Governance of Natural Resources
This course departs from the insight that natural resource governance is as much about managing people as it is about managing nature. The course provides students with tools for understanding different ways in which control and access over natural resources are collectively organized and governed, and the different social, economic and ecological conditions that underpins various forms of environmental dilemmas. The course deals with the inter-linkages between natural resource management and rural change from a cross-disciplinarily perspective. Through an exploration of different concepts and perspectives from social theory and political ecology the course critically analyses different natural resource dilemmas from different contrasting contexts at different scales.
The course covers relevant theoretical concepts and approaches concerning the governance of natural resources and enables students to reflect and use these in class discussions and individual and/or group exercises. The development of the student’s generic competence and capabilities constitute an important part of the course and the course consists of a mixture of lectures, individual and/or group works, which are presented and discussed during seminars.
Information from the course leader
Dear all,
Welcome to the course! Please review the following material and let us know if you have questions.
Looking forward to see you all and stay safe!
//Hal and Linus
Ps. Most course meetings will be held in real life, IRL. Please exercise all necessary health precautions.
Course evaluation
The course evaluation is now closed
LU0093-20067 - Course evaluation report
Once the evaluation is closed, the course coordinator and student representative have 1 month to draft their comments. The comments will be published in the evaluation report.
Additional course evaluations for LU0093
Academic year 2024/2025
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20109)
2024-11-01 - 2025-01-19
Academic year 2023/2024
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20160)
2023-10-31 - 2024-01-14
Academic year 2021/2022
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20132)
2021-11-02 - 2022-01-16
Academic year 2020/2021
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20132)
2020-11-02 - 2021-01-17
Academic year 2019/2020
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20043)
2019-11-01 - 2020-01-19
Academic year 2018/2019
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20108)
2018-11-05 - 2019-01-20
Syllabus and other information
Syllabus
LU0093 Governance of Natural Resources, 15.0 Credits
Naturresursernas organisering och samhällsstyrningSubjects
Rural DevelopmentEducation cycle
Master’s levelModules
| Title | Credits | Code |
|---|---|---|
| Single module | 15.0 | 0201 |
Advanced study in the main field
Second cycle, has only first-cycle course/s as entry requirementsMaster’s level (A1N)
Grading scale
The grade requirements within the course grading system are set out in specific criteria. These criteria must be available by the course start at the latest.
Language
EnglishPrior knowledge
Knowledge equivalent to 180 credits, including 90 credits within a particular major within humanities, social or natural sciences. Knowledge equivalent to English 6 (Swedish educational system).Objectives
The aim of this course is to provide students with knowledge related to the governance of natural resources.
After completion of the course, the student should be able to:
Distinguish between major theoretical approaches to the understanding of sustainability dilemmas and the underpinning assumptions that they are based upon.
Apply concepts and theories from political ecology and other social science related fields to understand different environmental dilemmas.
Appraise how different policies and institutions impact on resource governance in different contexts and at different scales.
Distinguish between different and competing discourses of sustainable development in relation to different natural resource governance dilemmas.
Explain problems and challenges associated with different natural resource governance arrangements and on a general level describe how they are embedded institutionally at different levels and scales.
Content
The course covers relevant theoretical concepts and approaches concerning the governance of natural resources and enables students to reflect and use these in class discussions and individual and/or group exercises. The exercises draw from examples taken from case studies coming from different contrasting contexts. The development of the student’s generic competence and capabilities constitute an important part of the course and the course consists of a mixture of lectures, individual and/or group works, which are presented and discussed during seminars.
The course is based on the insight that natural resource governance is as much about managing people as it is about managing nature. The course provides students with tools for understanding different ways in which control and access over natural resources are collectively organized and governed, and the different social, economic and ecological conditions that underpins various forms of environmental dilemmas. The course deals with the inter-linkages between natural resource management and rural change from a cross-disciplinarily perspective. Through an exploration of different concepts and perspectives from social theory and political ecology the course critically analyses different natural resource governance dilemmas.
Grading form
The grade requirements within the course grading system are set out in specific criteria. These criteria must be available by the course start at the latest.Formats and requirements for examination
Approved home exam, approved participation in compulsory seminars and approved written assignments.
If a student has failed an examination, the examiner has the right to issue supplementary assignments. This applies if it is possible and there are grounds to do so.
The examiner can provide an adapted assessment to students entitled to study support for students with disabilities following a decision by the university. Examiners may also issue an adapted examination or provide an alternative way for the students to take the exam.
If this syllabus is withdrawn, SLU may introduce transitional provisions for examining students admitted based on this syllabus and who have not yet passed the course.
For the assessment of an independent project (degree project), the examiner may also allow a student to add supplemental information after the deadline for submission. Read more in the Education Planning and Administration Handbook.
Other information
The right to participate in teaching and/or supervision only applies for the course instance the student was admitted to and registered on.
If there are special reasons, students are entitled to participate in components with compulsory attendance when the course is given again. Read more in the Education Planning and Administration Handbook.
Responsible department
Department of Urban and Rural Development
Further information
Litterature list
Week 44; Conceptualising sustainable natural resource governance
Dryzek, J. 2005. The Politics of Earth – Environmental Discourses. Oxford University Press.
Lemos, M. C. and Agrawal, A. 2006. Environmental Governance. Annual Review of Environment and Resources.
Mehta, L. Leach, M. Newell, P. Scoones, I. Sivaramakrishnan, K and Way, S-A. 1999. Exploring Understandings of Institutions and Uncertainty: New Directions in Natural Resource Management. IDS Discussion Paper 372. Environment Group, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.
Lisa Moran & Henrike Rau. 2014. Mapping divergent concepts of sustainability: Lay knowledge, local practices and environmental governance*. *Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability. DOI: 10.1080/13549839.2014.963838.
Nightingale, A., Böhler T., Campbell, B. and Karlsson, L (eds.). 2019. Environment and sustainability in a globalizing world, Routledge, New York. Read chapter 1, 3 and 6
Week 45; Conceptualising central concepts and theories
Theorising resource governance dilemmas: Key concepts and perspectives 2
Acheson, J. 2011. Ostrom for anthropologists*.* International Journal of the Commons, Vol. 5, no 2 August 2011, pp. 319–339.
Cleaver, F.D. and de Koning, J., 2015. Furthering critical institutionalism. International Journal of the Commons, 9(1), pp.1–18. DOI:http://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.605
‘Is good mining possible? Exploring green and just transitions in the extractive industries’
Required
Toumbourou, T., Muhdar, M., Werner, T., & Bebbington, A. (2020). Political ecologies of the post-mining landscape: Activism, resistance, and legal struggles over Kalimantan’s coal mines. Energy Research & Social Science, 65, 101476. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101476
Suggested
Oskarsson, P., Nielsen, K. B., Lahiri-Dutt, K., & Roy, B. (2021). India’s new coal geography: Coastal transformations, imported fuel and state-business collaboration in the transition to more fossil fuel energy. Energy Research & Social Science, 73, 101903. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101903
Resource governance in human and political geography: property, territory, and other analytics
Required
Lund, C. 2006. Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa. Development and Change, 37: 685–705. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7660.2006.00497
Ribot, J. & Peluso, N. 2003. A theory of access. Rural Sociology, 682, 99. 153-181
Suggested
Elden, Stuart (2010). Land, terrain, territory. Progress in Human Geography, 34(6): 799-817
Week 46; Democracy, institutional embeddedness, and multi-scalar governance of NRM
‘Marine resource management through EU external fisheries policy’
Required
Arthur P J Mol 2006 Environmental Governance in the Information Age: The Emergence of Informational Governance. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space
Kadfak, A., & Widengård, M. (2022). From fish to fishworker traceability in Thai fisheries reform. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space
Optional
Bailey, M., Bush, S. R., Miller, A., & Kochen, M. (2016). The role of traceability in transforming seafood governance in the global South. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 18, 25-32.
Calvão, F., & Archer, M. (2021). Digital extraction: Blockchain traceability in mineral supply chains. Political Geography, 87, 102381.
The institutional landscape of Natural Resource Governance
Biermann and Pattberg. 2008. Global Environmental Governance: Taking Stock, Moving Forward. Annual Review of Environment and Resources.
Theorizing local democracy in NRM
Fischer, Harry. 2021*. *Decentralization and the governance of climate adaptation: Situating community-based planning within broader trajectories of political transformation. *World Development *140: 105335.
Ribot, J., Chhatre, A., & Lankina, T. 2008. Introduction: Institutional choice and recognition in the formation and consolidation of local democracy. Conservation and Society, 6, 1–11.
Community forestry institutions and challenges to collective action in the context of socio-ecological transition. A case from Nepal
Required
Ojha, H., Persha, L., & Chhatre, A. (2009). Community forestry in Nepal: a policy innovation for local livelihoods (Vol. 913). International Food Policy Research Institute.
Suggested
K C, B., Race, D., Fisher, R., & Jackson, W. (2021). Changing Rural Livelihoods and Forest Use Transition in the Middle Hills of Nepal. Small-scale Forestry,* 20*(3), 479-501. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-021-09477-6
Khatri, D. B., Marquardt, K., Pain, A., & Ojha, H. (2018). Shifting regimes of management and uses of forests: What might REDD+ implementation mean for community forestry? Evidence from Nepal. Forest Policy and Economics,* 92*, 1-10. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2018.03.005
Khatri, D. & Paudel, D. & Pain, A. & Marquardt, K. & Khatri, S., (2022) “Reterritorialization of community forestry: Scientific Forest management for commercialization in Nepal”, Journal of Political Ecology 29(1), p.455–474. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.2298
Week 47; Climate, forest and development dilemmas
Global agendas for forest conservation in an era of climate change
Required
Fleischman, F., et al. 2020*. *Pitfalls of tree planting show why we need people-centered natural climate solutions. *Bioscience *70(11): 947–950.
Pritchard, R. 2021 Politics, power and planting trees. *Nature Sustainability *
Suggested
Coleman, E., et al. 2021. Limited effects of tree planting on forest canopy cover and rural livelihoods in Northern India*. Nature Sustainability.*
"Planting trees in Africa": Local consequences of Swedish carbon forestry
Required
Leach, M. and Scoones. I. 2015. Political Ecologies of Carbon in Africa. In Leach, M., & Scoones, I. (2015). Carbon conflicts and forest landscapes in Africa. Pp. 1-42. London and New York: Routledge.
Suggested
Hajdu F, Fischer K, Penje O 2016 Questioning the use of ‘degradation’ in climate mitigation: A case study of a forest carbon CDM project in Uganda. Land Use Policy. 59 (31) 412–422.
Land use policies, climate adaptation and livelihoods in Southeast Asia
Required
Eriksen, S. Nightingale, A. and Eakin, H. 2015. Reframing adaptation: The political nature of climate change adaptation. Global Environmental Change. No 35 (2015) 523–533.
Suggested
Beckman, M. & Nguyen, M.V.T (2015): Upland development, climate related risk and institutional conditions for adaptation in Vietnam,* Climate and Development*. DOI:10.1080/17565529.2015.1067178
“Land deals in limbo: The Bagamoyo case in Tanzania”
Required
Engström, L., & Hajdu, F. (2019). Conjuring ‘Win-World’–resilient development narratives in a large-scale agro-investment in Tanzania. The Journal of Development Studies, 55(6), 1201-1220.
Suggested
Borras Jr, S. M., Franco, J. C., Moreda, T., Xu, Y., Bruna, N., & Demena, B. A. (2022). The value of so-called ‘failed’large-scale land acquisitions. Land Use Policy, 119, 106199.
Tania ML (2014) What is land? Assembling a resource for global investment. *Transactions of the *Institute of British Geographers 39
Week 48; Land and water grabbing dilemmas
A feminist political ecology approach to environmental governance
To be determined
Global land transactions, water grabs and the hydropolitical landscape of the Nile Basin
Required
Sandström, E. Jägerskog, A. and Oestigaard, T. 2016. Changing Challenges: New Hydropolitical Landscapes in the Nile Basin. In Sandström, E. Jägerskog, A. and Oestigaard, T (eds). Land and Hydropolitics in the Nile River Basin: Challenges and New Investments.
Fairhead, J. Leach, M & Scoones, I. 2012. Green Grabbing: a new appropriation of nature? Journal of Peasant Studies, 39:2, 237-261. DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2012.671770
Suggested
Sandström, E. 2016. Dealing with water – emerging land investments and the hydropolitical landscape of the Nile Basin. In Sandström, E. Jägerskog, A. and Oestigaard, T (eds). Land and Hydropolitics in the Nile River Basin: Challenges and New Investments.
Land as symbol and substance in struggles over social and material survival
Braun, B. (2002). The intemperate rainforest: nature, culture, and power on Canada's west coast. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press. (Read Chapter 1 & 2)
Week 49; Pastoralism and mining dilemmas
Kalasnikovs and pastoralism in the Karamoja cluster, East Africa
Required
Leff, J .2009. Pastoralists at War: Violence and security in the Kenya-Sudan-Uganda border region. International Journal of Conflict and Violence, Vol. 3 (2):188-203
Suggested
Jabs, L 2007. Where two elephants meet, the grass suffers: A case study of intractable conflict in Karamoja, Uganda. American Behavioral Scientist, Vol 50 (11): 1498-1519
Mining, pastoralism and territoriality in the Swedish North
Required
Halvorsen, S. 2018. Decolonising territory: Dialogues with Latin American knowledges and grassroots strategies. *Progress in Human Geography. *
Haikola, S., Anshelm, J. 2016. Mineral policy at a crossroads? Critical reflections on the challenges with expanding Sweden’s mining sector. The Extractive Industries and Society
Suggested
Stiernström, A. Arora-Jonsson, S. Territorial narratives: Talking claims in open moments. *Geoforum. *
Lindahl, K. Johansson, A., Zachrisson, A, Viklund, R. 2018. Competing pathways to sustainability? Exploring conflicts over mine establishments in the Swedish mountain region. *Journal of Environmental Management. *
Week 50; Nature conservation and biodiversity dilemmas
Achieving Conservation Goals in Human-inhabited Protected Areas: the Case of Zapatera Archipelago National Park in Nicaragua
Sriskandarajah, N. Giva, N., Hansen, H.P. (2016). Bridging Divides through Spaces of Change: Action Research for Cultivating the Commons in Human-Inhabited Protected Areas in Nicaragua and Mozambique. In: Hansen, H.P., Nielsen, B., Sriskandarajah, N. and Gunnarsson, E. (Eds.).Commons, Sustainability, Democratization: Action Research and the Basic Renewal of Society Routledge Advances, In: Research Methods, 139- 166.
Arévalo, A. R. 2010. Enhancing Natural Resources Management and Livelihoods in Zapatera Archipelago National Park, Nicaragua. An Action Research Study with Residents of two Communities in Zapatera Island. Masters Thesis. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Uppsala, Sweden. 49 pp.
How can the Amazon rainforest be preserved? The weak state and the importance of collective action
Required
Bartholdson, Ö and Porro, R. 2019. Brokers – A Weapon of the Weak: The Impact of Bureaucracy and Brokers on a Community-based Forest Management Project in the Brazilian Amazon, Forum for Development Studies, 46:1, 1-22, DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2018.1427621
Suggested
Celso H. L. Silva-Junior et al. 2022. Forest Fragmentation and Fires in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon–Maranhão State, Brazil. Fire. Vol. 5 (77): 1-17