Undergraduate Course: Geographies of Food (GEGR10115)
Course Outline
| School | School of Geosciences |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The study of food in all its dimensions offers insights into a wide range of pressing questions in human geography. Food occupies everyone to some extent, connecting people to plantation economies and histories, national and transnational resources, regulations and markets, commodity cultures and alternative economies, and collective understandings of risk, scarcity and abundance. The course provides students with a political economic, environmental and socio-cultural understanding of food production, marketing/distribution and consumption, power-laden processes revealed as connected in time and space. Students will gain a holistic understanding of food systems in the global North and South, including current trends that restructure the North/South divide, complementing other courses with an international development focus. Students will become proficient in the use of qualitative methods to understand, compare and evaluate food-related projects enacted at different scales. |
| Course description |
The proposed course provides a framework for the analysis of historical and geographical factors influencing the location and distribution of agricultural activity, food marketing, regulation, consumption and dietary change, with specific reference to inequalities within and between the global North and South.
1. Introductory lecture
2. Plantation economies and historical continuities
3. Food regimes (formative assignment 1: presentations)
4. Case study 1: Cuba
5. Alternative food networks
6. Innovative learning week
7. Case study 2: sugar (formative assignment 2)
8. Agriculture, land grabs and environment
9. Feeding the world
10. Indigenous knowledge
11. Recent debates in Geographies of Food
12. Examination review
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2014/15, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 40 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Please contact the School directly for a breakdown of Learning and Teaching Activities |
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
60 %,
Coursework
40 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
60% exam; 40% essay.
In addition to the above components of assessment, students must complete two formative assignments:
1. Food regimes map and timeline
2. Group fieldwork and presentation
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| Feedback |
Not entered |
| Exam Information |
| Exam Diet |
Paper Name |
Hours & Minutes |
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| Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May) | Geography of Food Main Diet | 2:00 | |
Learning Outcomes
| The course will enable students to outline a chronological survey of food regimes that have emerged over the past two centuries and relate them to present relations within and between the global North and South. Students will be able to explain the political economic and social workings of the dominant food system at various scales and demonstrate a knowledge of alternative trends. They will relate local experiences and practices of food production and/or consumption to the food policies of Scotland, the United Kingdom, Europe and/or the World Trade Organisation. Students will provide considered and relevant responses to issues introduced in class and online, using theories and examples from the readings and lectures, and work collaboratively with other students in developing, systematising and presenting a research project. The course will enhance specialist knowledge and understanding of geographies of food, including a range of established techniques and research methodologies. By the end of the course, students will be able to interpret, use and evaluate a wide range of data about food systems in the past and present.
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Reading List
Bell, D. and Valentine, G. 1997. Consuming geographies: we are where we eat. London and New York:
Routledge.
Counihan, Carole and Penny van Esterik. 2007. Food and culture: a reader (second edition). London and New
York: Routledge.
Friedberg, Susan. 2004. French beans and food scares. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Friedmann, Harriet. From colonialism to green capitalism: social movements and the emergence of food
regimes. In Fredrick H. Buttel and Philip McMichael (eds) New directions in the sociology of global development (research in rural sociology and development, vol. 11), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.227-264.
Fuller, Duncan, Andrew E. G. Jonas and Roger Lee. 2010. Interrogating alterity: alternative economic and
political spaces. Surrey: Ashgate, chs. 6 and 10.
Millstone, Eric and Timothy Lang. 2009. The atlas of food: Who eats what, where and why. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Sen, Amartya. Food and Freedom. Available at:
http://library.cgiar.org/bitstream/handle/10947/556/craw3.pdf?sequence.pdf
Wilson, Marisa. 2014. Everyday moral economies: food, politics and scale in Cuba. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
(chapter 6).
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Upon completing the course, students will be able to:
1. critically evaluate evidence and develop reasoned arguments orally, visually and in writing
2. work in a group to plan and conduct qualitative fieldwork, presenting outcomes in a clear and engaging manner
3. prepare maps and other visual material to demonstrate specific problems, concepts or trends
4. produce written work to a high standard, leaving enough time for thorough revision(s)
5. actively engage in learning by locating and reading appropriate source material, utilising resources and support offered by the university and scheduling appointments with the course organiser during office hours or when necessary
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| Special Arrangements |
None |
| Keywords | Food networks, commodity cultures, food regimes, alternative (or moral) economies, scale, qualitativ |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Marisa Wilson
Tel: (131 6)51 4634
Email: marisa.wilson@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Beth Muir
Tel: (0131 6)50 9847
Email: beth.muir@ed.ac.uk |
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