Unit information: Human Geography in 2014/15

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	Dr. Whelan
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

Description including Unit Aims

Element 1 - Nature and Society, Element 2 - Historical Geography, Element 3 - Economic Geography, Element 4 - Social Geography, 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: Economic Geography

This element introduces students to the field of economic geography, focusing in particular on recent discussions of neoliberalism and economic globalisation. It examines a series of contemporary issues including geographically uneven development, commodity chains, the rescaling of state spaces, cultural economy, and changing economic subjectivities.

ELEMENT 2: 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. It examines a series of key conceptual debates on, for example, landscape, embodiment, memory, technology and identity.

ELEMENT 3: Historical Geography

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.

ELEMENT 4: 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.

ELEMENT 5: Population Geography (tbc)

This element introduces students to population geography, focusing in particular on demographic processes over spaces and how these processes are produced and distributed in a contemporary setting. It applies geographical perspectives in conceptualizing demographic phenomena, including international migration, urban mobility, settlement patterns and residential segregation, and aging population.

Intended Learning Outcomes

On completion of this Unit students should be able to:

• Grasp key concepts and themes pertinent to human geography

• Mobilise a set of case-studies that relate to environmental, historical, economic, social and cultural geography.

The following transferable skills are developed in this Unit:

• Written communication

• Numeracy

• Problem solving

• Analytical skills

• Critical reasoning

Teaching Information

Lectures and a combination of one of the following for each of the different elements: practicals, seminars and fieldwork (eg. the historical element might involve an archive practical, the economic element an urban fieldwork afternoon etc).

Assessment Information

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENS:

5 practical assignments 10% each (50%) 1 2-hour written exam (50%)

Percentage of the unit that is coursework: 50%

Percentage of overall unit mark involving group work: 20% (2/5 practical assignments are group work)

Reading and References

ESSENTIAL bookshop purchases:

• Cloke, P. et al (2005) Introducing Human Geographies, 2nd Ed, Arnold, London.

ISBN-13: 978-0340882764

Other RECOMMENDED purchases:

1. Macnaghten, P. and Urry, J. (1998) Contested Natures, Sage, London.
2. Wrigley, E.A. (2004) Poverty, Progress, and Population.
3. Trevor Barnes, Jamie Peck, Eric Sheppard and Adam Tickell (2004) Reading Economic Geography, Blackwell, Oxford
4. Panelli, R. (2004) Social geographies: from difference to action Sage, London.
5. Anderson, K. et al (2003) Handbook of Cultural Geography, Sage, London.