Nature, Capital, and Environmental Cultu

This course explores recent debates about the role of nature, capital, and environmental cultures in Contemporary Spain, the recognition of the inseparability of ecological and cultural processes, and the necessity of alternative cultural paradigms that encourage appropriate and regenerative socioecological relationships. By conceiving nature and environment as central elements for conceptualizing the social changes associated with capitalist development and as historically produced – and therefore historically changing – notions, we will travel across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to examine how phenomena associated with environmental imaginaries on the flows of water, energy, labor, and waste were understood in their time and how they are understood today. Political ecology, extractivism, inequality, displacement, labor exploitation, water and power distribution and availability, biodiversity loss, loss of food security and sovereignty, waste management policies, and current public health discussions will be the center of our discussion. Throughout literature, historical narratives, films, popular cultures, and social practices, we will examine the historical continuities and discontinuities of the environmental cultures in Spain from the end of the 19th century to the present day.