Student: Grace Boyd
Graduation date: May 2019
Type: Concentration (single major)
Date approved:
Go to concentration landing page
Summary
My concentration theme addresses the intersectionality of meaning, place, and social relationships and their subsequent effect on the environment. Because my topics include a combination of three different categories, the three topics, forests, religion, and Indigenous Peoples can be woven together to acknowledge the broad spectrum of topics that go into environmental decision making. To begin, however, I must first define what exactly commodification is. Commodification, is the extraction of material wealth which turns forests, religions, and Indigenous peoples into an economic commodity.
Religion & spirituality impact how a person views the world around them. Religion influences decision making and encompasses greater groupthink. In the major religion of Islam it’s seen that, “Forests are a gift from God, given to us to use as natural resources. The preservation of forests are then the responsibility of man. Man is tasked with this responsibility of conserving “their natural habituates for their future generations” (Abad-ur-Rahman 2016). Almost all major religions identify the divineness of nature as a gift given from a higher being. This gift is often seen as then a responsibility to protect and respect lowercase “n” nature, or nature that excludes humans. The difficulty surrounding religion & spirituality is that those who hold the power to make impactful environmental decisions may not always reflect greater societal views and ideologies.
Take for example Cambodia in the 1980s. It was during this time that the government went against the people of Cambodia’s wishes and began intensive logging practices as an effort to earn money to win a war. This is a common occurrence in many developing nations, where governments make decisions that do not reflect the greater societal environmental views (Le Billon 2000).
Forests are massive spaces home to thousands of different species, capable of self regulating and reproducing. Forests can reflect human resource decisions through the measure of species richness and evenness, as well as through the measure of biome mass index. Forests are often more monetarily valuable when they are clear cut rather than left standing, living (Gabriel 2015). This proves especially true after the industrial revolution. Developed countries have clear cut nearly half of the existing primary forests to use for agriculture, infrastructure, and fuel. Moving forward the effects of climate change must be considered when making decisions on what to do with forests. The profitability of clearcutting forests often overrides the ecological impacts of doing so. The industrial revolution plays a huge part in the way current practice operate, learning about why things are the way they are is always helpful in understanding the broader picture.
The role forests play in people’s lives can be seen through the “uses made of tree products, including foods, medicines, fodder, fibres and fuels, and for construction, fencing and furniture” (Bhaskar 2015). Forests also widely contribute to the nutritional needs of people through foods such as, fruits, nuts, and animals that live within them. This provides both anthropogenic and ecological views on the importances of forests. It’s helpful to look at both perspectives in order to strike a balance between sustainability and economic profitability.
Indigenous peoples can be looked to as a way of understanding traditional means of resource management and environmental practices. One way Indigenous Peoples play a role in environmental decision making is through indigenous resource management. One study coupled human and natural systems framework and an agent-based landscape model to examine how alternative management scenarios affect fire and ecosystem services metrics in a fire-prone multi ownership landscape in the eastern Cascades of Oregon (Spies 2017).
Indigenous peoples are often seen as the “exotic other”; this othering creates a perfect storm for commodification. People take the construction of Indigenous peoples and turn them into profit, often times through exploitation of tradition. This commodification is often times at the detriment to Indigenous Peoples, done so by turning tradition into something less than what it is. Although, some ecotourism programs have helped Indigenous groups (Proctor 2017).
It often seems as though almost everything we interact with on a daily basis has been commodified to some extent. Through this concentration I would like to more deeply explore to exactly what extent forests, religion, and Indigenous Peoples have been commodified.
Questions
- Descriptive; What implications does the commodification of forests have on the greater natural environment? How are Indigenous Peoples resource management practices changing? How has modernization changed indigenous religions?
- Explanatory; How does religion affect perspective on the natural environment? How are indigenous resources used in built environments of the modern world?
- Evaluative; How did the commodification of indigenous resources affect forest species populations and indigenous peoples populations? What actions have been taken to preserve Indigenous Peoples resource management practices?
- Instrumental; How can religion, spirituality, and Indigenous Peoples play a powerful role in environmental decision making?
Concentration courses
- RELS-274 - Islam in the Modern World (4 credits) Spring 2018 - This course will help me understand different religious perspectives
- SOAN 367 - Anthropology of Tourism (4 credits) Spring 2018 - This course will bring meaning to the commodification of the “exotic other”.
- SOAN 349 - Indigenous Peoples (4 credits) Fall 2018 - This course will help me better understand the beliefs, practices, and exploitation of Indigenous Peoples.
- ENVS 350 - Environmental Theory (4 credits) Spring 2018 - This class will help me expand my framework thinking when it comes to environmental issues.
- ENVS 460 - Topics: Environmental Law/Policy (4 credits) - Fall 2018 - This course was recommended to me by current senior Jay, and will help me better understand the legality of environmental issues, which will directly influence my understanding of commodities.
Arts and humanities courses
- PHIL 215 (Philosophy and the Environment, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.
- SOAN 249 - The Political Economy of Food - This class will directly explore commodification of natural resources such as food and the history of the commodification process.
- RELS 241 - Religion/Culture Hindu India - This class will help me explore a religion different from what I am familiar with in order for me to better understand different religious perspectives.