USP 510/610

Theorizing Urban Natures Fall 2014 Mondays 2 – 4:40, URBN 311 Nathan McClintock, PhD | Assistant Professor Toulan School of Urban Studies & Planning | Portland State University

Geographer David Harvey famously stated that there is “nothing unnatural about New York City,” an assertion that challenged dominant conceptualizations of nature as distinct from the built environment (or society, more broadly). How have dualisms such as “natural vs. unnatural” and “city vs. country” shaped our understandings of cities and the ecological systems to which they belong? How might an integrated conceptualization of co-evolving social, technological, and biophysical processes – that takes seriously issues of race, class, and gender, power, politics, and capital – help us better understand, imagine, and shape/produce urban natures? This reading-intensive, discussion-driven graduate seminar introduces students of urban studies, planning, geography, environmental science, anthropology, and sociology to various ways of theorizing urban “nature”. We will first think through “nature” and different ways of “knowing” it. We will then very briefly address methodological and theoretical approaches grounded in ecology, before focusing on social science frameworks emphasizing social processes. After discussing urban environmental history, we turn to more theoretically informed approaches, from urban political ecology with its Marxian emphasis on structure, to post-structuralist approaches that rethink subject-object relations: actor-networks, assemblages, non-human agency, and the role of affect and emotion, among others. We will discuss the historical evolution of these various theories (with attention to the social, political, and economic contexts in which they arose) while critically examining their differences and underlying assumptions. We will also address the implications of each framework for research, practice, and politics.

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Course Texts We will mostly be reading journal articles or chapters, available as links/PDFs posted on D2L. In addition, we will read significant sections from the following books (available from the PSU bookstore, Powell’s, etc): • Castree, N. 2005. Nature. London: Routledge. • Heynen, N., M. Kaika, and E. Swyngedouw, eds. 2006. In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political

Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism. London: Routledge. After a whopping 185 pp. the first week, plan to read anywhere from 75 to 150 pp. of dense academic prose per week, or four to five articles or chapters. As always, you should read strategically; remember, not all text is created equal! Focus on the authors’ key claims, how they structure and advance their argument, how they conceive of urban nature, etc., as opposed to the getting hung up on the specific details of their empirical case study. Expectations & Assignments At the graduate level, my job as a professor isn’t to lecture, but rather, to structure the course, to ask questions, and to keep us on track, if necessary. Our goals each week are to critically engage with the readings, to situate them conceptually in relation to the other readings, and to think about their theoretical and methodological implications for your own research. In order for this to work, it’s essential that you come to class having read all assigned readings and prepared to discuss them thoughtfully and critically. It will be obvious if you come unprepared. Grades are based on the following: Participation (15%) This is a discussion-driven seminar. You are responsible for reading the assigned materials before class and coming ready to discuss. We’ll be building each week on the previous readings, so it’s vital to come to class and to keep up with the readings. Everyone must join in the discussion. If you’re shy, push yourself to talk. If you’re a talker, be conscientious not to dominate the discussion, i.e., remember to “share air.” To help move the discussion forward, you should come to class each week with one or two discussion questions. You will need to post these to the week’s Discussion Questions forum on D2L by 11pm on Sunday so others have a chance to read over them before we meet. NB: You don’t need to post questions to D2L if you are leading discussion (see below), so everyone should post 8 times over the course of the term. Barring emergencies, please let me know ahead of time if you are unable to come to class. Discussion Facilitation (15%) Everyone will be required to lead the discussion at least once along with a partner. You should be prepared to walk us through the key concepts/arguments/theories from the week’s readings. You should also be prepared to get our discussion started (and keep it going, if necessary!) with a few questions/topics/themes of import. Look over the discussion questions posted to D2L by your peers as you organize your questions and discussion topics. Please prepare an outline/diagram/visual aid to steward us through this process. This can be a one-page handout, or you can use the blackboard. Reading Responses (35%) You are responsible for writing a short reading response (~250 to 500 words) for any 7 of our class meetings. You don’t have to prepare a response the week that you lead discussion (so essentially you get one freebie). Your response should not simply summarize the key arguments from the reading; rather, it

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should synthesize the key insights you take from the ensemble of readings and raise new questions, or can respond to some of the questions raised by others (see above). Please turn in a hard copy of your responses to me at the end of class. **Please use 1” margins, 12pt Times New Roman font, and single-spacing!** NB: You must turn in a response for any week you are absent, barring extenuating circumstances. Paper (35%) In addition to your weekly reading responses, you are required to write a final paper of 3,000 to 4,000 words, or 6 to 8 single-spaced pages (12 pt. Times New Roman, 1” margins). This should be a well-structured essay that applies some of the theory we’ve covered in the course to your research area of interest. Please submit as a Word document so I can insert comments. You will have 5 minutes to present your paper to the class on our last day. Due to the D2L Dropbox by 10:15am on W 12/10. General classroom etiquette Please be on time so we can start right at 2pm. Turn off cell-phones. Use of laptops is welcome for note-taking, but please respect the rest of us by refraining from checking Facebook, email, or any other distraction. To fight temptation, turn off your Wi-Fi if you have to! Please also refrain from immediately looking up something on Wikipedia every time we have a question about something or a fact to be checked. Unless it’s really important (and we’ll let you know if it is), it can wait! Finally, given the various perspectives, experiences, and ways of knowing in the room, please be patient and respectful with one another if you disagree. This class may push you into unfamiliar intellectual territory… I want your brain to hurt, but that’s it! Academic Integrity You are graduate students so I don’t need to elaborate on this. I take this seriously, as I expect you to. Academic accommodations / Other campus resources If you are a student with a documented disability and are registered with the Disability Resource Center (DRC), please contact me immediately to facilitate arranging academic accommodations. Students who believe they are eligible for accommodations but who have not yet obtained approval through the DRC should contact the DRC immediately at 503-725-4150. • Office of Diversity & Multicultural Student Services, Smith 425, http://www.pdx.edu/dmss/ • Learning Center, Millar Library 245, http://www.pdx.edu/tutoring/ • Writing Center, Cramer 188, http://www.writingcenter.pdx.edu/

Office hours / contact info Wednesdays 3:30-5pm (or by appointment) in 350-E Urban Center. It’s best to contact me ahead of time to sign up for a slot. My email is n.mcclintock@pdx.edu.

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Course Outline 1. Introduction • Braun, B. 2005. Environmental issues: writing a more-than-human urban geography.

Progress in Human Geography 29 (5):635–650. 2. Knowing Nature • Williams, R. 1980. Ideas of Nature. Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays.

London: Verso, 67-85. • Gandy, M. 2006. Urban Nature and the Ecological Imaginary. In Heynen, N., M. Kaika,

and E. Swyngedouw**, eds, In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism. London: Routledge, 63–74. **hereafter [HKS]

• Castree, N. 2005. Nature. London: Routledge. [Ch. 1: 9–20, Box 1.5 and 1.6, 35–44; Chs. 3, 4, & 5: 108–242]

Further reading (not required, but of related interest): • Castree, Ch. 2 • Smith, N. 1984 [2008]. Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of

Space. Athens: University of Georgia Press. [Ch. 1: The Ideology of Nature] • Demeritt, D. 1996. Social Theory and the Reconstruction of Science and Geography.

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 21 (3):484–503. • Demeritt, D. 2002. What is the “social construction of nature”? A typology and

sympathetic critique. Progress in Human Geography 26 (6):767–790. • Williams, R. 1973. The Country and the City. New York: Oxford University Press.

3. Urban Ecology, Past and Present • Light, J. S. 2009. The Nature of Cities: Ecological Visions and the American Urban

Professions, 1920-1960. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. [Ch. 1: The City is an Ecological Community, 6–35]

• Grimm, N. B., J. G. Grove, S. T. A. Pickett, and C. L. Redman. 2000. Integrated Approaches to Long-Term Studies of Urban Ecological Systems. BioScience 50 (7):571–584.

• Pickett, S. T. A. et al. 2011. Urban ecological systems: Scientific foundations and a decade of progress. Journal of Environmental Management 92 (3):331–362. [read Sections 1, 9-11; skim 2-8]

• Boone, C. G., M. L. Cadenasso, J. M. Grove, K. Schwarz, et al. 2010. Landscape, vegetation characteristics, and group identity in an urban and suburban watershed: why the 60s matter. Urban Ecosystems 13 (3):255–271.

• Evans, J. P. 2011. Resilience, ecology and adaptation in the experimental city. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 36 (2):223–237.

Futher reading:

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• Burgess, E. W. 1925 [2008]. The Growth of the City: An Introduction to a Research Project.

In Urban Ecology, eds. J. M. Marzluff et al., Springer, 71–78. • McDonnell, M. J., and S. T. A. Pickett. 1990. Ecosystem Structure and Function along

Urban-Rural Gradients: An Unexploited Opportunity for Ecology. Ecology 71 (4):1232–1237.

• Mcintyre, N. E., K. Knowles-Yánez, and D. Hope. 2000. Urban ecology as an interdisciplinary field: differences in the use of “urban” between the social and natural sciences. Urban Ecosystems 4 (1):5–24.

• Alberti, M. et al. 2003. Integrating humans into ecology: Opportunities and challenges for studying urban ecosystems. BioScience 53 (12):1169–1179.

• Kinzig, A., P. Warren, C. Martin, D. Hope, et al. 2005. The Effects of Human Socioeconomic Status and Cultural Characteristics on Urban Patterns of Biodiversity. Ecology and Society 10 (1):23–36.

• Kaye, J. P., P. M. Groffman, N. B. Grimm, L. A. Baker, et al. 2006. A distinct urban biogeochemistry? Trends in Ecology & Evolution 21 (4):192–199.

• Warren, P. S. et al. 2010. Urban ecology and human social organisation. In Urban Ecology, ed. K.J. Gaston, London: Cambridge University Press, 172–201.

• Pickett, S. T. A. et al. 2013. Ecological science and transformation to the sustainable city. Cities 32, Supplement 1:S10–S20.

4. Urban Environmental History • Cronon, W. 1992. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W.W.

Norton & Company. [Ch. 1: Dreaming the Metropolis, 31-46; Ch. 4: Lumber, 148-206] ** • Page, B., and R. Walker. 1994. Nature’s Metropolis: The Ghost Dance of Christaller and

Von Thunen. Antipode 26 (2):152–162. • Tarr, J. A. 2002. The Metabolism of the Industrial City The Case of Pittsburgh. Journal of

Urban History 28 (5):511–545. ** • Melosi, M. V. 2010. Humans, Cities, and Nature: How Do Cities Fit in the Material World?

Journal of Urban History 36 (1):3–21. • Klingle, M. 2006. Changing Spaces Nature, Property, and Power in Seattle, 1880-1945.

Journal of Urban History 32 (2):197–230. ** [** focus on the author’s conception of urban nature and key claims, as opposed to the empirical details] Futher reading: • Melosi, M. V. 1993. The Place of the City in Environmental History. Environmental History

Review 17 (1):1–23. • Boone, C. G. 1996. Language Politics and Flood Control in Nineteenth-Century Montreal.

Environmental History 1 (3):70–85. • Falck, Z. J. S. 2002. Controlling the Weed Nuisance in Turn-of-the-Century American

Cities. Environmental History 7 (4):611–631. • Gandy, M. 2003. Concrete and Clay: Reworking Nature in New York City. Cambridge: MIT

Press.

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• Klingle, M. W. 2003. Spaces of Consumption in Environmental History. History and Theory 42 (4):94–110.

• Barles, S., and L. Lestel. 2007. The Nitrogen Question Urbanization, Industrialization, and River Quality in Paris, 1830—1939. Journal of Urban History 33 (5):794–812.

• Walker, R. 2007. The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

• McNeur, C. 2011. The “Swinish Multitude” Controversies over Hogs in Antebellum New York City. Journal of Urban History 37 (5):639–660.

5. Urban Political Ecology • Harvey, D. 1996. Justice, Nature & the Geography of Difference. Oxford: Blackwell

Publishers. [Ch. 2: Dialectics, 46-68] • Smith, N. 2008 (1984). Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of

Space. Athens: University of Georgia Press. [Intro, 1-9; Ch. 2: Production of Nature, 49-91] • Heynen, N., M. Kaika, and E. Swyngedouw. 2006. Urban political ecology: politicizing the

production of urban natures. [HKS, 1–20] • Heynen, N. 2014. Urban political ecology I: The urban century. Progress in Human

Geography 38 (4):598–604. Further reading: • Angelo, H., and D. Wachsmuth. 2014. Urbanizing Urban Political Ecology: A Critique of

Methodological Cityism. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research doi: 10.1111/1468-2427.12105, 1–14.

6. Metabolism and Flows • Swyngedouw, E. 2006. Metabolic Urbanization. [HKS, 21-40] • Wachsmuth, D. 2012. Three Ecologies: Urban Metabolism and the Society-Nature

Opposition. The Sociological Quarterly 53 (4):506–523. Choose three: • Loftus, A. 2006. The Metabolic Processes of Capital’s Accumulation in Durban’s

Waterscape. [HKS, 173 – 190] • Heynen, N. 2006. Justice of eating in the city: The political ecology of urban hunger. [HKS,

129–142] • Shillington, L. J. 2013. Right to food, right to the city: Household urban agriculture, and

socionatural metabolism in Managua, Nicaragua. Geoforum 44 (1):103–111. • Lawhon, M. 2013. Flows, Friction and the Sociomaterial Metabolization of Alcohol.

Antipode 45 (3):681–701. • Gustafson, S. et al. 2014 Megapolitan Political Ecology and Urban Metabolism in Southern

Appalachia. The Professional Geographer doi: 10.1080/00330124.2014.905158, 1–12. Further reading:

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• Gandy, M. 2004. Rethinking urban metabolism: water, space and the modern city. City 8 (3):363–379.

• McClintock, N. 2010. Why farm the city? Theorizing urban agriculture through a lens of metabolic rift. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 3 (2):191–207.

• Sbicca, J. 2013. The Need to Feed: Urban Metabolic Struggles of Actually Existing Radical Projects. Critical Sociology doi:10.1177/0896920513497375

7. Neoliberal Natures • Castree, N. 2010. Neoliberalism and the biophysical environment 1: What

“Neoliberalism” is, and what difference nature makes to it. Geography Compass 4 (12):1725–1733.

• Bakker, K. 2010. The limits of “neoliberal natures”: Debating green neoliberalism. Progress in Human Geography 34 (6):715–735.

Choose two: • Prudham, S. 2004. Poisoning the well: neoliberalism and the contamination of municipal

water in Walkerton, Ontario. Geoforum 35 (3):343–359. • Perkins, H. A. 2009. Out from the (Green) shadow? Neoliberal hegemony through the

market logic of shared urban environmental governance. Political Geography 28 (7):395–405.

• Jonas, A. E. G., D. Gibbs, and A. While. 2011. The New Urban Politics as a Politics of Carbon Control. Urban Studies 48 (12):2537–2554.

• Derickson, K. D. 2014. The Racial Politics of Neoliberal Regulation in Post-Katrina Mississippi. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 104 (4):889–902.

Further reading: • Brand, P. 2007. Green Subjection: The Politics of Neoliberal Urban Environmental

Management. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 31 (3):616–632. • Pudup, M. B. 2008. It takes a garden: Cultivating citizen-subjects in organized garden

projects. Geoforum 39 (3):1228–1240. • Rosol, M. 2011. Community Volunteering as Neoliberal Strategy? Green Space Production

in Berlin. Antipode 44 (1):239–257. • Perkins, H. A. 2013. Consent to Neoliberal Hegemony through Coercive Urban

Environmental Governance. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37 (1):311–327.

• Whitehead, M. 2013. Neoliberal Urban Environmentalism and the Adaptive City: Towards a Critical Urban Theory and Climate Change. Urban Studies 50 (7):1348–1367.

• McClintock, N. 2014. Radical, reformist, and garden-variety neoliberal: coming to terms with urban agriculture’s contradictions. Local Environment 19 (2):147–171.

8. Networks, Assemblages, Situated Knowledge

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• Murdoch, J. 1997. Inhuman/nonhuman/human: actor-network theory and the prospects for a nondualistic and symmetrical perspective on nature and society. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 15 (6):731–756.

• Madden, D. J. 2010. Urban ANTs: A Review Essay. Qualitative Sociology 33 (4):583–589. • Ernstson, H., and S. Sörlin. 2009. Weaving protective stories: connective practices to

articulate holistic values in the Stockholm National Urban Park. Environment and Planning A 41 (6):1460–1479.

Choose one:

• Holifield, R. 2009. Actor-­‐Network Theory as a Critical Approach to Environmental Justice:

A Case against Synthesis with Urban Political Ecology. Antipode 41 (4):637–658. • Lawhon, M., H. Ernstson, and J. Silver. 2014. Provincializing Urban Political Ecology:

Towards a Situated UPE Through African Urbanism. Antipode 46 (2):497–516. Further reading: • Haraway, D. 1988. Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the

Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies 14 (3):575–599. • Castree, N. 2002. False Antitheses? Marxism, Nature and Actor-Networks. Antipode 34

(1):111–146. • Kirsch, S., and D. Mitchell. 2004. The Nature of Things: Dead Labor, Nonhuman Actors,

and the Persistence of Marxism. Antipode 36 (4):687–705. • Perkins, H. 2007. Ecologies of actor-networks and (non)social labor within the urban

political economies of nature. Geoforum 38 (6):1152–1162. • Farias, I., and T. Bender. 2010. Urban Assemblages: How Actor-network Theory Changes

Urban Studies. Routledge. • Blok, A. 2013. Urban Green Assemblages: An ANT View on Sustainable City Building

Projects. Science & Technology Studies 26 (1):5–24. • McFarlane, C. 2011. Assemblage and critical urbanism. City 15 (2):204–224. • Brenner, N., D. J. Madden, and D. Wachsmuth. 2011. Assemblage urbanism and the

challenges of critical urban theory. City 15 (2):225–240. • Temenos, C., and E. McCann. 2012. The local politics of policy mobility: learning,

persuasion, and the production of a municipal sustainability fix. Environment and Planning A 44 (6):1389 – 1406.

9. Non-Human Subjects • Robbins, P. & and J. Sharp. 2006. Turfgrass Subjects. [HKS, 110-128] • Hinchliffe, S., and S. Whatmore. 2006. Living cities: Towards a politics of conviviality.

Science as Culture 15 (2):123–138. Choose two: • Hovorka, A. 2008. Transspecies urban theory: chickens in an African city. Cultural

Geographies 15 (1):95–117.

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• Collard, R.-C. 2012. Cougar-human entanglements and the biopolitical un/making of safe space. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 30 (1):23-42.

• Doody, B. J., H. C. Perkins, J. J. Sullivan, C. D. Meurk, et al. 2014. Performing weeds: Gardening, plant agencies and urban plant conservation. Geoforum 56:124–136.

Further reading: • Hinchliffe, S., M. B. Kearnes, M. Degen, and S. Whatmore. 2005. Urban wild things: a

cosmopolitical experiment. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 23 (5):643 –658.

• Lorimer, J. 2007. Nonhuman charisma. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 25 (5):911 – 932.

• Grove, K. 2009. Rethinking the nature of urban environmental politics: Security, subjectivity, and the non-human. Geoforum 40 (2):207–216.

• Biehler, D. D. 2009. Permeable homes: A historical political ecology of insects and pesticides in US public housing. Geoforum 40 (6):1014–1023.

10. Emotion and Affect • Pile, S. 2010. Emotions and affect in recent human geography. Transactions of the Institute

of British Geographers 35 (1):5–20. • Brownlow, A. 2006. An archaeology of fear and environmental change in Philadelphia.

Geoforum 37 (2):227–245. • Harris, E. M., D. G. Martin, C. Polsky, L. Denhardt, and A. Nehring. 2012. Beyond “Lawn

People”: The Role of Emotions in Suburban Yard Management Practices. The Professional Geographer 65 (2):345–361.

• Jones, O. 2014. (Urban) Places of Trees: Affective Embodiment, Politics, Identity, and Materiality. In Urban Forests, Trees, and Greenspace: A Political Ecology Perspective, eds. L. A. Sandberg, A. Bardekjian, and S. Butt. London: Routledge, 111–131.

Further reading: • Anderson, K., and S. J. Smith. 2001. Editorial: Emotional geographies. Transactions of the

Institute of British Geographers 26 (1):7–10. • Oliver, S. 2006. The Desire to Metabolize Nature. [HKS, 93-109] • Thrift, N. 2004. Intensities of Feeling: Towards a Spatial Politics of Affect. Geografiska

Annaler. Series B, Human Geography 86 (1):57–78. • Anderson, B., and P. Harrison. 2010. The promise of non-representational theories. In

Taking-place  : non-representational theories and geography., eds. B. Anderson and P. Harrison. London: Ashgate, 1–36.

• Poe, M. R., J. LeCompte, R. McLain, and P. Hurley. 2014. Urban foraging and the relational ecologies of belonging. Social & Cultural Geography doi: 10.1080/14649365.2014.908232

11. Paper Presentations We will meet during our final exam slot (W 12/10, 10:15am–12:15pm), during which time each student will give a 5-minute presentation on her/his paper.

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Course Schedule at a Glance Week Date Topic 1 9/29 Introduction 2 10/6 Knowing Nature 3 10/13 Urban Ecology, Past and Present 4 10/20 Urban Environmental History 5 10/27 Urban Political Ecology 6 11/3 Metabolism and Flows 7 11/10 Neoliberal Natures 8 11/17 Networks, Assemblages, Situated Knowledge 9 11/24 Non-Human Subjects 10 12/1 Emotion and Affect 11 12/10 EXAM WEEK:

Meet W 12/10 from 10:15 to 12:15. PAPERS DUE to D2L before class.