Global Resource Geopolitics: Critical Minerals and Beyond

ENVIR ST 203 LEC 001
Wednesday/Friday, 9:55–10:45 a.m. + discussion section
3 credits

Instructor

Course Description

Conflict over natural resources is often described as the defining feature of our age. As global demand for energy, consumer goods, and high technology increases, so our geopolitical contests seem to intensify. Technological development continues to change the definition of resources, the nature of conflicts, and the manner in which resources are valued, extracted, exchanged, and controlled across the globe.

Meanwhile, diverse actors and institutions are experimenting with measures to govern the immense, essential, and deeply problematic enterprises responsible for wresting raw materials from the earth and transforming them into the hardware of everyday life. In a time of multiple environmental and political crises, it is especially important to understand how global resource geopolitics shape our lives in ways big and small.

This introductory course equips students with the tools they need to understand the relationship between conflict, natural resources, and the effects of this relationship on development, peace, and security.

The course is divided into three parts. Part I familiarizes students with key concepts in global resource geopolitics and examines the historical transformations that led to our present moment of multiple conflicts, crises, and widespread predictions of even more bad news to come. Part II examines the key concepts behind fears of resource scarcity, namely the environment, natural resources, and thresholds. Part III examines key cases and governance approaches to global resource geopolitics, looking in particular at conflict minerals, oil and gas, and rare earth elements.

Throughout the course, we examine cases from the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa. Students will complete a semester-long research project that analyzes the geopolitics of an place and resource of their choice.