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LU0093

Governance of Natural Resources

This course departs from the insight that natural resource governance is as much about managing people as it is about managing nature. The course provides students with tools for understanding different ways in which control and access over natural resources are collectively organized and governed, and the different social, economic and ecological conditions that underpins various forms of environmental dilemmas. The course deals with the inter-linkages between natural resource management and rural change from a cross-disciplinarily perspective. Through an exploration of different concepts and perspectives from social theory and political ecology the course critically analyses different natural resource dilemmas from different contrasting contexts at different scales.



The course covers relevant theoretical concepts and approaches concerning the governance of natural resources and enables students to reflect and use these in class discussions and individual and/or group exercises. The development of the student’s generic competence and capabilities constitute an important part of the course and the course consists of a mixture of lectures, individual and/or group works, which are presented and discussed during seminars.

Information from the course leader

Dear all,

Welcome to the course! Please review the following material and let us know if you have questions.

Looking forward to see you all and stay safe!

//Hal and Linus

Ps. Most course meetings will be held in real life, IRL. Please exercise all necessary health precautions.

Course evaluation

The course evaluation is now closed

LU0093-20067 - Course evaluation report

Once the evaluation is closed, the course coordinator and student representative have 1 month to draft their comments. The comments will be published in the evaluation report.

Additional course evaluations for LU0093

Academic year 2023/2024

Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20160)

2023-10-31 - 2024-01-14

Academic year 2021/2022

Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20132)

2021-11-02 - 2022-01-16

Academic year 2020/2021

Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20132)

2020-11-02 - 2021-01-17

Academic year 2019/2020

Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20043)

2019-11-01 - 2020-01-19

Academic year 2018/2019

Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20108)

2018-11-05 - 2019-01-20

Syllabus and other information

Litterature list

Week 44; Conceptualising sustainable natural resource governance

Dryzek, J. 2005. The Politics of Earth – Environmental Discourses. Oxford University Press.

Lemos, M. C. and Agrawal, A. 2006. Environmental Governance. Annual Review of Environment and Resources.

Mehta, L. Leach, M. Newell, P. Scoones, I. Sivaramakrishnan, K and Way, S-A. 1999. Exploring Understandings of Institutions and Uncertainty: New Directions in Natural Resource Management. IDS Discussion Paper 372. Environment Group, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.

Lisa Moran & Henrike Rau. 2014. Mapping divergent concepts of sustainability: Lay knowledge, local practices and environmental governance*. *Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability. DOI: 10.1080/13549839.2014.963838.

Nightingale, A., Böhler T., Campbell, B. and Karlsson, L (eds.). 2019. Environment and sustainability in a globalizing world, Routledge, New York. Read chapter 1, 3 and 6

Week 45; Conceptualising central concepts and theories

Theorising resource governance dilemmas: Key concepts and perspectives 2

Acheson, J. 2011. Ostrom for anthropologists*.* International Journal of the Commons, Vol. 5, no 2 August 2011, pp. 319–339.

Cleaver, F.D. and de Koning, J., 2015. Furthering critical institutionalism. International Journal of the Commons, 9(1), pp.1–18. DOI:http://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.605

‘Is good mining possible? Exploring green and just transitions in the extractive industries’

Required

Toumbourou, T., Muhdar, M., Werner, T., & Bebbington, A. (2020). Political ecologies of the post-mining landscape: Activism, resistance, and legal struggles over Kalimantan’s coal mines. Energy Research & Social Science65, 101476. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101476

Suggested

Oskarsson, P., Nielsen, K. B., Lahiri-Dutt, K., & Roy, B. (2021). India’s new coal geography: Coastal transformations, imported fuel and state-business collaboration in the transition to more fossil fuel energy. Energy Research & Social Science73, 101903. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101903

Resource governance in human and political geography: property, territory, and other analytics

Required

Lund, C. 2006. Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa. Development and Change, 37: 685–705. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7660.2006.00497

Ribot, J. & Peluso, N. 2003. A theory of access. Rural Sociology, 682, 99. 153-181

Suggested

Elden, Stuart (2010). Land, terrain, territory. Progress in Human Geography, 34(6): 799-817

Week 46; Democracy, institutional embeddedness, and multi-scalar governance of NRM

‘Marine resource management through EU external fisheries policy’

Required

Arthur P J Mol 2006 Environmental Governance in the Information Age: The Emergence of Informational Governance. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

Kadfak, A., & Widengård, M. (2022). From fish to fishworker traceability in Thai fisheries reform. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

Optional

Bailey, M., Bush, S. R., Miller, A., & Kochen, M. (2016). The role of traceability in transforming seafood governance in the global South. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 18, 25-32.

Calvão, F., & Archer, M. (2021). Digital extraction: Blockchain traceability in mineral supply chains. Political Geography, 87, 102381.

The institutional landscape of Natural Resource Governance

Biermann and Pattberg. 2008. Global Environmental Governance: Taking Stock, Moving Forward. Annual Review of Environment and Resources.

Theorizing local democracy in NRM

Fischer, Harry. 2021*. *Decentralization and the governance of climate adaptation: Situating community-based planning within broader trajectories of political transformation. *World Development *140: 105335.

Ribot, J., Chhatre, A., & Lankina, T. 2008. Introduction: Institutional choice and recognition in the formation and consolidation of local democracy. Conservation and Society, 6, 1–11.

Community forestry institutions and challenges to collective action in the context of socio-ecological transition. A case from Nepal

Required

Ojha, H., Persha, L., & Chhatre, A. (2009). Community forestry in Nepal: a policy innovation for local livelihoods (Vol. 913). International Food Policy Research Institute.

Suggested

K C, B., Race, D., Fisher, R., & Jackson, W. (2021). Changing Rural Livelihoods and Forest Use Transition in the Middle Hills of Nepal. Small-scale Forestry,* 20*(3), 479-501. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-021-09477-6

Khatri, D. B., Marquardt, K., Pain, A., & Ojha, H. (2018). Shifting regimes of management and uses of forests: What might REDD+ implementation mean for community forestry? Evidence from Nepal. Forest Policy and Economics,* 92*, 1-10. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2018.03.005

Khatri, D. & Paudel, D. & Pain, A. & Marquardt, K. & Khatri, S., (2022) “Reterritorialization of community forestry: Scientific Forest management for commercialization in Nepal”, Journal of Political Ecology 29(1), p.455–474. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.2298

Week 47; Climate, forest and development dilemmas

Global agendas for forest conservation in an era of climate change

Required

Fleischman, F., et al. 2020*. *Pitfalls of tree planting show why we need people-centered natural climate solutions. *Bioscience *70(11): 947–950.

Pritchard, R. 2021 Politics, power and planting trees. *Nature Sustainability *

Suggested

Coleman, E., et al. 2021. Limited effects of tree planting on forest canopy cover and rural livelihoods in Northern India*. Nature Sustainability.*

"Planting trees in Africa": Local consequences of Swedish carbon forestry 

Required

Leach, M. and Scoones. I. 2015. Political Ecologies of Carbon in Africa. In Leach, M., & Scoones, I. (2015). Carbon conflicts and forest landscapes in Africa. Pp. 1-42. London and New York: Routledge.

Suggested

Hajdu F, Fischer K, Penje O 2016 Questioning the use of ‘degradation’ in climate mitigation: A case study of a forest carbon CDM project in Uganda. Land Use Policy. 59 (31) 412–422.

Land use policies, climate adaptation and livelihoods in Southeast Asia

Required

Eriksen, S. Nightingale, A. and Eakin, H. 2015. Reframing adaptation: The political nature of climate change adaptation. Global Environmental Change. No 35 (2015) 523–533.

Suggested

Beckman, M. & Nguyen, M.V.T (2015): Upland development, climate related risk and institutional conditions for adaptation in Vietnam,* Climate and Development*. DOI:10.1080/17565529.2015.1067178

“Land deals in limbo: The Bagamoyo case in Tanzania”

Required

Engström, L., & Hajdu, F. (2019). Conjuring ‘Win-World’–resilient development narratives in a large-scale agro-investment in Tanzania. The Journal of Development Studies, 55(6), 1201-1220.

Suggested

Borras Jr, S. M., Franco, J. C., Moreda, T., Xu, Y., Bruna, N., & Demena, B. A. (2022). The value of so-called ‘failed’large-scale land acquisitions. Land Use Policy, 119, 106199.

Tania ML (2014) What is land? Assembling a resource for global investment. *Transactions of the *Institute of British Geographers 39

Week 48; Land and water grabbing dilemmas

A feminist political ecology approach to environmental governance

To be determined

Global land transactions, water grabs and the hydropolitical landscape of the Nile Basin

Required

Sandström, E. Jägerskog, A. and Oestigaard, T. 2016. Changing Challenges: New Hydropolitical Landscapes in the Nile Basin. In Sandström, E. Jägerskog, A. and Oestigaard, T (eds). Land and Hydropolitics in the Nile River Basin: Challenges and New Investments.

Fairhead, J. Leach, M & Scoones, I. 2012. Green Grabbing: a new appropriation of nature? Journal of Peasant Studies, 39:2, 237-261. DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2012.671770

Suggested

Sandström, E. 2016. Dealing with water – emerging land investments and the hydropolitical landscape of the Nile Basin. In Sandström, E. Jägerskog, A. and Oestigaard, T (eds). Land and Hydropolitics in the Nile River Basin: Challenges and New Investments.

Land as symbol and substance in struggles over social and material survival

Braun, B. (2002). The intemperate rainforest: nature, culture, and power on Canada's west coast. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press. (Read Chapter 1 & 2)

Week 49; Pastoralism and mining dilemmas

Kalasnikovs and pastoralism in the Karamoja cluster, East Africa

Required

Leff, J .2009. Pastoralists at War: Violence and security in the Kenya-Sudan-Uganda border region. International Journal of Conflict and Violence, Vol. 3 (2):188-203

Suggested

Jabs, L 2007. Where two elephants meet, the grass suffers: A case study of intractable conflict in Karamoja, Uganda. American Behavioral Scientist, Vol 50 (11): 1498-1519

Mining, pastoralism and territoriality in the Swedish North

Required

Halvorsen, S. 2018. Decolonising territory: Dialogues with Latin American knowledges and grassroots strategies. *Progress in Human Geography. *

Haikola, S., Anshelm, J. 2016. Mineral policy at a crossroads? Critical reflections on the challenges with expanding Sweden’s mining sector. The Extractive Industries and Society

Suggested

Stiernström, A. Arora-Jonsson, S. Territorial narratives: Talking claims in open moments. *Geoforum. *

Lindahl, K. Johansson, A., Zachrisson, A, Viklund, R. 2018. Competing pathways to sustainability? Exploring conflicts over mine establishments in the Swedish mountain region. *Journal of Environmental Management. *

Week 50; Nature conservation and biodiversity dilemmas

Achieving Conservation Goals in Human-inhabited Protected Areas: the Case of Zapatera Archipelago National Park in Nicaragua

Sriskandarajah, N. Giva, N., Hansen, H.P. (2016). Bridging Divides through Spaces of Change: Action Research for Cultivating the Commons in Human-Inhabited Protected Areas in Nicaragua and Mozambique. In: Hansen, H.P., Nielsen, B., Sriskandarajah, N. and Gunnarsson, E. (Eds.).Commons, Sustainability, Democratization: Action Research and the Basic Renewal of Society Routledge Advances, In: Research Methods, 139- 166.

Arévalo, A. R. 2010. Enhancing Natural Resources Management and Livelihoods in Zapatera Archipelago National Park, Nicaragua. An Action Research Study with Residents of two Communities in Zapatera Island. Masters Thesis. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Uppsala, Sweden. 49 pp.

How can the Amazon rainforest be preserved? The weak state and the importance of collective action

Required

Bartholdson, Ö and Porro, R. 2019. Brokers – A Weapon of the Weak: The Impact of Bureaucracy and Brokers on a Community-based Forest Management Project in the Brazilian Amazon, Forum for Development Studies, 46:1, 1-22, DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2018.1427621

Suggested

Celso H. L. Silva-Junior et al. 2022. Forest Fragmentation and Fires in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon–Maranhão State, Brazil. Fire. Vol. 5 (77): 1-17

Course facts

The course is offered as an independent course: No The course is offered as a programme course: Rural Development and Natural Resource Management - Master's Programme EnvEuro - European Master in Environmental Science Tuition fee: Tuition fee only for non-EU/EEA/Switzerland citizens: 27500 SEK Cycle: Master’s level (A1N)
Subject: Rural Development Rural Development
Course code: LU0093 Application code: SLU-20067 Location: Uppsala Distance course: No Language: English Responsible department: Department of Urban and Rural Development Pace: 100%