Week 1  Course Introduction 

Week 2 Anthropology of resource extraction and energy

1. Lorenzo D'Angelo and Robert Jan Pijpers (2022) The anthropology of resource extraction: An introduction, In The Anthropology of Resource Extraction, Lorenzo D'Angelo and Robert Jan Pijpers eds, Taylor & Francis Group.


2. Tristan Loloum, Simone Abram and Nathalie Ortar (2021) Introduction. Politicizing Energy Anthropology, In Ethnographies of Power: A Political Anthropology of Energy, Tristan Loloum, Simone Abram and Nathalie Ortar eds, Berghahn Books.

Week 3 Past and present 

1. Dana E. Powell (2024) Life Beyond Ruin: Diné Presence in the Anthropocene, Native American and Indigenous Studies11(1): 71-113.


2. Niki J. P. Alsford (2021) Population movements and the construction of modern tradition within contemporary Taiwan Indigenous society, In Taiwan’s Contemporary Indigenous Peoples, Chia-yuan Huang, Daniel Davies, and Dafydd Fell eds, Routledge.

Week 4 Land

1. Nicholas Bainton, John Burton and John R. Owen (2022) Land relations, resource extraction and displacement effects in island Papua New Guinea, The Journal of Peasant Studies 49(6): 1295-1315.


2. Kuan Da-wei (Daya Dakasi) (2021) Indigenous traditional territory and decolonisation of the settler state, In Taiwan’s Contemporary Indigenous Peoples, Chia-yuan Huang, Daniel Davies, and Dafydd Fell eds, Routledge.

Week 5 Water

1. Austin Lord and Matthäus Rest (2021) Nepal’s Water, the People’s Investment? Hydropolitical Volumes and Speculative Refrains, In Ethnographies of Power: A Political Anthropology of Energy, Tristan Loloum, Simone Abram and Nathalie Ortar eds, Berghahn Books.


2. Yi-shiuan Chen, Sandra Suchet-Pearson, and Richard Howitt (2018) Reframing Indigenous water rights in ‘modern’ Taiwan: reflecting on Tayal experience of colonized common property, In International Journal of the Commons 12(1): 378-401.

Week 6 Forests

1. Nathalie Ortar (2021) Delving at the Core of Everyday Life – Between Power Legacies and Political Struggles: The Case of Wood-Burning Stoves in France, In Ethnographies of Power: A Political Anthropology of Energy, Tristan Loloum, Simone Abram and Nathalie Ortar eds, Berghahn Books.


2. Kuang-Chi Hung (2015) When the Green Archipelago Encountered Formosa: The Making of Modern Forestry in Taiwan under Japan’s Colonial Rule (1895–1945), In Environment and Society in the Japanese Islands: From Prehistory to the Present, Bruce L. Batten and Philip C. Brown eds, Oregon State University Press.

Week 7 Minerals 

1. Stefanie Graeter (2020) Infrastructural Incorporations: Toxic Storage, Corporate Indemnity, and Ethical Deferral in Peru's Neoextractive Era, In American Anthropologist 122(1): 21-36.


2. Chen Yi-Fong (2022) Extractive industry, traditional territory, and the politics of natural resources in Taiwan, In Indigenous Reconciliation in Contemporary Taiwan, Scott E. Simon, Jolan Hsieh, and Peter Kang eds, Routledge.

Week 8 Mid-term (no exam)

1. Viewing the documentary "Ophir" (2020), which addresses racial resource issues in Papua New Guinea.

Week 9 Coal and oil

1. Chris Hebdon (2021) Ecuadorian Amazonia amidst Energy Transitions, In Ethnographies of Power: A Political Anthropology of Energy, Tristan Loloum, Simone Abram and Nathalie Ortar eds, Berghahn Books.


2. Dana E. Powell (2018) Landscapes of Power: Politics of Energy in the Navajo Nation, Chapter 4: Contesting Expertise, Duke University Press.

Week 10 Solar 

1. Shew-Jiuan Su (2016) The Political Ecology of Land Subsidence: A Case Study of the Solar Energy-Farming Scheme, Pingtung County, Taiwan, In Geomorphology and Society, Michael E. Meadows and Jiun-Chuan Lin eds, Springer Nature.


2. Jerome Whitington and Zeynep Oguz (2024) Mining the Sun: Coal-to-solar transitions and energetic place-making in Appalachia, In Critique of Anthropology 44(3): 276-293.

Week 11 Wind power

1. Pia Piroschka Otte, Katrina Rønningen and Espen Moe (2018) Contested wind energy: discourses on energy impacts and their significance for energy justice in Fosen, In Energy, Resource Extraction and Society: Impacts and Contested Futures, Anna Szolucha ed, Taylor & Francis Group.


2. Ker-hsuan Chien (2019) Pacing for Renewable Energy Development: The Developmental State in Taiwan’s Offshore Wind Power, Annals of the American Association of Geographers 110(3): 793-807.

Week 12 Nuclear power

1. Raminder Kaur (2021) Southern Spectrums: The Raw to the Smooth Edges of Energopower, In Ethnographies of Power: A Political Anthropology of Energy, Tristan Loloum, Simone Abram and Nathalie Ortar eds, Berghahn Books.


2. Yousun Chung (2020) Party politics and civil society: The role of policy entrepreneurs in nuclear power politics in Taiwan, Environmental Policy and Governance 31(2): 94-103.

Week 13 Gas 

1. Elisabeth N. Moolenaar (2021) The Earth Is Trembling and We Are Shaken: Governmentality and Resistance in the Groningen Gas Field, In Ethnographies of Power: A Political Anthropology of Energy, Tristan Loloum, Simone Abram and Nathalie Ortar eds, Berghahn Books.


2. Roberto Cantoni, Aleksandra Lis and Agata Stasik (2018) Creating and debating energy citizenship: the case of shale gas in Poland, In Energy, Resource Extraction and Society: Impacts and Contested Futures, Anna Szolucha ed, Taylor & Francis Group.

Week 14 Energy democracy 

1. Lisabet Dueholm Rasch and Michiel Köhne (2018) Energy practices and the construction of energy democracy in the Noordoostpolder (the Netherlands), In Energy, Resource Extraction and Society: Impacts and Contested Futures, Anna Szolucha ed, Taylor & Francis Group.


2. Huei-Ling Lai (2019) Situating community energy in development history: Place-making and identity politics in the Taromak 100% green energy tribe initiative, Taiwan, Geoforum 100: 176-187.

Week 15 Community-based resource governance

1. Marianna Betti (2018) What lies below: the politics of resource conflict in Turkana, Kenya, In Energy, Resource Extraction and Society: Impacts and Contested Futures, Anna Szolucha ed, Taylor & Francis Group.


2. Wang Ting-jieh (2021) Indigenous peoples and the politics of the environment in Taiwan, In Taiwan’s Contemporary Indigenous Peoples, Chia-yuan Huang, Daniel Davies, and Dafydd Fell eds, Routledge.

Week 16 Presentations for term papers

To be announced.

1. 5 pre-class review essays (25％): Students are required to write five 750-word essays based on two weekly required articles. A 600-word article abstract, and 150 words of student evaluation and questions make up the essay. Students are encouraged to utilise AI software for reviewing their assignments before submitting them, but not to summarise readings and create essays.

2. Individual presentations (20％): Each student will choose two to three weeks to deliver presentations on one of the required readings for that week and lead the discussion. Students are welcome to utilise AI tools to generate graphs, but not to summarise the reading and create presentation slides.

3. Course participation (20％): Grades are based on class attendance, participation in class discussions, and involvement in group discussions.

4. Term paper (35％): This assignment is further divided into three parts: the term paper outline (accounting for 5% and due mid-term), the term paper presentation and evaluation (accounting for 5%), and the updated term paper amended in response to evaluating opinions (accounting for 25% with up to 4,000 words). The instructor will remind students that the term paper should represent the student's critical thinking and research abilities on related issues, rather than just summarizing the readings or discussing what the student has learned from the class. Students are strongly encouraged to learn how to utilize reference management software (such as Endnote), as their referencing style will be evaluated in this assignment.

Self-organizing reading materials from the instructor.