This course asks a series of questions about how we understand human and more-than-human interactions in the field. What are the scales and social science methods of knowing people, plants, animals, rocks, waterways, forests, deserts, flat-lands, and mountains that we encounter when we use social science methods? Depending on the specific year, students will learn about and practice multiple methods, such as ethnography, digital storytelling, oral history, surveys, note taking, field observations, mapping and spatial analysis, and/or interviews. The class will explore the legacies of place-making in the West. Through readings and encounters with community partners, students will both critique and evaluate historical and ongoing processes that have dispossessed, marginalized and excluded cultural, racialized and ethnic groups in the West. Required of and open only to students accepted to Semester in the West.
Acceptance to the Semester in the West program.