| Unit name | Human Geography |
|---|---|
| Unit code | GEOG15020 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | C/4 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 4 (weeks 1-24) |
| Unit director | . Fannin |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
All other units in year 1 BSc/MSci Single Honours Geography |
| School/department | School of Geographical Sciences |
| Faculty | Faculty of Science |
Element 1 - Social Geography, Element 2 - Economic Geography, Element 3 - Population and Development Geography, Element 4 - Historical Geographies of Knowledge, Element 5 - Cultural Geography
The aims of this Unit are to introduce students to a number of key study areas within Human Geography
ELEMENT 1: Social Geography
This element introduces students to key concepts and theories of social relations in geography, focusing in particular on geographers’ claims that social relations are also spatial relations. The field of social geography is concerned, in part, with how experiences of injustice are mobilized to reshape social relations. Drawing on examples from historical and contemporary social movements, this element will emphasize the changing nature of social relations and how social differences are produced, maintained and contested.
ELEMENT 2: Economic Geography
This element introduces students to the field of economic geography, focusing in particular on globalisation. It makes the conceptual case for geographical approaches to the economy, examining a series of contemporary issues including regional development, the firm, agglomeration economies, and financial markets.
ELEMENT 3: Population and Development Geography
This element introduces students to key debates and research at the intersection of population studies and international development studies. It offers a global perspective on core themes including population growth, urbanization, poverty, migration, conflict and violence and sustainability. In exploring these themes we will address questions such as: Is the global population expanding beyond sustainable limits? Does Britain have an immigration problem? What is the difference between ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ countries? And can the welfare state survive without robots?
ELEMENT 4: Historical Geographies of Knowledge
This element introduces students to historical geography, focusing on early modern England. The course emphasises the depth and complexity of societal and geographical changes, in place of the schematic treatments of industrialisation and imperialism prominent in many contemporary geographical texts, whether economic or cultural. London provides the entry point for a series of themes, involving both integrating and differentiating processes, at scales from the international circulations of goods and ideas through Atlantic and Indian Ocean economies, to intra-urban shifts in infrastructure and culture within the metropolis.
ELEMENT 5: Cultural Geography
This element introduces students to the sub-discipline of cultural geography and the range of processes through which the question of culture shapes the geographies of everyday life. Starting with the claim that there is a plurality of cultures, it will outline key aspects of ‘new’ cultural geography to investigate what this actually means for the practice of doing cultural geography through a series of key conceptual debates on, for example, landscape, embodiment, memory, technology, subjectivity and identity.
On completion of this Unit students should be able to:
The following transferable skills are developed in this Unit:
Lectures and a combination of one of the following for each of the different elements: practicals, seminars and fieldwork
SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENS:
Practical assignments (50%)
1 2-hour written exam (50%)
Percentage of the unit that is coursework: 50%
Percentage of overall unit mark involving group work: 10%
Other RECOMMENDED reading:
