Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Skidmore College/Environment and Development in the Middle East (Fall 2023)

The Middle East immediately brings to mind conflict, flow of refugees and unstable geographies. Yet, amid its religious and political complexities, we forget about the distinctive environmental and development challenges the Middle East and North Africa region and its diversity. In this class, we will study the natural and human environment in the Middle East, addressing major development and environmental topics such as the impacts of oil, water and land use, the impact of modernization, dam projects and geopolitics, and the role of its history, population dynamics, economic policies or current social and environmental challenges. The class aims to provide an interdisciplinary lens to understand the intersection of climate change, energy, food, transboundary environmental issues, migration, political instability and refugees. We will explore the complex and interdisciplinary characteristics of Middle East environmental issues at both the regional and global scales through the examination of case studies from countries such as Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Syria, and Israel/Palestine, and focus on the social movements demanding reformation of existing systems (politic, economic, social) to go beyond stereotypes of Middle East and North Africa as a region of conflict.