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Class Readings and Plans for Tuesday, October 13
Systems: The Top-Down Approach
Class Plan
Read the three articles listed below, keeping in mind the instructors' questions below. Post your answers to any two of the questions below by 9:00 p.m. on Monday, October 12. Come to class prepared to discuss the three readings in light of what you know about the "Two Cultures," the "Culture Wars," and the relationship of both evolutionary theory and postmodern ideas to anthropology.
Instructors' questions:
- Is a systems approach diametrically opposed to a mirco-approach as exemplified in your readings for the previous class session? Why or why not?
- How do the various myths of nature set out by Holling et al. affect the way we think about nature and the way we manage resources? Does this indicate the importance of the models we use to understand the world?
- Are the non-equilibrium landscapes described by Zimmerer a reflection of the turn toward chaos described by Worster?
Readings
- Meadows, Donella, Chapter 1: The Basics pp. 11-34 in Thinking in Systems, Chelsea Green, 2008.
- Holling, C.S., Lance H. Gunderson, and Donald Ludwig, In Quest of a Theoryof Adaptive Change, chapter 1, pages 3-24, in Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, Island Press, 2002.
- Zimmerer, Karl S. (2000). The Reworking of Conservation Geographies: Nonequilibrium Landscapes and Nature-Society Hybrids. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90(2):356-69.
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