THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2021/2022

Information in the Degree Programme Tables may still be subject to change in response to Covid-19

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Geosciences : Geography

Undergraduate Course: Capital, Land and Power (GEGR10127)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Geosciences CollegeCollege of Science and Engineering
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThis course aims to grapple with many of the big themes in political and economic geography, including deindustrialisation, capitalism, financialisation, neoliberalism, and so on. Rather than deal with these in the abstract sense, or based on case studies far away, we will consider how they manifest in the spaces around us.
Course description The course considers the making of specific sites in the Scottish landscape and links this to a study of capitalism in its mutating forms. The focus ranges from the public housing estate to large rural estates, from the Clearance village to the set-pieces of commodity tourism. Students will be encouraged to adopt a critical way of seeing where we strive to explain and understand the environments in which we live.

The course will place particular emphasis on putting theoretical insight together with contextual detail, and the importance of using one to support the other. In particular, this course will serve as an engaging introduction to Marxist geographies. The content is historically grounded, but the focus runs right up to the present (and, with a little imagination, into the future).
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Additional Costs Travel to Granton and back (bus fare, but you can also walk/cycle/etc.)
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2021/22, Available to all students (SV1) Quota:  0
Course Start Semester 1
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 196 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) Degree Assessment: One 2,500 word essay (60%) plus One Annotated Bibliography (40%)
Class assessment: Group presentations

Assessment deadlines
Degree essay: Week 8
Annotated bibliography: Week 11
Feedback Students will be given feedback on their assessed work.

Summative feedback will be given for tutorial participation (in small groups, students will be assigned a week to introduce the key readings, with a summary of main points and discussions)
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. A deeper understanding of Scottish history and the changing nature of the Scottish landscape.
  2. Familiarity with a range of theories and concepts from radical geography and an appreciation of how they can be applied in real-world contexts.
  3. Experience in discussing readings with peers and presenting their key ideas.
  4. Improved attention to note taking and careful reading.
  5. An understanding of how geography connects with a range of contemporary political questions and struggles over landownership, housing tenure, nature conservation and planning (among others) in a Scottish context, but with broader relevance. ¿ An understanding of how geography connects with a range of contemporary political questions and struggles over landownership, housing tenure, nature conservation and planning (among others) in a Scottish context, but with broader relevance.
Reading List
Blaikie, A (2010), 'Retrieving "that invisible leeway": landscapes, cultures, belonging' in 'The Scots Imagination and Modern Memory', Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp 136-173
Craig, D (1197) 'On the Crofter's Trail: In Search of the Clearance Highlanders', Pimlico Press, London
Davidson, N (2001), 'Marx and Engels on the Scottish Highlands', 'Science and Society' 65 (3): 286-326
Gray, N and Mooney, G (2011), 'Glasgow's new urban frontier: "Civilising" the population of "Glasgow East"', 'City' 15 (1), 4-24
Harvey, D (2006), 'Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction', 'Geografiska, Annaler, Series B: Human Geography' 88 (2), 145-158
Hughes, G (1999), 'Urban revitalisation: the use of festive time strategies', 'Leisure Studies' 18 (2): 119-135
MacLeod, L (2008), 'Life among Leith plebs: of arseholes, wankers and tourists in Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting', 'Studies in the Literary Imagination' 41 (1), 89-106
Marx, K (1990), 'So-called Primitive Accumulation' in 'Capital-Volume 1', Penguin: London, pp 873-895
Massey, D (1994), 'Uneven Development: Social Change and Spatial Divisions of Labour' in 'Space, Place and gender', Cambridge: Polity Press, pp 86-114
Mitchell, D (2008), 'New Axioms for Reading the Landscape: Paying Attention to Political Economy and Social Justice' in Westcoast, J and Johnston, D (eds), 'Political Economies of Landscape Change', Dordecht: Springer, pp 29-50
Madgin R and Rodger, R (2013), 'Inspiring Capital? Deconstructing Myths and Reconstructing Urban Environments, Edinburgh, 1860-2010', 'Urban History' 40 (3): 507-529
Mooney, G and Poole, L (2005), 'Marginalised voices: resisting the privatisation of council housing in Glasgow', 'Local Economy' 20 (1): 27-39
Penrose, J and Cumming, C (2011), 'Money Talks: Banknote iconography and symbolic constructions of Scotland', 'Nations and Nationalism' 17 (4): 821-942
Rolnik, R (2013), 'Late Neoliberalism: the Financialisation of Homeownership and Housing Rights', 'International Journal of urban and Regional Research' 37 (3): 1058-1066
Rose, G (1997), 'Looking at Landscape: the Uneasy Pleasures of Power' in McDowell, L and Sharp, J. P. (eds), 'Space Gender, Knowledge: Feminist Readings', pp 193-200
Smith, N (2010), 'Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space', Verso, London
Wightman, A (2010), 'The Poor Had No Lawyers: Who Owns Scotland and How They Got It' Birlinn Ltd, Edinburgh
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Not entered
KeywordsGeography,Politics,Production of Space,Landscape,Capitalism
Contacts
Course organiserDr Hamish Kallin
Tel: (0131 6)50 2533
Email: H.Kallin@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Carry Arnold
Tel: (0131 6)50 9847
Email: Carry.Arnold@ed.ac.uk
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