Choose an Article + Assignment

For this assignment, choose one of the reading options, answer the relevant questions, and submit your answers. These are both anthropological articles related to climate change. 

STEP 1: Choose an Article

• First option: "Gone the Bull of Winter? " by Susan Crate. Crate describes the experiences and thoughts of people in the Sakha community as they observe climate change. She shows how cultural meanings are tied to the environment and will be impacted by climate change.  
• Second option:  "Seeing Conservation through a Global Lens" by Jim Igoe. In this article, Igoe describes how the Maasai of Tanzania and Kenya have been impacted by the formation of national parks. He uses a critical perspective (political ecology) showing how global economic/power structures contribute to the Tanzanian context, and he deconstructs some assumptions many Westerners have about conservation, nature, Africa, and the Maasai.   

STEP 2: Answer Questions

Answer the questions for the article you choose. 

"Gone the Bull of Winter?" by Crate

1. What kinds of climate changes have the Sakha observed? What are some of the negative impacts of these changes?  
2. How is the Sakha's "sense of place" connected to their environment? How does climate change impact their sense of their homeland?
3. What do the Sakha see as causes for climate change?
4. How do global media shape Sakha elders' understanding of climate change? 
5. What is an ethnoclimatologist?
6. What are the cultural implications of climate change for the Sakha and/or other indigenous communities? 
7. What role can anthropologists play in addressing climate change?
8. Feel free to describe something that stood out to you from the article that you haven't talked about yet.  

"Seeing Conservation Through a Global Lens" by Igoe

1. Discuss the importance of cattle to the Maasai. What are the social and ecological functions of livestock exchange? 
2. What has changed since the 1950s in terms of livestock holdings? How have these changes affected wealth and inequality? 
3. What are the effects of Western fantasies of African wilderness on the Maasai and their ability to engage in traditional livelihoods?

4. What is "Disneyfication," and how does it play out in East Africa?
5. What is fortress conservation and what are some of the social costs of it?
6. Think about Igoe's discussion of the creation myth presented in Genesis from the Bible. How do the cultural ideas he identifies produce specific interactions with nature?
7. Feel free to describe something that stood out to you from the article that you haven't talked about yet.  

STEP 3: Submit your Answers

Submit your answers by clicking the blue, "Take The Survey" button below and copying your answers into the box in the "survey." Although I am using the survey feature for this, it is not a quiz. This is just an assignment. Do your best, but I'm not grading you on getting the right answer; you will be graded based on your sincere attempt to answer the questions and showing that you have read watched the lecture and read the article, even if you didn't understand all of it.

Please get in touch if you have any issues submitting your answers. 

STEP 4: Check Answers

After you submit your assignment, my answers to the questions should be visible on your screen below the answers you submitted. (You may have to scroll down to see them.) I recommend reading through them as a way to check your own understandings. If you have questions about anything, please get in touch.