SOC-30049 - Module Specification
School of Social, Political and Global Studies
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2022/23

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2022/23

Environmental decline is one of the most urgent of global societal challenges requiring urgent action. Keele University has been at the forefront of addressing, what it now acknowledges as a climate crisis, through education and research. Consuming Nature offers students an opportunity to explore what sociological ways of thinking, through its foregrounding of social and more-than-human relations, can contribute towards debate on environmental decline and how environmental problems can be addressed.

Through a focus on the consumption of nature, and working through themes of pollution and resource use, everyday practices, and the consumption of nature, this module aims to explore sociological approaches to understanding environmental decline. And by asking the question how sociological insights can be used to develop solutions, it further aims to engage students in work that moves from understanding to intervention.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Demonstrate the ability to apply a critical and questioning approach to the sociologies of consumption, nature, human-animal relations and environmental decline: 1
Demonstrate an understanding that environmental decline is both an outcome of, and is embedded in, complex social, cultural, economic, technological and political relations that have very real, yet complex intersecting consequences: 1
Describe, using relevant empirical examples and evidence alongside sociological analysis, the intricacies of environmental decline, the consumption of nature, and human-animal relations: 1
Analyse and clearly formulate different sociological perspectives of social, cultural, technological and economic change, in relation to the consumption of nature, and to use these in analyses of environmental decline and in proposals for intervention and solutions: 1
Sociologically analyse selected examples of the problems of consuming nature, human-animal relations, and environmental decline, and to develop applied sociological proposals for solving these problems: 1

Study hours

22 contact hours (two hours per week)
55 hours independent study and workshop preparation time
73 hours assessment preparation

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment