Veidlapa Nr. M-3 (8)
Study Course Description
Multispecies and Environmental Anthropology
Course Code
SZF_257
Branch of Science
Social Anthropology; Sociology and social work
ECTS
3.00
Target Audience
Public Health; Social Anthropology; Sociology
LQF
Level 7
Study Type And Form
Full-Time
Study Course Implementer
Course Supervisor
Agnese Bankovska
Structure Unit Manager
Ieva Puzo
Structural Unit
Faculty of Social Sciences
Contacts
SZF, Kuldigas Street 9C, szf@rsu.lv
About Study Course
Objective
The course introduces key debates and perspectives in multispecies, more-than-human, and environmental anthropology from their emergence in the second half of the 20th century to the present. It explores human and more-than-human relationships, ecological entanglements, and planetary challenges through theoretical, ethnographic, and visual approaches.
Preliminary Knowledge
Basic knowledge of social or cultural anthropology, social sciences, or humanities is recommended. The course is also suitable for students without prior specialisation in environmental social sciences or multispecies studies.
Learning Outcomes
Knowledge
1.After completing the course, students understand basic concepts of multi-species and environmental anthropology, theoretical traditions and key debates in anthropology and related disciplines.
Individual work and tests
Involvement in the course • Mini ethnography
2.Students understand the importance of a more-than-human perspective in current anthropological debates and its links to approaches to posthumanism, political ecology and environmental humanities.
Individual work and tests
Mini ethnography • Involvement in the course • Reflection paper
3.Are able to navigate key approaches to human, animal, plant, mushroom, micro-organism and environmental relations research.
Individual work and tests
Reflection paper • Mini ethnography • Involvement in the course
4.Students gain an understanding of the interconnectedness between humans and other living beings in ecological, social and cultural contexts.
Individual work and tests
Reflection paper • Mini ethnography
Skills
1.Students are able to analyze ethnographic studies of human and more-than-human interactions.
Individual work and tests
Reflection paper • Involvement in the course • Mini ethnography
2.Students are able to link theoretical approaches to empirical examples from a variety of environmental and multispecies studies.
Individual work and tests
Mini ethnography • Involvement in the course
3.Students develop the ability to discuss and debate the relationships between humans and other beings in different social and ecological contexts.
Individual work and tests
Mini ethnography • Reflection paper
Competences
1.Ability to reflect on ethics, responsibility, and knowledge production in environmental and multispecies research.
Individual work and tests
Reflection paper • Involvement in the course • Mini ethnography
2.Students are able to articulate a reasoned and contextualized view orally and in wiritng on the cohabitation and interdependence of people and other beings in today’s changing world.
Individual work and tests
Mini ethnography • Reflection paper
Assessment
Individual work
|
Title
|
% from total grade
|
Grade
|
|---|---|---|
|
1.
Involvement in the course |
20.00% from total grade
|
10 points
|
|
Active participation in lectures and seminars, analysing and discussing course literature, topics and current debates. |
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|
2.
Reflection paper |
30.00% from total grade
|
10 points
|
|
A brief written reflection paper on one of the course literature sources. |
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Examination
|
Title
|
% from total grade
|
Grade
|
|---|---|---|
|
1.
Mini ethnography |
50.00% from total grade
|
10 points
|
|
Students develop a mini-ethnography based on the course themes, theories and ethnographic studies. |
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Study Course Theme Plan
FULL-TIME
1. part
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Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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Off site
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E-Studies platform
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2
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Topics
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Introduction to Multispecies and Environmental Anthropology
Description
The introductory lecture outlines the emergence of environmental and multispecies anthropology, tracing shifts from symbolic ecology to contemporary ontological, decolonial, and pluralist approaches. Nature is challenged and analysed as a socially, politically, and historically produced domain. |
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Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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Off site
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E-Studies platform
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2
|
Topics
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Multispecies ethnography, posthumanism, more-than-human research
Description
This lecture offers a broad perspective on multispecies ethnography and posthumanist approaches, focusing on questions of agency, personhood, boundaries, and responsibility across species in the Anthropocene. |
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Class/Seminar
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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Off site
|
E-Studies platform
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2
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Topics
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Ethnography and Relational Worlds
Description
We look at ethnography as a relational practice involving care, collaboration, awkwardness, and ambivalence between humans and more-than-human beings, with attention to kinship, grief, love, and cohabitation. |
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Class/Seminar
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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Off site
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E-Studies platform
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2
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Topics
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Plants and People: Politics of life and Ecological Mutuality
Description
This class explores plant agency, sensitivity, and political significance, examining human–plant relations through care, knowledge, and power, and situating plants as active participants in ecological and political processes. |
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Class/Seminar
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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Off site
|
E-Studies platform
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2
|
Topics
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Animals, kin and relations
Description
We examine human–animal relations through kinship, belonging, and ethics, addressing both empathy and coexistence as well as conflict and hierarchy. |
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Class/Seminar
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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Off site
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E-Studies platform
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2
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Topics
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Fungi and other ‘invisible’ species
Description
This lecture focuses on fungi, microbes, and other often-overlooked species, examining invisibility, hierarchy, and forms of coexistence in more-than-human worlds. |
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Class/Seminar
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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Off site
|
E-Studies platform
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2
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Topics
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Soil, Materialities and Metabolism
Description
We examine soil as a living, multispecies, and political environment, focusing on labour, decomposition, metabolism, and environmental afterlives. |
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Class/Seminar
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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Off site
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E-Studies platform
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2
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Topics
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Environmental Change, climate (in-)equality and justice
Description
We address the climate crisis, environmental inequality, and multispecies justice, examining who bears environmental risks and how justice is conceptualised across species. |
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Class/Seminar
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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Off site
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E-Studies platform
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2
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Topics
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Communities, Livelihoods, and (Non)Collaboration
Description
We explore communities as multispecies collectives where livelihoods emerge through care, shared world-making, and both collaboration and conflict. |
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Class/Seminar
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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Off site
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E-Studies platform
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2
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Topics
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Environmental and Multispecies Futures
Description
Class synthesises course themes through futures thinking, multispecies futurism, and the role of infrastructures in ecological emergencies. |
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Class/Seminar
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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Off site
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E-Studies platform
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2
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Topics
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Reflections and debates on the course
Description
The class focuses on a shared reflection on the course, the approaches learnt, and opportunities for multi-species thinking in research and beyond academia. |
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Class/Seminar
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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Off site
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E-Studies platform
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2
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Topics
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Presentations and discussions of the ideas for the final paper/presentation.
Description
Final Paper: presentations of mini-ethnography ideas. |
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Test
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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Off site
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-
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2
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Topics
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Final exam
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Total ECTS (Creditpoints):
3.00
Contact hours:
24 Academic Hours
Final Examination:
Exam
Bibliography
Required Reading
1.
Descola, Philippe. 1996. ‘Constructing Natures: Symbolic Ecology and Social Practice’. In Nature and Society. Routledge.Suitable for English stream
2.
Kirksey, S. Eben, and Stefan Helmreich. 2010. ‘The Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography’. Cultural Anthropology 25 (4): 545–76.
3.
García, María Elena. 2019. ‘Death of a Guinea Pig: Grief and the Limits of Multispecies Ethnography in Peru’. Environmental Humanities 11 (2): 351–72.
4.
Myers, Natasha. 2015. ‘Conversations on Plant Sensing: Notes from the Field’. Nature Culture 3: 35–66.
5.
Parsley, Kathryn M. 2020. ‘Plant Awareness Disparity: A Case for Renaming Plant Blindness’. PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET 2 (6): 598–601.Suitable for English stream
6.
Govindrajan, Radhika, Qingfei Zhang, and Morgan Keith Stewart. 2022. ‘Translating across Difference: Affect, Animal Studies, and Anthropology’. Disclosure: A Journal of Social Theory 30 (1): 9.Suitable for English stream
7.
Haraway, Donna Jeanne. 2003. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. Vol. 1. Prickly Paradigm Press Chicago.
8.
Krzywoszynska, Anna. 2020. ‘Nonhuman Labor and the Making of Resources: Making Soils a Resource through Microbial Labor’. Environmental Humanities 12 (1): 227–49.
9.
Bradshaw, Aaron. 2022. ‘Can Microbes Be Active Participants in Research? Developing a Methodology for Collaborating with Plastic-Eating Microbes’. Environmental Humanities 14 (2): 2.
10.
Chao, Sophie, and Danielle Celermajer. 2023. ‘Introduction: Multispecies Justice’. In Cultural Politics, vol. 19. no. 1. Duke University Press
11.
Srivastava, Shilpi, Shibaji Bose, Devanathan Parthasarathy, and Lyla Mehta. 2025. Climate Justice for Whom? Understanding the Vernaculars of Climate Action and Justice in Marginal Environments of India.Suitable for English stream
12.
Dunkley, Ria. 2023. ‘Ecological Kin-Making in the Multispecies Muddle: An Analytical Framework for Understanding Embodied Environmental Citizen Science Experiences’. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 48 (4): 781–96.
13.
Pitt, Hannah. 2018. ‘Questioning Care Cultivated through Connecting with More-than-Human Communities’. Social & Cultural Geography 19 (2): 253–74.
14.
Sakakibara, Chie. 2025. ‘Multispecies Relations, Multispecies Justice, and Multispecies Futurism’. Postcolonial Studies 0 (0): 1–6.
Additional Reading
1.
Benegiamo, Maura. 2025. ‘Introduction: Colonial Fractures, Land-Grabbing and the Ecological Crisis of Capitalism’. In Land, Capital and Extractive Frontiers. Bristol University Press.
2.
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. 2013. Braiding Sweetgrass. First edition. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Milkweed Editions.Suitable for English stream
3.
Haraway, D. (2008). When Species Meet. University of Minnesota Press.
4.
Tsing, A. (2015). The Mushroom at the End of the World. Princeton University Press.
5.
Argüelles, Lucía, and Hug March. 2022. ‘Weeds in Action: Vegetal Political Ecology of Unwanted Plants’. Progress in Human Geography 46 (1): 44–66.
6.
Lainé, Nicolas. 2022. Living and Working with Giants: A Multispecies Ethnography of the Khamtis and Elephants in Northeast India. Publications scientifiques du Muséum.Suitable for English stream
7.
Despret, V. (2016). What Would Animals Say if We Asked the Right Questions?
8.
Kohn, E. (2013). How Forests Think. University of California Press.Suitable for English stream
9.
Sheldrake, Merlin. 2020. Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures. Random House.
10.
Kütting, Gabriela. 2025. ‘Moving toward Multi-Species Justice: Considering Sentience, Rights of Nature, and Legal Personhood as Avenues to More Recognition and Representation’. Nature and Culture 20 (2): 99–117.
11.
Petitt, Andrea, Anke Tonnaer, Véronique Servais, Catrien Notermans, and Natasha Fijn. 2025. Multispecies Ethnography and Artful Methods.
12.
Hohti, Riikka, and Tuure Tammi. 2024. ‘Composting Storytelling: An Approach for Critical (Multispecies) Ethnography’. Qualitative Inquiry 30 (7): 595–606.
13.
Jacobs, Antje, Ellen Anthoni, Evo Busseniers, et al. 2025. ‘Co-Designing Multispecies Speculations Through Biofuturing’. Qualitative Inquiry 31 (2): 122–35.
14.
Fúnez-Flores, Jairo I. 2022. ‘Decolonial and Ontological Challenges in Social and Anthropological Theory’. Theory, Culture & Society 39 (6): 21–41.
15.
Cudworth, Erika. 2025. ‘From Godkin to Oddkin: Love, Friendship and Kin Making beyond the Human Family’. The Sociological Review 73 (6): 1460–78.
16.
Santaoja, Minna, Jyrki Torniainen, and Atte Komonen. 2023. ‘Developing Response-Ability in Human-Wasp Encounters’. TRACE ∴ Journal for Human-Animal Studies 9 (May): 120–46.
17.
Chang, Chang-Yu, Djordje Bajić, Jean C. C. Vila, Sylvie Estrela, and Alvaro Sanchez. 2023. ‘Emergent Coexistence in Multispecies Microbial Communities’. Science 381 (6655): 343–48.
18.
Price, Catherine, and Sophie Chao. 2023. ‘Multispecies, More-than-Human, Nonhuman, Other-than-Human: Reimagining Idioms of Animacy in an Age of Planetary Unmaking’. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal 10 (2): 177–93.
Other Information Sources
1.
Tsing et al. 2021 FERAL ATLAS. The More-Than-Human AnthropoceneSuitable for English stream
2.
Tresch, John. 2025. ‘Environmental Anthropology, Pasts and Futures’. History of Anthropology Review, August 5.Suitable for English stream
3.
Sands, D. and Whistler, D. 2021. Finding the Plantness Within Ourselves