| Unit name | State, Economy and Society in Geographical Perspective |
|---|---|
| Unit code | GEOG20005 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Professor. MacLeavy |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
All units in Single Honours Geography Year 1 |
| Co-requisites |
N/A |
| School/department | School of Geographical Sciences |
| Faculty | Faculty of Science |
This unit will introduce students to the geographical study of political economy—that is, to research on spatial variations in politics and economics, and on the sources and consequences of those variations.
Part one of the unit will explore how human struggles to ‘make a living’ simultaneously shape and are shaped by changing political, social and economic environments. It starts by exploring different theoretical perspectives on work, both paid and unpaid. Adopting a primary focus on workers in advanced capitalist economies, it then establishes the theoretical foundations for understanding various divisions of labour. Students will be introduced to both new and old spatial divisions of paid and unpaid labour at the international, urban and household scales. In the context of the newly emerging international division of labour, part one of the unit will examine changing dimensions of work, workers and workplaces. It will also look at the geographies of growing precariousness in the labour market and the impacts of new technologies and changing organisation of workplaces on the labouring body.
Part two of the unit will explore how people ‘make a living’, focusing on the experience of the global South – and more particularly, but not exclusively, the countries of Asia. The lectures will not just consider how people make a living in the global South, but what shapes, and potentially undermines livelihoods, how people respond, how scholars have come to understand, interpret and theorise people’s lives, and how states have attempted to promote ‘development’ and improve people’s lives. The module will utilise close ethnographic readings of conditions in the global south. These will permit engagement with both applied (how do we measure poverty?) and policy (is there an urban bias in development policy) questions, as well as conceptual (what is a household?) and theoretical (is global development in fact a story of underdevelopment?) debates.
Unit aims:
- To introduce students to geographical research in political economy, including the benefits of and rationales for such research. - To give students an opportunity and incentive to learn about the political, economic, and social conditions of the UK and other countries across the global North and South. - To expose students to contemporary social science work on key political economic trends and challenges of recent decades—particularly neoliberalism, globalisation, the rise of several large Asian nations, associated labour market transitions, and the problems of inequality and precarity. - To help students develop the ability to pose purposeful questions within these debates and to cultivate intellectual curiosity about their context.On completion of this Unit students should be able to:
The following transferable skills are developed in this Unit:
Teaching will consist of two one-hour lectures per week. In some weeks, a few minutes of film will be shown. In one week there will be a two-hour lecture slot to allow a full film viewing.
One 2000-word take-home exam based on material taught in part one of the unit (50%)
One 2000-word essay based on material taught in part two of the unit (50%)
Both assignments test all of the ILOs.
Castree, N, Coe, N, Ward, K and Samers, M (2004) Spaces of Work: Global Capitalism and the Geographies of Labour, London: Sage
Diamond, Jared. 1997. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: Norton.
Frieden, Jeffry A. 2006. Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century. New York: Norton.
Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McDowell, L (2003) Redundant Masculinities? Employment Change and White Working Class Youth, Oxford: Blackwell
Peck, J (1996) Work-Place: The Social Regulation of Labour Markets, London: Guilford
Additional required readings will be available online and/or on Blackboard. Further reading recommendations will be listed in the course handbook that will be circulated in the first lecture of each half unit.
