Source: University of California, Davis
Program: Department of Human & Community Development
Course: CRD157: Politics & Community Development
Instructor: Dr. Clare Cannon
Description
A guiding question throughout the semester for this course will be: In what ways can study of interlocking social, political, economic, and environmental forces bolster our understandings of issues of injustice and inequalities?
To answer this question and ones like it, we will analyze key relationships among political, economic, sociocultural and environmental forces shaping the form and function of local communities in the U.S. and globally. To this end, we will carefully examine theories of the state, the community and social change and accompanying methodologies to more fully understand social contexts and structures in which we are embedded. This course covers an extensive array of theories and practices within sociology, political economy, environmental studies, and social and political theory more broadly. Bolstering our understanding, we will engage case studies of community development through local and global perspectives.
As we move through foundational thinkers, Marx, Weber, Durkheim and contemporary work in the field (e.g. Foster, Freudenburg, and Bullard), we will investigate key concepts, such as what constitutes environment-social interactions, what is sustainability, how are social inequalities created and sustained across regional differences. Furthermore, we will seek connections between political, sociocultural, economic, and environmental forces and other critical concerns across race, class, gender, and resulting inequalities. To achieve this understanding, we will look at the political, economic, ecological, and social justice aspects of environment-society interactions across case studies of community development. This course provides students with the conceptual tools for work in politics and community development and to make connections across this field to other critical forms of knowledge production.