Undergraduate Course: Black Geographies (GEGR10147)
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 | Black Geographies encompasses how we understand the interdisciplinary nature of Black life through geographic frames, and how we expand geographic knowledge by intentionally centring Black experiences, questions and ways of knowing. This place-based course takes its points of departure from the University of Edinburgh¿s direct involvement in enslavement and empire, as well as a commitment to the affirmation of Black life. The course begins from the global production of Blackness, Edinburgh's Black history, and Black methodologies, and then focusses on key topics including racial capitalism, Black ecologies, Black feminist embodiment, Black spatial poetics, abolition and repair, and Black marronage. To attend to the interdisciplinarity of Black life, students will learn from a range of knowledge materials, including academic texts, music, poetry, artworks, archives, and a walking tour.
This course is designed for students keen to critically interrogate enslavement and colonial histories, to learn with Black spatial and social justice critiques, and to experiment in building a creative project in response to place-based histories and legacies. Students will produce a practical project (a site-specific installation or performance) as a spatial intervention that is both critical (informed by Black geographic thought) and creative (informed by Black artistic and creative practices).
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| Course description |
Black Geographies encompasses the interdisciplinary nature of Black life through geographic frames, while also expanding geographic knowledge by intentionally centring Black experiences, questions, and ways of knowing. Recognising the University of Edinburgh¿s deep connections to enslavement and colonial imperialism, this course engages our campus space ¿ specifically, the Institute of Geography, the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute (ECCI) and Old College Building ¿ as situated locations from which to learn, develop and practically apply Black geographic critiques. As an honours course, Black Geographies draws on theory and the practical application of theory in a real-world context.
The course proceeds in two parts:
Part 1 (weeks 1-3): Conceptually orients students to the production of Blackness and Black Geographies as a situated and critical approach. Lectures, seminars and tutorial sessions enable students to approach Black Geographies from their differently racialised positions, situate the course focus within the city of Edinburgh and our university campus, and each student will select one campus site or display (for example, a plaque, bust, or map) for their focus within the course. The students will maintain the same one site/display over the course of the semester.
Part 2 (weeks 4-10): Covers selected topics in Black Geographies in the lectures and seminars, and students will apply their learnings from lectures, seminars in the tutorials to interpret and think critically with their selected site/display and its histories. The tutorial sessions will introduce students to site-specific practices and support students as they develop their own original (and site-specific) creative student projects. For these sessions, practical tasks will directly guide and support students in their preparation and progression, such as writing fieldnotes at their site; gathering research and background into their site's history, usage and dynamics; analysing examples of Black artists¿ site-specific practices; and experimenting and testing out selected spatial practices.
No previous knowledge or experience in the histories of enslavement, colonial empire, arts/creative practice is required; however, students should bring a willingness to learn and experiment. For students without previous knowledge about the histories of enslavement and colonial imperialism, resources will be available.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | This course is open to 3rd and 4th year students. This course is open to all university students, but priority will be given to students on the Geography Degree Programmes. Students from other programmes may be able to join if there is space. Please contact geoset.ug.drummond@ed.ac.uk to check availability. |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 40 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 9,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 18,
Fieldwork Hours 5,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
164 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Selected Site / Display Essay (30%):
- In a 1000-word essay, students will presence the their selected site/display¿s connections to enslavement, colonisation, or other aspects of Black histories, alongside a positionality reflection and the student's relation to the site.
- Use of AI Tools is Not Permitted: Academic integrity is a core principle of research and academic practice. All submitted work must be your own. AI tools (e.g., ELM) must not be used for this assessment. Unauthorised use of AI may constitute academic misconduct.
- Coursework Extensions: Extensions are permitted for this assessment. Please review the guidance on the Registry Services website and apply via MyEd.
- Extra Time Learning Adjustments: Students with Extra Time Learning Adjustments may request additional time for this assessment. Applications should be made using the Extra Time Learning Adjustment (ETA) tool, available via the Disability Support page in MyEd.
Site-Specific Practice and Reflective Essay (70%):
- In a 2500-word essay, students present their creative project (site-specific practice). In their essay, they will provide evidence of activity (fieldnotes, images, recording etc), they critically analyze how their practice deploys a Black methodology, and they reflect on their experience developing their practice from their positionality and from University of Edinburgh campus as a Black geographic location.
- Use of AI Tools is Not Permitted: Academic integrity is a core principle of research and academic practice. All submitted work must be your own. AI tools (e.g., ELM) must not be used for this assessment. Unauthorised use of AI may constitute academic misconduct.
- Coursework Extensions: Extensions are permitted for this assessment. Please review the guidance on the Registry Services website and apply via MyEd.
- Extra Time Learning Adjustments: Students with Extra Time Learning Adjustments may request additional time for this assessment. Applications should be made using the Extra Time Learning Adjustment (ETA) tool, available via the Disability Support page in MyEd.
Formative Assessments:
- Week 3 - Positionality Workshop: In this tutorial workshop, students critically unpack their positionalities and how it orients their engagement with Blackness and Black Geographies.
- Week 9 - Student Project Presentation: Students submit a 5-minute recorded presentation on developing site-specific practice and then provide peer-to-peer feedback to two student colleagues. Student shares their intended project, explaining how the practice is site-specific, outlining the Black geographic methodology they intend to use, and how it responds to the politics of their site, with visual/sound/performed/written example from initial research.
Course Pass Requirements:
Students must attain an overall mark of 40% (or above) in order to pass the course.
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| Feedback |
Students will receive both oral and written feedback in the course. Written feedback and marks will be provided for summative assessments, and oral feedback provided for summative assessments. Students will be able to request meetings to discuss the feedback provided on their assessments. The class will also be provided with general feedback on their assessments. Feedback will focus both on elements of students¿ work that were effective, as well as strategies for future improvement. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Recognise how race and racialisation contribute to human geographical thought, study and knowledge production.
- Explain how the global and racial production of Blackness, through enslavement and colonial imperialism, shapes a particular geographical setting.
- Analyse everyday life using key theories and concepts in Black geographies.
- Apply a critical spatial analysis to a real-world setting site using an established Black geographic methodology of inquiry.
- Produce a critical and creative practice that applies Black Geographic theory in a real-world setting, articulates its relevance and appropriateness, and demonstrates reflection on one's positionality.
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Reading List
Adams, T. E., & Jones, S. H. (2013). Performing identity, critical reflexivity, and community: The hopeful work of studying ourselves and others. Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 9(2), 1-5.
Bledsoe, A., & Wright, W. J. (2019). The anti-Blackness of global capital. Environment and Planning D: Society and space, 37(1), 8-26.
BOCA Bienal (2021). Grada Kilomba, O Barco / The Boat | BoCA 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7vSm5DLgDs
Bruno, T. (2022). Ecological memory in the biophysical afterlife of slavery. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 1-11.
CARICUK (2021). Dreading the Map. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wnfd4HRMn3M&t
CARICUK (2021). Walking Old Lands, Drawing New Lines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf4ccxt8vgU
Cesaire, S. (2018). The Great Camouflage. Verso Books Blog. https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/3936-the-great-camouflage
Combahee River Collective (1974). Black Feminist Statement.
Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialism Legacy Review Group (2022). Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialism Legacy: Report and Recommendations. Edinburgh: Edinburgh City Council.
Edinburgh Global (2024). UNCOVERED. https://global.ed.ac.uk/uncovered
Fanon, F. (2015). The Fact of Blackness. Postcolonial studies: An Anthology, 15(32), 2-40.
Gambura, Tanatsei (2023). Nzira Yeparuware (Path Upon A Rock). Centre for Research Collections, University of Edinburgh. [sound recordings]
Gilmore, R. W. (2022). Abolition Geography and the Problem of Innocence. In: Abolition geography: Essays towards liberation. Verso Books.
Guerin, A. (2023). Matter and memory: Black feminist poetics and performance in Berlin, Germany. Meridians, 22(1), 115-145.Hare, N. (1970). Black Ecology. The Black Scholar, 1(6), 2-8.
Harrod, T. and Millns, R. (2017). The Caribbean Tradition of Jab Jab. NOWNESS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33vaMyn_JAw
Hartman, S. (2019). A Note on Method. In: Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments. New York: Serpentine Press.
Johnson, L. K. (1976). Jamaican rebel music. Race & Class, 17(4), 397-412.
Johnson, L. K. (1985). Sonny's Lettah (Anti-sus Poem). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKt2piV6U6s
Kohl, E., & McCutcheon, P. (2015). Kitchen table reflexivity: Negotiating positionality through everyday talk. Gender, Place & Culture, 22(6), 747-763.
Koplowitz, S. (2022). On Site: Methods for Site-Specific Performance Creation. Oxford University Press.
Lelliott, K.L. (2020). More than a Four Hundred Year Event. PARSE Journal. Issue 10 (Migration). Online. https://parsejournal.com/article/a-more-than-four-hundred-year-long-event/
Macharia, K. (2016). On being area-studied: a litany of complaint. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 22(2), 183-190.
Matsipa, M. (2017). Woza! Sweetheart! On Braiding Epistemologies on Bree Street. Thesis Eleven, 141(1), 31-48.
McKittrick, K. (2021). Dear Science and Other Stories. Durham: Duke University Press.
Moulton, A. A. (2023). Towards the arboreal side-effects of marronage: Black geographies and ecologies of the Jamaican forest. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 6(1), 3-23.
Noxolo, P. (2022). Geographies of race and ethnicity 1: Black geographies. Progress in Human Geography, 46(5), 1232-1240.
Ogude, J. (2022). ¿Aesthetics of the Earth¿ 1: African Literature as a Witness to Post-colonial Ecology. In Environmental Humanities of Extraction in Africa (pp. 93-104). Routledge.
Philip, M. N. (2008). Zong!: as told to the author by Setaey Adamu Boateng. Wesleyan University Press.
Philogene Heron, A. (2022). Goodnight Colston. Mourning Slavery: Death Rites and Duppy Conquering in a Circum-Atlantic City. Antipode, 54(4), 1251-1276.
Roane, J. T. (2018). Plotting the Black Commons. Souls, 20(3), 239-266.
Sharpe, C. (2019). Beauty is a method. e-flux journal, 105, 1-3.
Smith, C., Davies, A., & Gomes, B. (2021). In front of the world: Translating Beatriz Nascimento. Antipode, 53(1), 279-316.
Sobande, F. and hill, l. (2023). Black Oot Here: Dreams O Us. Self-published graphic novel.
Télémaque, N. (2021). Annotating Black Joy on the White City state. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 46(4), 810-814.
Towne, S. (2023). A Black Geographic Reverie and Reckoning in Ink and Form. The Black Geographic: Praxis, Resistance, Futurity, 287-321. Durham: Duke University Press.
Whittle, A. (2017). Celestial Meditations, II.
Whittle, A. (2023). The Axe Forgets, But the Tree Remembers. Wasafiri, 38(2), 54-67.
Williams, L. (2020). African Caribbean residents of Edinburgh in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Kalfou, 7(1), 42-49.
Wynter, S. (2003). Unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: Towards the human, after man, its overrepresentation¿An argument. CR: The new centennial review, 3(3), 257-337.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
1. Research and Enquiry: Integrate knowledge gained from course materials to increase understanding of key principles and concepts in Black Geographies, and apply these to real-world context.
2. Personal and Intellectual Autonomy: Through practical tasks, students will use independent thinking and document their original ideas through creative forms of expression and succinct critical analysis.
3. Personal Effectiveness: Coordinate work and time management to meet course deadlines.
4. Communication: Develop communication skills (oral, written, creative expressions) to articulate complex ideas and arguments through clear, structured work. |
| Special Arrangements |
This course is open to 3rd and 4th year students. This course is open to all university students, but priority will be given to students on the Geography Degree Programmes. Students from other programmes may be able to join if there is space. Please contact geoset.ug.drummond@ed.ac.uk to check availability.
No previous knowledge or experience in the histories of enslavement, colonial empire, arts/creative practice is required; however, students should bring a willingness to learn and experiment. For students without previous knowledge about the histories of enslavement and colonial imperialism, resources will be available. |
| Keywords | Black Geographies,Race and Racialisation,Cultural Geographies,Social Justice,Critical-Creative |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Victoria Okoye
Tel:
Email: Victoria.Okoye@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Leigh Corstorphine
Tel: (0131 6)50 9847
Email: lcorstor@ed.ac.uk |
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