Commons and Climate Justice Fall 2020 A4 Course Instructor

SOC402 Special Topics: Commons and Climate Justice Fall 2020 A4

Course Instructor: Dr. Sourayan Mookerjea Office Hours: Wednesdays 3-4pm

Email: [email protected]; Please include course number in the subject line; given the volume of email, expect responses to take 3-5 days.

Prerequisite: SOC100 or instructor consent.

Course Delivery: Please note that this course is being taught during a world-wide

public health emergency under extraordinary circumstances. For this reason, this course will be remotely delivered and asynchronous. All course materials will be accessible via e-class for public health safety. Note that this is NOT an online course. It is being

delivered remotely —temporarily— for this semester.

Course Description

This project based special topics course invites students on a back-stage tour of my current research project Feminist Energy Futures: Powershift and Environmental Social Justice. The course explores the politics of climate justice as this is embedded in the politics of environmental justice which, in turn, is embedded in the politics of social justice.

As we shall see, climate justice requires a “civilizational transition” beyond fossil capitalism which is now in deep crisis, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated a range of socio-ecological and economic crises that have been unfolding around the world for quite some time. We will examine the relationship between the crisis-prone character of this dominant, growth-based world-ecology and the

deepening of environmental and climate injustices. The COVID-19 pandemic has also deepened the split within various environmental movements between those

advocating for green growth and those committed to climate and environmental justice. We will examine both theoretical paradigms such as world-ecology, political ecology, commons theory, and the activist praxes they engage with, taking a decolonial feminist degrowth and intermedia perspective. The course will focus on the

relationships between commoning and the solidarity/social economy as strategies of socio-ecological regeneration and degrowth under conditions of crises. In order to move from the domain of theoretical debate and discussion to activist praxis the course

has been designed to be project-based and will engage with the following Feminist Energy Futures Hypothesis:

Given that significant climate justice action requires not only significant, serious and substantial reduction in GHG emissions but also an equitable and sustainable social metabolism with the planetary web of life, a key first step for climate justice involves degrowing fossil fuel consumption. As such it is simply not rational to expand oil and gas production and, especially in Alberta, to expand bitumen mining.

However, Albertans have been told for years that the oil industry is the foundation of our society, our wealth and our identity. Some of things Albertans value deeply —our health care system, our public primary and secondary education system and other public services— are only possible, we are told, because of Alberta’s oil wealth. Yet, when the price of oil collapsed precipitously in 2014 (from $115USD/barrel to $70USD/

barrel) and then imploded in 2020 (to -38USD/barrel), this alleged foundation of our society left nothing to show after 106 years of industrial activity. Moreover, there was no plan B for Alberta (or any of the other oil producing provinces).

The Feminist Energy Futures Hypothesis, on the other hand, is that the actual foundation of our social existence is the diverse forms of care-giving use-values (services and utilities) that people —mostly women and other feminized social groups

— reproduce cooperatively as common wealth (which is not crisis prone like wealth in the form of capital, here “oil wealth”; and the world at large discovered the resilience- building and sustaining character of care-work performed by those designated as essential workers during the pandemic shutdown). If these use-values were in fact valued by our government and by a public banking system, this common wealth could serve as the foundation for job creation and socio-ecological regeneration while

degrowing our economy. This would involve a qualitative transformation in “our

standard of living” but not the kind of impoverishment that is characteristic of our crisis prone global economy today.

We explore this hypothesis through 4 projects which build upon each other culminating in the construction of an activist regenerator’s repair kit for building a “concrete

utopia”: Project 1 examines the relationship between environmental injustices and the accumulation of capital (growth). Project 2 examines feminist perspectives on social reproduction, value and a care-based economy. Project 3 examines the relationship between commoning, cooperatives and the solidarity/social economy. Project 4 brings all these projects together in an activist-regenerator’s repair kit involving renewed treaties between the solidarity intermedia commons and a decolonized state.

Course Objectives

In this course, students will gain a deeper understanding of:

• Major issues and questions concerning climate justice politics and its intersections with other forms of social justice politics as anti-systemic responses to global fossil-capitalism.

• How climate justice, environmental justice and social justice depend on each other as climate injustices and socio-ecological crises are consequences of economic growth (the

reproduction and accumulation of capital). How climate justice, environmental justice and social justice politics are therefore interdependent and anti-systemic protest responses to global fossil capitalism.

• How the reproduction and accumulation of capital (growth) depends on on-going, systemic colonialism, commodity frontiers, the commodity form of value and thus on the intensification of socio-ecological crises.

• The distinction between common wealth and wealth in the historical form of capital.

• The key arguments and debates in commons theory, political ecology, political economy, decolonial feminist degrowth theory, the subsistence perspective and intermedia theory and their significance for the climate justice movement.

• How the regeneration of subsistence/solidarity/social economies and the praxes of

commoning are crucial for the advance of the climate justice movement and for the diversity of degrowth strategies.

• Feminist theories of degrowth, regeneration and care and their significance for building solidarity and care based subsistence and social economies enabling communities and societies to delink from the growth-based, design-for-the-dump linear, toxic, fossil capitalist world-economy.

• How critical social science research and social justice activism can connect through the research-creation of intermedia models, prototypes and subaltern counter-environments of concrete utopias.

Course Format

Due to the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic public health emergency, this course will be remote-delivered asynchronously and is consequently self-directed and project based. Under the supervision of the course director, students will work on four projects designed to build upon each other for their course

requirements. There will also be optional weekly tutorials where students will discuss readings and their progress with the projects with the course director.

Course Materials

Students will need access to internet service and a reasonably up to date personal computer or tablet able to log on to eclass and the UofA domain. Course readings and resources are listed on eclass.

Course Requirements

Requirement Weight Due Date

Project 1 20% September 30th, 2020

Analytic paper, 2-3 pages

Project 2 20% October 16th, 2020

Assignment, 2-4 pages

Project 3 20% November 7th, 2020

Assignment, 2-3 pages

Project 4 40% December 7th, 2020

Activist-regenerator’s repair kit, 8-10 pages

Representative evaluative materials and evaluation criteria are included with the project instructions on e-class.

Explanatory Note Re: Requirements

Note that in the evaluation scheme presented above, numerical figures represent percent relative values of each piece of course work; these figures are NOT cumulative marks.

Evaluation & Grading

As you know, the University of Alberta, Faculty of Arts uses a letter grade system. Over the semester I will evaluate your work by assigning letter grades to each requirement you complete.  Along with verbal feedback, letter grade evaluations will give you a clear idea of the level of your performance in the course. After I have evaluated all of your course work, including your final exam paper, I will submit a letter grade from the scale described below based on my judgement of your overall level of

performance considered in itself and compared with the work of other students past and present, using the relative weights of each requirement described above.

Your final grade will therefore be determined by whether your work over the term can be characterized overall as either: 

Grade Description GPV

A+

A

A-

B+

B

B-

C+

C

C-

D+

D

F

Schedule

This course is asynchronous. See Project deadlines for progress timelines.

Course Policies

Missed Grade Components

Students are required to contact me within three working days following term work (or as soon as possible, considering the circumstances) to apply for an excused extension. Excused extensions are not automatic and are at my discretion. Below is a list of acceptable documentation to support an absence:

For incapacitating medical illness, students can present one of the following:

o “University of Alberta Medical Statement” signed by a doctor (this cannot be required, but must be accepted if provided in lieu of other documents).

o “Request for Excused Absence or Deferral of Term Work” Faculty of Arts form o Statutory Declaration" (to be obtained from the Office of the Registrar).

For all other cases, such as domestic afflictions or religious convictions, the student should submit documentation appropriate to the situation. This could include the following:

o For a death in the family – a copy of the death certificate o For a religious conflict – a letter from the church or pastor o For a car accident – a copy of the accident report

o For other serious afflictions – consult the Instructor or Department about appropriate documents.

Policy for Late Assignments

Late assignments without excused extensions will be penalized for lateness as follows: One letter grade deduction (ie. A+ goes to A, etc) per 4 days late (including weekends and holidays in the day count). Assignments more than 2 weeks late may not be accepted by my discretion.

STUDENT RESOURCES:

The best all-purpose website for student services is: https://www.ualberta.ca/current-students.

Accessibility Resources (1-80 SUB)

The University of Alberta is committed to creating work and learning communities that inspire and enable all people to reach their full potential. Accessibility Resources promotes an accessible, inclusive, and universally designed environment. For general information or to register for services visit the Accessibility Resources webpage.

Learning and Working Environment:

The Faculty of Arts is committed to ensuring that all students, faculty and staff are able to work and study in an environment that is safe and free from discrimination and harassment. It does not tolerate behaviour that undermines that environment.

It is the policy of the University of Alberta that sexual violence committed by any member of the University community is prohibited and constitutes misconduct. Resources and more information can be found at https://www.ualberta.ca/campus-life/sexual-violence

The University of Alberta acknowledges that we are located on Treaty 6 territory, and respects the histories, languages, and cultures of the First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and all First Peoples of Canada, whose presence continues to enrich our vibrant community.

Academic Integrity


“The University of Alberta is committed to the highest standards of academic integrity and honesty.

Students are expected to be familiar with these standards regarding academic honesty and to uphold the policies of the University in this respect. Students are particularly urged to familiarize themselves with the provisions of the Code of Student Behaviour (online at https://www.ualberta.ca/governance/) and avoid any behaviour which could potentially result in suspicions of cheating, plagiarism,

misrepresentation of facts and/or participation in an offence. Academic dishonesty is a serious offence and can result in suspension or expulsion from the University.”

All students should consult the Academic Integrity website. If you have any questions, ask your instructor.

An instructor or coordinator who is convinced that a student has handed in work that he or she could not possibly reproduce without outside assistance is obliged, out of consideration of fairness to other students, to report the case to the Associate Dean of the Faculty. See the Academic Discipline Process.

Audio or Video Recording


“Audio or video recording, digital or otherwise, of lectures, labs, seminars or any other teaching environment by students is allowed only with the prior written consent of the Instructor or as a part of an approved accommodation plan. Student or Instructor content, digital or otherwise, created and/or used within the context of the course is to be used solely for personal study, and is not to be used or distributed for any other purpose without prior written consent from the content author(s).”

Course Outline Policy


"Policy about course outlines can be found in Course Requirements, Evaluation Procedures and Grading of the University Calendar."

Copyright: Sourayan Mookerjea, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta (2020).