ENV401C

Systems thinking and practice 1

Associate Professor Frank Fisher

6 points -3 hours -First semester -Clayton -Prerequisites: None

Objectives To develop a working familiarity with the idea that environmental dislocation can be avoided byunderstanding how humans socially construct their reality, and recognising that such understanding implies responsibility for the constructions. Students should develop a generalised capacity for 'reflexive analysis', ie a familiarity with the formal and informal institutions underpinning society and how these institutions themselves are explicated and altered. The subject provides environmental science's intellectual complement to existing discipline-based scientific and professional action in environment.

Synopsis A brief investigation of the structure of knowledge permits development of a more general understanding of what the Club of Rome called the environmental problematique - the suite of social and physical problems associated with environmental concerns. The subject is based on the ideas that (a) environmental dislocation arises from epistemological and social structures not coherent with the ecosystems they depend upon and (b) it is possible to make generalisations about the behaviour of the complex processes that arise from epistemological and social structures. The subject begins with an overview of our present way of establishing reality, the scientific method, in order to show that and how it is socially constructed. It then investigates general system theory as a tool with which - in conjunction with empirical science - to develop a critical understanding of the complex phenomena we perceive as, and to be associated with, nature and society. In parallel with the lectures practical work is undertaken in the community at large, extensive tutorial sessions discuss the small assessment exercises, videos are presented with other interpretations of the subject material and attendance at 'Environmental Forum' is required. The latter is an open (to the public) forum organised by the graduate school around the work of individuals drawn from the community at large. The subject is complete in itself but is the (theoretical) precursor for ENV402C (Systems thinking and practice 2) described below.

Assessment Tutorial papers: (3x800 words): 60% -Major essay (2500 words): 40%

Preliminary reading

Postman N Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology Vintage, 1993
Tenner E Why things bite back: New technology and the revenge effect Fourth Estate, 1996
Suzuki D and Levine J Cracking the code: Redesigning the living world Allen and Unwin, 1994
Bohm D and Edwards M Changing consciousness Harper, 1991

Prescribed texts (science)

Mulkay M Science and the sociology of knowledge Allen and Unwin, 1979
Woolgar S Science: The very idea Horwood/Tavistock, 1988

Prescribed texts (systems)

Capra F The web of life Anchor 1996
Fisher F (ed.) Tutorial papers in science and systems theory (1988) GSES/Monash University, 1989

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