Environmental Studies

This course provides a sociological perspective on economic, social, and political processes, focusing especially on global social change and sustainable development. Students acquire the knowledge required to understand and critically examine the discussions pursued about the global social change that marks modernity, focusing especially on the post-war period. The course includes four modules, this is the third module: Global Sustainability and Environmental Sociology. The module focuses on sustainability and environmental sociology. Based on the classical and contemporary theories addressed in the first module, the third module provides a specialization in contemporary sociological perspectives on sustainability and environmental issues. Different aspects of sustainability and environmental challenges are reviewed based on different perspectives of the theory of science and the social sciences, aiming to provide a detailed understanding of how environmental problems can be framed and understood from different social and political perspectives. Furthermore, the module considers different types of political and social action to achieve change, such as different political solutions and changes in consumption, and everyday life/lifestyle.

This course is specialized for international students. It offers a contemporary history of political ecology in France, from the mid-19th century to present day. The course covers how the environmental issue has gradually become more and more political and cultural over the years, and how historiography has tended to favor the hypothesis of a delay in the emergence of this issue in France, in contrast to the situation in the United States. After recalling the main historical milestones (the creation of national parks in the United States, the National Trust in Great Britain), it looks at the first forms of identifying and safeguarding areas identified as "natural," using the example of tourism and the protection of remarkable sites. The course discusses how this process developed and amplified in the twentieth century, as industrialization and urbanization increased, with experiments such as allotments and debates on the return to the land; and finally, in the last third of the twentieth century, intellectual and popular movements took up environmental issues (Friends of the Earth, Larzac movement) and helped place them on the public agenda. The course reflects on the convergences and tensions as seen from the cities or from the countryside, by linking two historiographical traditions: urban and environmental history, and rural and agricultural history.

This course focuses on the social and cultural relations produced by resource management projects, and explores the global and local frames through a series of world-wide case studies of mining, oil, gas, and forestry projects. Resource projects have long been important sites of cultural contact, environmental impact and anthropological interest: whether first contact with prospectors, disputes with multinational companies, sustainable development initiatives or civil-society monitoring, resource exploration and extraction has long played an important part in the interface with non-western and indigenous peoples and the forces of globalization. The course also examines the potential for anthropological skills and knowledge to contribute to an industry that has increasingly to account for its social and environmental impacts to a global constituency.

This course covers how to design and implement tropical forest restoration programs that are adapted to local biophysical and social situations. It focuses on the initial restoration phase and discusses how to make wise choices of methods, species, and propagation techniques in relation to given restoration objectives and with participation of rural people in the implementation. Topics include biological aspects of tropical forest landscape restoration; seed supply, genetic aspects, and climate change; tree seed procurement and propagation; and implementation, monitoring, and management of tropical forest landscape restoration.

This course gives students an understanding of practical aspects of data analysis, handling, and visualization for datasets related to geo and environmental sciences.

This course introduces advanced economic concepts relevant for analyzing problems and policies relating to the environment, natural resources, and climate change using theories and analytical tools from microeconomics and macroeconomics. Additionally, the course introduces optimal control theory, which is applied to various problems within environmental and resource economics.

Students are introduced to environmental sociology with a focus on the interactions between human societies and the natural environment. By focusing on this two-way interaction, the course examines key theoretical perspectives, debates, and issues within environmental sociology. The course considers interdisciplinary perspectives examining a range of topics such as environmental inequality, sustainability, public attitudes towards climate change, renewable energy, consumption, pollution, environmental social movements, climate-induced migration, green crime and transformation to "green societies."  These issues are examined at multiple levels, including rural and urban, local, and global, and from different perspectives of key stakeholders. 

This course consists of two parts. One class segment will be devoted to international/global environmental politics, with the core concern of achieving collective action that will lead to the betterment of the environment. After learning about a fundamental conceptual framework to approach environmental politics, the course looks at various global issues, such as an ever-widening gap between rich and poor nations; world population growth; food issues, and energy. The course then focuses on the politics of various international/global environmental problems. The course will present class discussions on real international/global environmental probleams to deepen one’s understanding of the nature of the problems.  

The second segment of the course is distance learning or e-learning. The theme for this year is, “Climate Science and Solutions”(but this is subject to change). The program will be coordinated by the Asia Pacific Initiative (API) of Hawaii University and Osaka University, and involves other universities: Ryukyu University, Tsukuba University, and National University of Samoa. 

This course covers the main trends in environmental management in industry. Students explore the central concepts in environmental management, such as pollution prevention, environmental management systems, life-cycle management, environmental management strategies, industrial ecology, and circular economy. They learn selected theories and models concerning environmental management, in particular the four-stage model of environmental strategy, models of Corporate Social Responsibility, the organization theory of Mintzberg, and ecological modernization theory. In addition to explaining these concepts and theories, the course provides practice-oriented training based on case studies. Although the course primarily deals with industrial organizations, most of its contents also apply to other types of organizations.

This course provides a sociological perspective on economic, social, and political processes, focusing especially on global social change and sustainable development. Students acquire the knowledge required to understand and critically examine the discussions pursued about the global social change that marks modernity, focusing especially on the post-war period. The course includes four modules, this is the fourth module: Social Sciences Methods. The module focuses on social sciences methods and aims to provide basic knowledge of statistical analysis and awareness of different methods of qualitative analysis. Furthermore, emphasis is placed on the operationalization of issues and the testing of different theories based on the course content.