Governance of Natural Resources
Course description
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.
Entry Requirements
Course facts
- Course name
- Governance of Natural Resources
- Swedish course name
- Naturresursernas organisering och samhällsstyrning
- Level
- Second cycle (A1N)
- Main field of study
- Rural Development
- Credits
- 15.0 credits
- Rate of study
- 100 %
- Study location
- Uppsala
- Form of instruction
- Campus-based instruction
- Application code
- SLU-20135
- Course code
- LU0093
- Course language
- English
- Included in program
-
Rural Development and Natural Resource Management - Master's ProgrammeEnvEuro - European Master in Environmental ScienceAgriculture and Rural DevelopmentAgricultural Science with a Specialisation in Rural DevelopmentAgriculture Programme - Rural Development
- Offered as a freestanding course
- Ja
- Tuition fee
- 38990 SEK
LU0093, Governance of Natural Resources, 15.0 Hp
Print syllabus
Syllabus
Finalized by: Programstudierektor, 2025-11-13
Valid from : Autumn semester 2026 (2026-08-31)
Level
Second cycle (A1N)
Main field of study
Rural Development
Grading Scale
5 / 4 / 3 / U
The grade requirements within the course grading system are set out in specific criteria. These criteria must be available by the course start at the latest.
Course language
English
Entry Requirements
Objectives
The aim of this course is to provide students with knowledge related to the governance of natural resources.
After completion of the course, the student should be able to:
- Distinguish between major theoretical approaches to the understanding of sustainability dilemmas and the underpinning assumptions that they are based upon.
- Apply concepts and theories from political ecology and other social science related fields to understand different environmental dilemmas.
- Appraise how different policies and institutions impact on resource governance in different contexts and at different scales.
- Distinguish between different and competing discourses of sustainable development in relation to different natural resource governance dilemmas.
- Explain problems and challenges associated with different natural resource governance arrangements and on a general level describe how they are embedded institutionally at different levels and scales.
Content
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 exercises draw from examples taken from case studies coming from different contrasting contexts. 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.
The course is based on 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 governance dilemmas.
Examination Formats and Requirements for Passing the Course
Successful completion of the course requires: - passed written and/or oral assignments/exams (individual or in a group); - approved participation in compulsory seminars. For further information, please refer to the course schedule.
- If a student has failed an examination, the examiner has the right to issue supplementary assignments. This applies if it is possible and there are grounds to do so.
- The examiner can provide an adapted assessment to students entitled to study support for students with disabilities following a decision by the university. Examiners may also issue an adapted examination or provide an alternative way for the students to take the exam.
- If this syllabus is withdrawn, SLU may introduce transitional provisions for examining students admitted based on this syllabus and who have not yet passed the course.
- For the assessment of an independent project (degree project), the examiner may also allow a student to add supplemental information after the deadline for submission. Read more in the Education Planning and Administration Handbook.
Responsible Department/Equivalent
Department of Urban and Rural Development
Supplementary information
Included in program
- Rural Development and Natural Resource Management - Master's Programme
- EnvEuro - European Master in Environmental Science
- Agriculture and Rural Development
- Agricultural Science with a Specialisation in Rural Development
- Agriculture Programme - Rural Development
Module set
| Title | Credits | Code |
|---|---|---|
| Single module | 15.0 | 0201 |
The Course Replaces
LU0058
Other Information
- The right to participate in teaching and/or supervision only applies for the course instance the student was admitted to and registered on.
- If there are special reasons, students are entitled to participate in components with compulsory attendance when the course is given again. Read more in the Education Planning and Administration Handbook.
Literature List LU0093 (Version: 1/9/2026)
This literature list is subject to be completed with other materials. Please refer to the Canvas page that will be open four weeks before the course start.
**Week 4****5 – Introduction & **Theorising Natural Resources Governance PART 1
Lecture**: Introduction to Natural Resource Governance: key questions and debates**
**Obligatory readings: **
Valdivia, G., Himley, M., & Havice, E. (2021). Critical resource geography: An introduction. In The Routledge handbook of critical resource geography (pp. 1-20). Routledge.
Bridge, G., & Perreault, T. (2009). Environmental governance. A companion to environmental geography, 475-497.
**Week 4****6 – **Theorising Natural Resources Governance PART 2
Lecture: Theorising resource governance: Political economy
**Obligatory reading: **
Kallis, G. and E. Swyngedouw, Do Bees Produce Value? A Conversation Between an Ecological Economist and a Marxist Geographer. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 2018. 29(3): p. 36-50 10.1080/10455752.2017.1315830.
**Additional suggested readings: **
Arsel, M. (2023). Climate change and class conflict in the Anthropocene: sink or swim together? The Journal of Peasant Studies, 50(1), 67–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2022.2113390
Lecture: Theorising resource governance: Political Ecology
**Obligatory reading: **
Robbins, P. Political ecology: A critical Introduction. Read chapters 1-4 (read chapters from edition 2 or 3)
**Additional suggested readings: **
Garcia, A., et al., Power in resilience and resilience's power in climate change scholarship. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.762(e762) https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.762.
Mikulewicz, M., Thwarting adaptation’s potential? A critique of resilience and climate-resilient development. Geoforum, 2019. 104: p. 267-282 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.05.010.
Bonds, A., Refusing resilience: the racialization of risk and resilience. Urban Geography, 2018. 39(8): p. 1285-1291 10.1080/02723638.2018.1462968.
Forsyth, T., Is resilience to climate change socially inclusive? Investigating theories of change processes in Myanmar. World Development, 2018. 111: p. 13-26 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.06.023.
**Lecture: **Heterodox moves towards meaningful engagements with political ecology on natural resource governance
**Obligatory reading: **
Pritchard, R., Sauls, L. A., Oldekop, J. A., Kiwango, W. A., & Brockington, D. (2022). Data justice and biodiversity conservation. Conservation Biology, 36, e13919. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13919
**Additional suggested readings: **
Hamilton, R.T.V., Ramcilovic-Suominen, S. From hegemony-reinforcing to hegemony-transcending transformations: horizons of possibility and strategies of escape. Sustain Sci18, 737–748 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01257-1
Juliano, T., Malagutti Fassina, J. Buck Silva, C.I., Vasconcelos Andrade, F. A., de Souza Leão Neto, (2023). Conviviality and sustainability: Case studies on the governance of natural resources in Brazil. Ambient. Soc. 26. https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-4422asoc2022022r1vu2023L4OA
**Week 4****7 – **Theorising Natural Resources Governance PART 3
Lecture: Theorising resource governance dilemmas: Property, territory and socio-environmental relations
**Obligatory readings: **
Sikor, T., & Lund, C. (2009). Access and property: a question of power and authority. Development and change, 40(1), 1-22.
Neumann, R.P. (2004). Nature-State-Territory: Towards a critical theorization of conservation enclosures. In: Peet, R. and Watts, M. (Eds.), Liberation ecologies: environment, development, social movements, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
**Additional suggested readings: **
Blomley, N. (2016). The territory of property. Progress in human geography, 40(5), 593-609.
Lecture: Indigenous environmental governance: conflicts over resource governance in Sápmi
**Obligatory reading: **
Arora-Jonsson, S. and A. Stiernström, Towards a green transition: A post- and decolonial analysis of the green state of Sweden, in Decolonial Sweden, M.F. MacEachrane, L, Editor. 2024, forthcoming, Routledge: New York.
**Additional suggested readings: **
Joks, S., L. Østmo, and J. Law, Verbing meahcci: Living Sámi lands. The Sociological Review, 2020. 68(2): p. 305-321 10.1177/0038026120905473.
Kuokkanen, R., At the intersection of Arctic indigenous governance and extractive industries: A survey of three cases. The Extractive Industries and Society, 2019. 6(1): p. 15-21 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2018.08.011.
Lecture: Theorising resource governance: Intersectionality, feminist and queer perspectives
**Obligatory reading: **
Read, A. Kramsky, Y. End of a Cis-Hetero Discipline? Strategies for a Queer Political Ecology. /2026) In the New Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology. Routledge.
**Additional suggested readings: **
Sultana, F. (2020). Political ecology 1: From margins to center. Progress in Human Geography, 45(1). doi:10.1177/0309132520936751
Zaragocin, S. (2019). Gendered Geographies of Elimination: Decolonial Feminist Geographies in Latin American Settler Contexts. Antipode, 51(1), 373-392. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12454
Daggett, C., Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire. Millennium, 2018. 47(1): p. 25-44 10.1177/0305829818775817.
Gonda, N. (2019). Re-politicizing the gender and climate change debate: The potential of feminist political ecology to engage with power in action in adaptation policies and projects in Nicaragua. Geoforum, 106, 87-96. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.07.020
**Week 4****8 – **Institutions and governance across scales
Lecture: State Governance and Beyond
**Obligatory readings: **
Parenti, C. (2015). The Environment Making State: Territory, Nature, and Value. Antipode, 47, pp. 829―848.
Bridge, G. (2014). Resource geographies II: The resource-state nexus. Progress in Human Geography, 38(1), 118-130.
**Additional suggested readings: **
Harris, L. M. (2012). State as socionatural effect: Variable and emergent geographies of the state in southeastern Turkey. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 32(1), 25-39.
Lecture: Community forestry in Nepal: Evolution, institutional mechanisms, achievements and emerging challenges
**Obligatory reading: **
Ojha, H., Persha, L. and Chhatre, A. 2009. *Community forestry in Nepal: a policy innovation for local livelihoods. Vol. 913. *International Food Policy Research Institute.
**Additional suggested reading: **
Poudyal, B. H, Khatri, D.B., Paudel, D., Marquardt, K., and Khatri, S. 2023. "Examining forest transition and collective action in Nepal’s community forestry." *Land Use Policy 134: 106872. *
Lecture: Climate Governance: scale and the micropolitics of climate accounting
**Obligatory reading: ** TBC
Lecture: Climate Governance: carbon capture
**Obligatory reading: **
Hickel J. (2020). Quantifying national responsibility for climate breakdown: an equality-based attribution approach for carbon dioxide emissions in excess of the planetary boundary The Lancet Planetary Health, 4, e399-e404
**Additional suggested reading: **
McMullin, B., Price, P., Jones, M.B. et al. Assessing negative carbon dioxide emissions from the perspective of a national “fair share” of the remaining global carbon budget. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change 25, 579–602 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-019-09881-6
**Week 4****9 – **Selected Debates PART 1
Lecture: Governing Land and Agrarian Change
**Obligatory reading: **
Peluso, N. and Lund, C. (2011). New frontiers of land control. The journal of Peasant Studies 38(4), 667–681.
Braun, B. (2002). The intemperate rainforest: nature, culture, and power on Canada's west coast. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press. Chapter 1.
**Additional suggested readings: **.
Andreasson, S. (2006). Stand and deliver: Private Property and the politics of global dispossession. Political Studies, 54(1), 3-22.
Lecture: Energy Justice
Obligatory reading:
Dunlap, A. and C. Tornel, An insurrection in energy research: a dialogue between Carlos Tornel and Alexander Dunlap on energy justice, capitalist warfare & decolonization. Globalizations, 2023 10.1080/14747731.2023.2204543.
**Additional suggested readings: **
Dunlap, A., Decolonizing energy justice: Identity politics, attachment to land, and warfare. Progress in Human Geography, 2023 10.1177/03091325221149553.
Gonda, N., Democratizing energy justice: Rethinking energy justice in authoritarian times. Progress in Environmental Geography, 2025 https://doi.org/10.1177/27539687251342264.
Gonda, N. and P.J. Bori, Energy justice without democracy? Energy transitions in the era of right-wing authoritarianism in Hungary. Energy Research & Social Science, 2025 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2025.104325.
Heffron, R.J. and D. McCauley, The concept of energy justice across the disciplines. Energy Policy, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.03.018.
Sovacool, B.K. and M.H. Dworkin, Energy justice: Conceptual insights and practical applications. Applied Energy, 2015 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.01.002.
Lecture: Decolonial Perspectives on Environmental Governance
**Obligatory readings: **
Dhillon, J. (2022). Indigenous resurgence: Decolonialization and movements for environmental justice. Berghahn Books.
Rosén, L. 2025. Indigenous knowledges in CES thinking: How invisible forest beings can inform more equitable science. In The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Ecosystem Services. Routledge.
**Week 50 – **Selected Debates PART 2
Lecture: Far-right authoritarianism and the environment
**Obligatory readings: **
McCarthy, J. (2019). Authoritarianism, populism, and the environment: Comparative experiences, insights, and perspectives. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 109(2), 301-313. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2018.1554393
Obligatory podcast (4 episodes).
Fields of Power (2025) by Cook, I,. Gonda, N. Bori, P.J. on most podcasting platforms but also here:
https://www.arc2020.eu/podcast-fields-of-power-episode-1-of-farms-fortune/
https://www.arc2020.eu/podcast-fields-of-power-episode-2-the-land-grab-chronicles/
https://www.arc2020.eu/podcast-fields-of-power-episode-3-fear-and-loathing-in-hungary/
https://www.arc2020.eu/podcast-fields-of-power-episode-4-land-democracy/
**Additional suggested reading: **
Forchtner, B., Climate change and the far right. WIREs Climate Change, 2019. 10(5): p. e604 https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.604.
Loftus, A. (2019). Political ecology III: Who are ‘the people’? Progress in Human Geography, 44(5), 981-990. doi:10.1177/0309132519884632
Lecture: Collective action & water governance: the male-out migration, water commons and collective action
**Obligatory reading: **
Leder, S., van der Geest, K., Upadhyaya, R., Adhikari, Y., Büttner, M. (2024): “Rural out-migration and water governance: Gender and social relations mediate and sustain irrigation systems in Nepal” World Development 177. 106544.
Lecture: More-than-human relations
**Obligatory reading: **
Blaser, M. (2026). Why Political Ontology is Not About the NonHuman, but what haunts it. In: The New Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology. Routledge.
**Additional suggested readings: **
Margulies, J. (2026). More-Than-Human Political Ecologies as a Matter of Care. In: The New Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology. Routledge.
Week 51 – Resistance and Transformative Governance
Lecture: Resistance, transformation and prefiguration
**Obligatory readings: **
Naegler, L., ‘Goldman-Sachs doesn’t care if you raise chicken’: the challenges of resistant prefiguration. Social Movement Studies, 2018. 17(5): p. 507-523 https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2018.1495074.
Andreucci, D., et al., Energy sovereignty from below: Visions and practices of socioecological transformation in Puerto Rico and Catalonia. Human Geography. 0(0): p. 19427786251317182 10.1177/19427786251317182.
**Additional suggested reading: **
Scoones, I., et al., Transformations to sustainability: combining structural, systemic and enabling approaches. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2019.12.004
Abu‐Lughod, L., The romance of resistance: Tracing transformations of power through Bedouin women. American Ethnologist, 1990. 17(1): p. 41-55,
Caretta, M.A. and S. Zaragocin, Women’s resistance against the extractive industry: embodied and water dimensions. Human Geography, 2020. 13(1): p. 3-5 10.1177/1942778620910893.
Hope, J., Conservation in the Pluriverse: Anti-capitalist struggle, knowledge from resistance and the ‘repoliticisation of nature’ in the TIPNIS, Bolivia. Geoforum, 2021. 124: p. 217-225 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.04.006.
Vargas Falla, A.M., E. Brink, and E. Boyd, Quiet resistance speaks: A global literature review of the politics of popular resistance to climate adaptation interventions. World Development, 2024. 177: p. 106530 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106530.
Vela-Almeida, D., et al., Imagining Plural Territories of Life A Feminist Reading of Resistance in the Socio-Territorial Movements in Ecuador. Journal of Latin American Geography, 2020. 19(2): p. 265-287, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48619132
Zaragocin, S., Challenging anglocentric feminist geography from Latin American feminist debates on territoriality, in Feminist geography unbound: Discomfort, bodies, and prefigured futures, M.H. Banu Gökariksel, Christopher Neubert, Sara Smith, Editor. 2021, West Virginia University press: Morgantown, WV. p. 235-252,
Gonda, N., & Bori, P. J. (2023). Rural politics in undemocratic times: Exploring the emancipatory potential of small rural initiatives in authoritarian Hungary. Geoforum, 143, 1-13. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103766
Lecture: Resistance to AI for the environment
Obligatory readings: TBC
academic year 2025/2026
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20112)
2026-01-11 - 2026-02-01
academic year 2024/2025
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20109)
2025-01-12 - 2025-02-02
academic year 2023/2024
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20160)
2024-01-12 - 2024-01-28
academic year 2022/2023
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20067)
2023-01-08 - 2023-01-29
academic year 2021/2022
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20132)
2022-01-09 - 2022-01-30
academic year 2020/2021
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20132)
2021-01-10 - 2021-01-31
academic year 2019/2020
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20043)
2020-01-12 - 2020-02-02
academic year 2018/2019
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20108)
2019-01-13 - 2019-02-03
Contact
- Course coordinator
-
Noémi Gonda
Linus Rosén - Examiner
- Noémi Gonda