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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2020/2021

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Geosciences : Postgraduate Courses (School of GeoSciences)

Postgraduate Course: Disasters and Development (PGGE11244)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Geosciences CollegeCollege of Science and Engineering
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThe course will introduce the students to the human dimension of disasters. It covers crucial concepts drawing from critical, politico-economic, feminist and technocratic perspectives on vulnerability and root-causes of disasters, and people¿s capacities and response in the context of core developmental issues. It enables students to develop a critical perspective on vulnerability and disaster risk in connection with development failures, global inequalities and climate governance. It also encourages reflection on the management of disasters through technocratic disaster risk reduction approaches and policy.

Post-colonial, socio-political, cultural and economic factors are explored to account for disaster risk and adaptation to climate change, with a focus on the global South. The course also emphasises the policy outcome of contemporary theoretical debates around disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The course is based on lectures and tutorials featuring participatory activities (e.g. role games, group work, student -led discussions) designed around case studies.
Course description The course will introduce the students to the human dimension of disasters. It covers crucial concepts drawing from critical, politico-economic, feminist and technocratic perspectives on vulnerability and root-causes of disasters, and people¿s capacities and response in the context of core developmental issues. Post-colonial, socio-political, cultural and economic factors are explored to account for disaster risk and adaptation to climate change, with a focus on the global South. The course also emphasises the policy outcome of contemporary theoretical debates around disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The course is based on lectures and tutorials featuring participatory activities (e.g. role games, group work, student -led discussions) designed around case studies.

Week 1: Introduction to the course/historical overview: Why Disaster and Development?
Week 2: Theoretical framings and genealogy of the concepts of hazard and disaster
Week 3: From sustainable development to climate security
Week 4: Resilience: Critical perspectives
Week 5: The politics of adaptation and vulnerability reduction
Week 6: Intersectionality and its discontent
Week 7: Environmental displacement
Week 8: Climate governance and Disaster Risk Reduction: practitioner perspectives (Keynote speaker t.b.c)
Week 9: Limits to adaptation
Week 10: Case-study poster presentations
Week 11: Synthesis: Building a critical framework for disasters research
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Detailed knowledge and understanding of multiple theories used within the hazards, environment/society, and development geography subfields within human geography.
  2. Detailed knowledge and understanding of the key concepts of vulnerability and resilience as they pertain to economic development.
  3. Critical understanding of hazard perceptions at the individual, community, institutional and societal scales.
  4. Critical thinking about prevailing policies, 'common wisdom' and stereotypes about hazard response, planning and reconstruction.
Reading List
INDICATIVE READING LIST:
Adger, N. 2006. Vulnerability. Global Environmental Change, 16: 268-281.
Beck, U. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.
Bassett, T. J., Fogelman, C. 2013. Déjà vu or something new? The adaptation concept in the climate change literature. Geoforum. 48(1), 42-53.
Bettini, G. & Gioli G. (2016) Waltz with Development: Insights on the developmentalization of climate-induced migration. Migration and Development 5(2): 171-189.
Castree, N and B. Braun (eds.) Social Nature: theory, practice, and politics. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 170-188.
Collins, T. W. 2009. The production of unequal risk in hazardscapes: an explanatory framework applied to disaster at the US-Mexico border. Geoforum. 40(4): 589-601.
Cutter, S. L. 2006. Hazards, Vulnerability and Environmental Justice. London: Earthscan.
Demeritt, D., 2001. The construction of global warming and the politics of science. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 91 (2), 307¿337.
Dove, M. and M. H. Khan, 1995. Competing Constructions of Calamity: The Case of the May 1991 Bangladesh Cyclone. Population and Environment 16(5)445-471.
Grove, K. (2014) Agency, affect, and the immunological politics of disaster resilience. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32: 240 ¿ 25.
Hewitt, K. 1997. Regions of Risk: a geographical introduction to disasters. London, UK: Longman.
Hulme, M., 2008. Geographical work at the boundaries of climate change. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 33, 5-11.
IPCC (2012) Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation, http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/
IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (2014) http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/
Kasperson, R. E., O. Renn, P. Slovic, H. S. Brown, J. Emel, R. Goble, J. X. Kasperson, and S. Ratick. 1988. The social amplification of risk: a conceptual framework. Risk Analysis 8:177-87.
Murray, M. J. 2009. Fire and ice: unnatural disasters and the disposable urban poor in post-apartheid Johannesburg. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 33(1): 165-192.
Mustafa, D. 2005. The production of an urban hazardscape in Pakistan: modernity, vulnerability and the range of choice. The Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 95(3): 566-586.
Mustafa, D., G. Gioli, S. Qazi, R. Waraich, A. Rehman and R. Zahoor 2015. Gendering flood early warning systems: the case of Pakistan. Environmental Hazards. DOI: 10.1080/17477891.2015.1075859
Pelling (2011) Adaptation to Climate Change: From Resilience to Transformation, London: Routledge.
Reid, J. (2012) ¿The Disastrous and Politically Debased Subject of Resilience,¿ Development Dialogue 58: 67¿80.
Sultana, F. 2010, ¿Living in Hazardous Waterscapes: Gendered Vulnerabilities and Experiences of Floods and Disasters¿ Environmental Hazards 9(1): 43-53.
Taylor, M. 2014. The Political Ecology of Climate Change Adaptation: Livelihoods, Agrarian Change and the Conflicts of Development. Routledge: Milton Park, UK.
UNISDR (2015) Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 http://www.unisdr.org/we/inform/publications/43291
Wisner, B., P. Blaikie, T. Cannon, I. Davis (2004) At Risk: natural hazards, people¿s vulnerability and disasters. London: Routledge
Wisner, B. Gaillard, JC., and Kelman, I. (2012) Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction, London: Routledge.


Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Not entered
KeywordsDisasters,Development,Hazards,Risks,Environment
Contacts
Course organiserDr Giovanna Gioli
Tel:
Email: g.giolo@bathspa.ac.uk
Course secretaryMrs Paula Escobar
Tel: (0131 6)50 2543
Email: paula.escobar@ed.ac.uk
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