ENV402C

Systems thinking and practice 2

Proposed to be offered next in 2000

Associate Professor Frank Fisher

6 points -2 hours -Second semester -Clayton -Prerequisites: ENV401C

Objectives To develop a working familiarity with the idea that environmental dislocation can be avoided by understanding how humans socially construct their reality, and by recognising that such understanding implies responsibility for the constructions. The subject builds on theoretical foundations established in ENV401C (Systems thinking and practice 1). It exists to provide experience in applying the theory. Therefore, students should develop a generalised capacity for 'reflexive analysis' in practice. That is, they will gain practical experience with finding and changing the formal and informal institutions underpinning the issues they identify as of concern - all within a context of reversibility or 'essential humility'.

Synopsis The subject is designed to give practical experience in the application of the theory provided in part 1 of the subject (see outline of ENV401C). The primary exercise requires students to resolve a small task chosen from their working or private lives. In the first four weeks of semester the topics are analysed - in the tutorials - for their formative social constructs with a view to adjusting these so that resolution can be brought about in the remaining nine weeks. Part of the exercise is to explicate the educational/marketing structures necessary to bring about the social change. Another is to recognise that the structures isolated are themselves dependent for their legitimacy upon analytical structures which derive from historically determined social and intellectual traditions. The exercise is reported in two practical papers, the first being the analysis of social constructs, the second being a report on the efficacy of the attempted changes. Additional parallel exercises are (a) a weekend excursion to the Latrobe valley power stations and various ecosystems in the Strzelecki ranges presents two quite different opportunities study/ analysis of industrial, farming and natural environments study/analysis of science-in-the-making (this opportunity arises because the excursion is conducted jointly with students undertaking the foundation ecology unit ENV414F); (b) attendance at ten sessions of 'Environmental Forum' one of which must be analysed for its underlying social constructions.

Assessment Practical papers (2x2000 words): 80% -Forum analysis (800 words): 20%

Recommended texts

Beck U Risk society: Towards a new modernity Sage, 1992
Boulding K The image, knowledge in life and society U Michigan, 1961
Douglas M How institutions think RKP, 1990
Fleck L Genesis and development of a scientific fact U Chicago, 1979
Fukuyama F Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity Penguin, 1995
Fuller S Social epistemology Indiana U, 1988
Goleman D Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than iq Bloomsbury, 1995
Hanson F Testing testing: Social consequences of the examined life U California, 1993
Harre R The social construction of emotion Blackwell, 1986
Keller E Reflections on gender and science Yale U, 1985
Lakhoff G and Johnson M Metaphors we live by U Chicago, 1980
Nelkin D and Tancredi L Dangerous diagnostics: The social power of biological information Basic, 1989
Noelle-Neumann E The spiral of silence: Public opinion - our social skin U Chicago, 1993
Ross A The Chicago gangster theory of life: Nature's debt to society Verso, 1994
Steier F (ed.) Research and reflexivity Sage, 1991
Tavris C The mismeasure of woman Touchstone, 1992
Watson H Singing the land, signing the land Deakin U, 1989

Back to the 1999 Arts Handbook