The information below is subject to change as the course is still being developed. The information will be made definite in June 2026.
What are the impacts of plastic pollution on plants, animals, and humans? How do light and noise pollution impact birds and bats? How are pesticides related to declines in invertebrate species and increases in particular illnesses like cancer and Parkinson? How do endocrine disruptors relate to increases in cancer rates and reduced reproduction among animals and humans? Why are certain groups of people more likely to be exposed to harmful materials? How are lobby groups impacting the decisions to deal with pollution? And how do we manage the risks and harms associated with these chemicals in a way that includes citizens?
These are some questions that we will focus on during the course Pollution and Power. Pollution is found all around us, from light and noise to chemicals and plastics. Yet, we often have a poor understanding of what these pollutants do to our ecosystems and ourselves. And even when we commonly agree on the goal of reducing the use of pollutants, it turns out to be hard to find a similar agreement on how to reach this goal. Reducing pollution is a so-called ‘wicked problem’ that will require the efforts and commitment of many different actors, including governments, business owners, farmers, and citizen-consumers. It will require a behavioral change and a shared feeling of ownership of the problem.
To better understand what pollution means and how it can be reduced, we will need an interdisciplinary understanding of the phenomenon. Hereby, the focus is on a multi-layered understanding of the risks following from pollution. In this course, we will do so by exploring the concept of risk from three angles. First, we will provide you with a natural scientific framework to assess the risk of environmental contaminants, using Environmental Risk Assessment. This is a key tool for environmental scientists to quantify the potential risk of pollutants to the environment. We will explore key concepts such as uptake, bioaccumulation, and excretion of contaminants, major routes of exposure, dose-response modeling, and the difference between acute and chronic effects.
Second, we will provide you with a social scientific framework to understand how different stakeholders value the risk of harmful materials in their environment, using Valuation Studies. This is an analytic framework used by anthropologists to understand how stakeholders qualify and act upon the effect of pollutants on their environment. Whose lives and which livelihoods are deemed at risk? How are judgments about risk made in everyday practice? We will explore key concepts such as registers of valuing, situated ethics, and the politics of valuation. This helps you to understand pollution in the context of environmental justice: a social scientific framework that addresses how the harms of environmental issues are distributed differently between and within groups of stakeholders.
Finally, we will provide you with a governance scientific framework to understand how concrete actions are taken to reduce or manage pollution, or to understand why such actions are hindered. We do so by using a policy and multi-actor framework. What actors are involved in the decision-making process and what are the power dynamics among them? Who can lobby, who has a voice and who not? Should (and could) ‘nature’ have a voice as well? During the course, we will particularly focus on the role of citizens. They can impact decision-making processes when voting during elections, when participating during interactive decision-making processes, when buying specific products in for instance the supermarket, when literally raising their voice during protests and by taking their own initiatives like cleaning streets. As such, citizens can heavily impact the courses of action chosen or even take action and manage the risks themselves. Yet, for this to happen it is crucial that they feel co-responsible for the risks; how can this feeling of ownership be encouraged?
By combining natural (risk assessment) and social sciences (valuing & managing risks), students get an integrated view of the complexity of this issue and are provided with a toolkit to critically evaluate issues related to power and pollution. We will use scientific theory from both the natural and social sciences during our lectures, but link this to concrete examples (from local to global) to illustrate these processes and highlight that issues that are (not) addressed in one region can impact other regions. Examples include the current debate about forever chemicals found in humans (for example PFAS), the extremely high levels of highly toxic chemicals in the Arctic (originating from use in temperate regions), but also how plastic pollution is managed in Europe by outsourcing recycling industries to Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
The course will build on the first-year courses Ecology, Earth and Environment, Anthropology of Sustainability, and Globalization and Environmental Justice. In addition, you will practice some of the key skills you have been learning in your first and second years, including quantitative analyses, qualitative and quantitative research methods, and data presentation skills (both written and oral).