated to program participants.
All Carleton-sponsored winter break programs cover the costs of instruction, lodging, some meals, group excursions, public transportation, medical and evacuation insurance, travel assistance, and most cultural events.
Students are responsible for passports and visas (when required), books and supplies, transportation to and from the program sites, and personal expenses during the program. Students will receive a program-specific Additional Cost Estimate at the time of acceptance.
Financial assistance is available. See the Off-Campus Studies website for further information on billing, financial aid, and scholarships.
