Cutting timber, digging metals, pumping oil, fracking gas, trapping animals, catching cod, planting grains, and many other human activities are (or have been) essential to the global economy. Every day, we rely on the commodities produced by commercializing these so-called natural resources. This course does not ask, is this good or bad? Instead, it asks, what does the commodification of nature do? Topics include how resource extraction changes our planetary prospects for ecological and cultural survival and how resource conflicts emerge. We will learn from the new and old writings by environmental anthropologists, and gain insight into different theoretical approaches to the anthropology of natural resource extraction and the commodification of nature.

*****Students who completed the undergraduate version of this course are not permitted to enroll in the graduate version. The graduate version includes expanded readings, assignments, and/or presentations.*****