Environment and Development

By Prof. Ngamjahao Kipgen | IIT Guwahati

Learners enrolled: 2824

The course will consist of theoretical application and environmental knowledge pertaining to sustainable development. The course analyses the reciprocal interaction between the physical environment, the social organization and human behaviour in the context of development. The course will introduce students with an overview of environmental ethics, debates and change and to facilitate their understanding and analysis of the inter-relationship between environment and development issues and apply them to their own experience and work. To enhance the students’ knowledge of the nature of and underlying causes of the most pressing environmental concerns and to understand how these impact on the lives and livelihoods of the local community. To look at the possibilities for environmental regeneration providing an analysis of case studies of local sustainable development initiatives and community based natural resource management. After the successful completion of the course the students will be able to comprehend the complexity and various forms and dimensions of development and environment issues and ground them in current issues and real life experiences.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: UG and PG students of Humanities and Social Sciences, Sciences and Engineering.

Summary

Course Status :	Completed
Course Type :	Elective
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	12 weeks
Category :	Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit Points :	3
Level :	Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date :	26 Jul 2021
End Date :	15 Oct 2021
Enrollment Ends :	09 Aug 2021
Exam Date :	23 Oct 2021 IST

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week-1: Introduction: Development, economic growth and sustainable development, Basic ecosystem ecology

Week-2: Environmentalism, Environmental Movement, Environmentalism in the global south

Week-3: Approaches to environment: Ecofeminism, Feminist political ecology, Marxism and ecology

Week-4: Debates on environmental ethics: Deep ecology, Gandhi and ecology, Social ecology

Week-5: Religion, environment and conservation: Religion, environment and historical roots of ecological crisis, Biodiversity conservation ethics in Buddhism and Hinduism, Christian religion in the age of ecological crisis

Week-6: Natural resource management, Common property vs. private property,Livelihoods, forests, and conservation

Week-7: Displacement, dispossession and development: Conservation-induced displacement, Environment impact assessment and national rehabilitation & resettlement policy, Dispossession and land acquisition

Week-8: Mainstream development trajectory: Strengthening or weakening of indigenous peoples: Mining, development, and indigenous people, Competing visions of development along the Narmada, Dams, development, and resistance: case studies

Week-9: Gender and development: Development theory and gendered approach to development, Gender, environment & sustainable development

Week-10: Environment and climate change: Climate change interventions and policy framework, Eastern Himalayas and climate change

Week-11: Belief and knowledge systems, biodiversity conservation and sustainability: Ecological knowledge, biodiversity conservation and sustainability,Traditional religion and conservation of nature in Northeast India: Case study

Week-12: Local knowledge in the environment-development discourse: Indigenous knowledge, environment and development, Relevance of indigenous knowledge: case study

Books and references

1. Arnold, David and Guha, Ramchandra, (eds.), 1997. Nature, Culture and Imperialism, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

2. Baviskar, Amita. 1997. In the Belly of the River: Tribal Conflicts over Development in the Narmada Valley, OUP, Delhi.

3. Barnhill, David Landis & Roger S. Gottlieb. (eds.) 2001. Deep Ecology and World Religions: New Essays on Sacred Grounds. State Univ. of New York Press, Albany.

4. Bicker, Alan, Paul Sillitoe and Johan Pottier. 2004. Development and Local Knowledge: New Approaches to Issues in Natural Resources Management, Conservation and Agriculture. Routledge, London & New York.

5. Esteva, G. 1997. ‘Development’ in W. Sachs, ed., The Development Dictionary, Orient Longman, pp. 8-34.

6. Gadgil, Madhav and Guha, Ramchandra. 1995. Ecology and Equity: The use and Abuse of Nature in Contemporary India, New Delhi: Oxford University.

7. Gottlieb, Roger S. 2004. This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment. Routledge, New York and London.

8. Merchant, Carolyn. 1994. Ecology: Key Concepts in Critical Theory, Humanities Press, New Jersey.

9. Ramakrishnan, P.S. 1992. Shifting Agriculture and Sustainable Development: An Interdisciplinary Study from North-Eastern India, Man and the Biosphere Series, Volume 10, UNESCO.

10. Shiva, Vandana. 1988. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India, Zed Press, New Delhi.

Instructor bio

Prof. Ngamjahao Kipgen

IIT Guwahati

Ngamjahao Kigpen is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. His areas of research include environmental sociology, political sociology, cultural politics, ethnicity and nationalism in northeast India. He has been contributing research papers to reputed international peer-reviewed journals. He teaches The Study of Society, Environment and Development, Concepts and Ideologies in Social Life, Sociology of Religion, Sociological Perspectives on Modernity, and Research Methods in Sociology at IIT Guwahati.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.
The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).
Date and Time of Exams: 23 October 2021 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.
Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.
The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.
Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 8 assignments out of the total 12 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Guwahati .It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team

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