Undergraduate Course: Frontiers in Human Geography: Capital, Land & Power (GEGR10121)
Course Outline
| School | School of Geosciences |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course aims to grapple with many of the big themes in political and economic geography nationalism, globalisation, financialisation, neoliberalism, and so on but 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 the forestry plantation, 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).
***PLEASE NOTE FIELD COURSE LOCATIONS MAY CHANGE FOR A VARIETY OF REASONS, INCLUDING SECURITY RISKS, INCREASED COSTS OR INABILITY TO ACCESS FIELD LOCATIONS. ANY CHANGES TO THE MAIN DESTINATION OF THE FIELD TRIP WILL BE ANNOUNCED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE***
|
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | Bus Day Return Ticket for Fieldtrip |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Gain an insight into key debates in the formation of contemporary Scottish politics and society, from landownership to place-marketing and identity building
- Feel comfortable using critical theory at the macro level to explain contextual detail at the micro level, and vice versa
- Grasp the basics of Marxist geography, and understand why 'the production of space' matters
|
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 |
| Keywords | Geography,Politics,Production of Space,Landscape,Capitalism |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Hamish Kallin
Tel: (0131 6)50 2533
Email: H.Kallin@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Carry Arnold
Tel: (0131 6)50 9847
Email: Carry.Arnold@ed.ac.uk |
|
|
University Homepage