Unit information: Geographies of the Bioeconomy in 2021/22

Unit name	Geographies of the Bioeconomy
Unit code	GEOG30030
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	. Fannin
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	GEOG25110 Philosophy, Social Theory and Geography
Co-requisites	None
School/department	School of Geographical Sciences
Faculty	Faculty of Science

Description including Unit Aims

This final-year unit will focus on advanced topics in human geography. It will introduce and review key theoretical and empirical research in political, economic, and cultural geography. The unit will develop students’ ability to draw on relevant conceptual vocabularies in feminist, Marxist, post-structural, and post-colonial thinking in both geography and other social science disciplines, including: gender, race, labour, capital, accumulation, production, reproduction, dispossession, colonialism, nature, and value. Lecture topics will focus in depth on concepts central to theorising contemporary political and economic formations, such as ‘biocapital’, with an emphasis on geographies of transnational or global capital, colonial accumulation, privatisation, technologies of dispossession, enclosure, resistance, representation, and cultural economies of contemporary embodiment.

The unit aims to introduce students to contemporary theoretical and empirical debates in political economic geography. The unit also aims to help students develop the ability to pose purposeful questions within these debates and to cultivate intellectual curiosity about their socio-political, economic, and technological contexts. It draws on research-orientated case studies that critically detail the social processes, structures, and causes underlying capitalist development.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this unit, students will be able:

1. To (further) develop an awareness of the benefits of different theoretical approaches to the study of political-economic processes
2. To (further) develop an awareness of relevant conceptual and empirical research in cognate disciplines such as history, sociology, anthropology, political theory, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, and science and technology studies.
3. To comprehend key concepts in the historical and geographical study of political-economic processes such as value, labour, capital, biopolitics, neoliberalism, colonialism, accumulation, enclosure, corporeality, materiality.
4. To describe different ways of thinking about analytical categories in geographical research.

Links between learning outcomes and methods of assessment:

• The assessments will test your awareness of academic scholarship on the critical geographies of political economy and will require you to be conversant with key themes, concepts and case studies covered in lectures, readings and discussions.
• The assessments will require you to use your written communication, critical reasoning, and organisational skills to demonstrate the relationship between concepts/theories and empirical material, and to make effective use of wider literatures to support your arguments.

Teaching Information

Teaching will consist primarily of a 1-hour lecture, followed by a 1-hour seminar.

Assessment Information

Two essays: Research essay (40%) + Final essay (60%)

Research essay (40%) – 1500 words (due at midpoint of teaching block)

Final essay (60%) – 2500 words (due towards the end of the teaching block).

Both essays test all of the ILOs.

Resources

If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.

If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. GEOG30030).

How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks, independent learning and assessment activity.

See the Faculty workload statement relating to this unit for more information.

Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit. The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. If you have self-certificated your absence from an assessment, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (this is usually in the next assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any extenuating circumstances and operates within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.