Identities and Ecologies of Latin America and the Caribbean: Past, Present and Future

Situation / Context

Identities and Ecologies of Latin America and the Caribbean: Past, Present and Future is a Trinity Elective that will introduce students to Latin America and the Caribbean as a 'New World', not as a European discovery, but as a source of ideas and practices that can help us to face the planetary crisis. The centuries-long environmental struggle of subaltern communities in the region has led to the official recognition of the legal rights of some ecosystems and to the development of theoretical, creative, and practical responses to environmental degradation. These struggles and concerns are widely portrayed in the cultural and artistic products of the region – written texts, sound, visual and audio-visual materials. This Elective provides the tools to interpret such cultural production and to apply the lessons learned in other contexts. It invites you to engage with environmental humanities perspectives and methodologies relevant not only to Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS) participants, but also to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines.

The module was first run in Hilary Term, 2024 and 41 students took it.

What was your goal regarding embedding sustainability into the module (or programme)?

Our main objective was to tackle SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) by creating a conversation about socio-ecological justice at the global level. The Caribbean – and Latin America at large – was the crucible of modern (European) ways of exploiting land and racialised peoples, thus epitomising the emergence of what culminates in today’s environmental crisis. Extracting natural resources and labour from objectified beings, human and nonhuman, from far-flung territories became the main driver of modern history. By offering students a discussion of how this played out – and was artistically represented – in Latin America and the Caribbean, we hoped to help them grasp the issue in the most concrete way possible.

Actions / Implementation

SDG’s - which ones did you cover, and have you followed the wedding cake approach?

Although we did not consciously intend to do so when designing the module, it maps reasonably well to SDG 10 and 16, especially regarding acknowledging the need to overcome ecologically unequal forms of international trade. 

• SDG 10 Reduced Inequality
• SDG 16 Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions

Our module might be seen to adhere to the ‘wedding cake’s’ general view of economy and society as embedded in the biosphere. However, we would add that an important part of our module is to highlight that Latin American and Caribbean’s Indigenous peoples’ ontologies tend not to separate ‘economy’ and ‘society’ from the rest of the universe. In fact, according to Karl Polanyi classic The Great Transformation (1944), even Western societies did not operate that separation until the nineteenth century.     

ESD Competencies – which ones are embedded in the learning outcomes and how?

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to

• Explain the role of the environmental humanities in addressing peoples’ relations to and within the environment in Latin America and the Caribbean considering global climate change.

ESD Competency: Normative Competency – Beginner level

• Identify and actively engage with written, audio and audio-visual material in relation to the cultural and socioecological context of Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as to global environmental challenges.

ESD Competency: Normative Competency – Beginner level

• Explain the sociohistorical representational and cultural challenges framing environmental problems in Latin America and the Caribbean.

ESD Competency: Normative Competency – Beginner level

• Apply interdisciplinary methodologies and use written, audio and audio-visual media to collaboratively evaluate the intertwined transformations of identities and socioecological systems in Latin America and the Caribbean in relation to other territories.

ESD Competency – Integrated Problem Solving & Collaborative Competency – Intermediate level

• Evaluate the form and content of Latin American and Caribbean cultural products and practices considering ecocritical perspectives.

ESD Competency: Normative Competency – Intermediate level

• Critically reflect on how Latin American and Caribbean ecocritical perspectives relate to their position within the environment, their cultures and disciplines.

ESD Competency: Critical Thinking Competency – Intermediate level

Teaching & Assessment Strategies – what was the teaching, learning and assessment strategy and how were students supported in completing the teaching, learning and assessment activity types?

Icebreaker Activity - Foster relationships and build trust among participants.
We sought to make the classroom environment an inclusive and comfortable place where students felt confident expressing their opinions and interacting with each other and their lecturers. To this end, in our first session we used a Padlet to record the students’ views on what kind of classroom environment they would like to work in and what the roles of the lecturers and students were in creating this, as well as our individual responsibilities to each other. Having discussed these topics in pairs or small groups, students posted anonymously, we responded to their suggestions and clarified anything that was unclear or required further discussion. We then used the responses to create a Class Charter that we presented in the following session and that student agreed to. This was then posted on Blackboard with a notice inviting any students who had not had a chance to comment to add their views.

Interactive and playful activities
We used a teaching approach heavily based on interactive and playful activities, such as when – working with parallel realities and counterfactuals – we asked students to imagine what they would change in the environmental history of Latin America if they could travel back in time.

Teamwork - interdisciplinary 
We also harnessed diversity by forming the groups for presentations by mixing the students alphabetically, thus allowing a disciplinary mix, as it was a group composed of students from many different disciplines, ranging from the humanities to engineering to science. Time was allotted in our first session to allowing the students to meet the members of their groups and to exchange contact details so that they could follow up on this initial meeting and plan their work.

Case Studies & Reflection Activity
These groups collaborated on a presentation based on a case study related to the topics and readings we covered over the term, which was preceded by a reflective piece that documented how the students chose their case studies, organized their research and divided the preparation of the presentation. The final step of the assessment was a response to peer review from students, which the groups added to their PowerPoints and submitted.

Assessment

Reflective Piece: (60% of the overall mark). Write a reflection on how you will incorporate what you have learned in the module into your presentation on a case study relating to nature-culture imbrications in Latin America and the Caribbean. Outline how you will choose your case study, what research you will incorporate from the lectures and what further research you will undertake, what challenges you expect to face and how you will resolve them, and how you will plan your presentation with your group. Length: 1,500-2,000 words.

Group presentation: (40% of the overall mark). Take a case study of your choice and develop an argument about the relationships between nature and culture in Latin America and the Caribbean. Your presentation must draw on extensive reading of both primary and secondary materials. If you use a case study discussed in lectures, you must provide your own perspective and secondary readings. Length: 15 minutes approx (each group member speaks for five minutes each).

• Beginner (Knowledge): Recall facts, terms, and basic concepts.
• Intermediate (Comprehension and Application): Understand, explain, and apply knowledge.
• Advanced (Analysis and Synthesis): Analyse, evaluate, and create based on understanding.
• Expert (Evaluation and Creation): Critically evaluate, synthesize, and generate new insights

Evaluation

A Module Evaluation form was completed by the students in class.

Feedback was very positive, with the only negative comments being about the room (which had no windows) and the timetable (4 to 6PM). The students commented favourably on the variety of themes and case studies, the interdisciplinary and interactive nature of the lectures, and the group activities undertaken, interesting reading, approachable and knowledgeable lecturers. Students enjoyed the breadth of reference in the module, ranging from history to literature to art and film. They felt comfortable expressing their opinions and felt that they were listened to. They appreciated the feedback from lecturers and their peers. There were also positive comments on the lecturers’ enthusiasm.

Some students noted in conversation in the final session that they had found the idea of doing presentations daunting but learned valuable organizational and communication skills from this assessment and they enjoyed working in groups.

Based on this feedback and the evident hard work and care that they put into their presentations, we believe that there was a high level of engagement with the module and that students appreciated the opportunity to take a module that was different from their usual programmes. Their level of achievement (with average grades of 60 +) would suggest that they learned a great deal from the module.

Reflections

The students were extremely excited and participated in the class activities, such as outlined above (interactive & playful activities) enthusiastically. We also learned that many of the students already had a connection to the region, whether through family ties, occasional travel, or even simple admiration for cultural products from the region. This greatly reduced the need to spark their interest in the region. So, the next time we teach this module, we will try to spend less time on this, giving us more time to discuss other aspects of the relationship between ecology and identity in depth.