Global History | Eachdraidh Chruinneil

There have been multiple calls to ´decolonise the curriculum´ in recent years, but what does it mean in practice for different disciplines and how does it relate to our pressing need to consider not only the legacies of colonialism but also climate change? In this workshop we will explore decolonizing the disciplines of history, law, and political ecology by looking at the possibilities for going beyond traditional anthropocentric approaches which have for the last centuries entrenched colonial views of the world.

This Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) seminar offers a unique opportunity for students at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and UNAM in Mexico to study and work together. The session will be led by Dr Omar Giraldo (UNAM), Dr Anna Chadwick (Glasgow), and Dr Julia McClure (Glasgow), who have recently worked together on an international research project problematizing approaches to sustainable development in Mexico.

In the first part of the seminar, we will hear insights from these researchers regarding their perspectives on what it means to move beyond anthropocentrism in each of their disciplines. In the second part of the seminar, we will consider a case study – the assignation of legal personality to nature. In recent years, it has been recognised in a number of different jurisdictions that nature has rights. For example, in Colombia, New Zealand, and India, rivers have been granted legal protections that turn them into rights-bearing subjects. Other countries, notably Ecuador and Bolivia, offer protections for the rights of Pachamama (Mother Earth) in their constitutions. In the second part of the seminar, we discuss these developments in breakout groups with students from UNAM and Glasgow. We will evaluate whether granting legal rights to nature really entails a shift away from anthropocentrism, and we will consider the implications of these developments for a move away from colonial epistemologies from the perspectives of different disciplines.

There is no required reading for the seminar, but participants may wish to read the following article out of interest:

• Villavicencio Calzadilla, P., & Kotzé, L. (2018). Living in Harmony with Nature? A Critical Appraisal of the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia. Transnational Environmental Law, 7(3), 397-424 (25 pages)