Objectives and Contextualisation

The subject "Nature, Culture and Development" is a first approach to the relationship between the two
nature-culture in order to place it in the tradition of Western thought and not as a human universal.
From the approach of Anthropology as a theoretical and practical science, students are offered a
approach and a disciplinary look at conceptions and representations about the link between nature and culture
from two perspectives: historical and ethnographic. It is for this reason that the subject is structured in
around a theoretical but also ethnographic part where the presentation of empirical cases will provide the
students examples of research, ethnographic analysis and anthropological application in contexts where nature and the
development are key.
Students are expected to be able to develop a critical and constructive approach to the
intervention practices on nature and also on the development models driven by them
policies of the Western world and, at the same time, that they are familiar with the ethnographic cases that will serve us
as an example of how the human being is related to his environment.
The training objectives are the following:
Ask questions about the culture-society-nature relationship / relationship between humans - non-humans through the
time and in different cultures.
Express comparative points of view between Western Society and other types of societies.
Analyze texts, documents, exhibitions and audiovisuals.
Have conceptual, theoretical and analytical tools to evaluate development projects, of
cooperation and also alternatives to development.