Local Courses

This course, based on a series of case studies discusses the opportunities for sustainable development, with an emphasis on the role of local authorities on the one hand, and social movements on the others. The role of social resistance during environmental conflicts in shaping sustainable outcomes is emphasized.

This course introduces the fundamentals of the interdisciplinary field of ecological economics. Concepts with affinity to political ecology, such as the commons, commodification, and land-grabbing are approached through the lens of critical economics, illustrating the partial way such problems are framed by mainstream economics.

This course is designed to treat political ecologists with the tools they will need for their field work, such as interviews, surveys and participant observation. The course also has classes on how to frame a good research question, how to design a conceptual framework and organize a field work, and how to write a scientific article.

This course addresses the emergence of institutions as a solution to a coordination problem. Coordination problems in various sphere of social life, economic and other, are identified and linked to the institutions that have emerged to regulate them.

This workshop addresses the renewed interest on the concept of the commons and reviews the various fields and disciplines that are approaching from different angles the analysis of the commons. The focus is on the development of a political ecology approach to the understanding of the commons.

This is a basic course on the main theories and methods of the science of ecology, approached from an evolutionary perspective. Links are made to current debates about conservation ecology.

This is a course with selected topics on economic sociology.

This is a course on the research process, with a focus on the practical, everyday problems a research meets, discussing ways to respond to them and manage successfully a research project.

This is a basic course on the political ecology of consumption, a useful complement to the political ecology literature that mostly focuses with conflict on the production side. The course addresses how consumption (or anti-consumption) is related to processes of identity formation.

This course identifies the role of symbolism and symbols in the structuring of the relations between people and their ecosystems. The relationship between symbols and institutions is also discussed.

This course introduces the main theories of agrarian studies and uses them to analyze current developments and problems in global agricultural markets. Case-studies are used to highlight the links between global food systems and local processes of agrarian change.

This course problematizes the notion of the “rural”, and historicizes the evolution of different understandings of the differences between city and the countryside, in relation to projects of development. The course questions the meaning of development and explains how certain notions of development came to dominate rural development plans.

Social metabolism refers to the flow of energy and materials through an economy. This course introduces the main theories and methods of analyzing social metabolism, relating them to the field of ecological economics. Concepts and methods are illustrated with case-studies, including analyses of urban metabolism and cross-national material flows.