Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POC2108: Political Geographies: Local to Global

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

Please note that this module is only delivered on the Penryn Campus.

Module Aims

In this module, you will be introduced to critical approaches to the relationship between politics, place, and space, and you will develop analytical tools for engaging the complicated geographies of contemporary politics. We will examine how thinking about politics and geography together generates important areas of research and understanding, in both content and methods. You will learn how modern definitions of space and place helped to constitute the world in the familiar (but contingent) form of domestic politics and international relations, and you will learn about the spread of this form around the world through histories of colonization and settler colonization. You will get to explore the distinctive critical political geographies of the body, the local, the municipal, and the urban; of the state, borders, and diverse boundary practices; and of the international, the world, and the globe. This module provides an essential introduction to critical approaches to modern and contemporary political geography. It will give you the grounding necessary to integrate spatial and place-based analyses into your research and to understand the political stakes of geographical claims and projects.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills	1. Describe and competently assess ways that definitions of politics, space, and place (political geography) give rise to specific forms of subjectivity, identity, community, culture, and economy. 2. Argue for and/or against particular approaches to understanding political geography, on both theoretical and practical grounds. 3. Analyze the political geographies invoked and debated in specific empirical sites or case studies and critically discuss some of the implications of these debates.
Discipline-Specific Skills	4. Synthesize and competently assess two or more related fields of interdisciplinary research. 5. Demonstrate the capacity to extend and revise disciplinary concepts to account for new fields of theoretical and empirical research.
Personal and Key Skills	6. Work independently and in informal groups to engage in spontaneous discussion and defence of arguments in class, to prepare topics for class discussion, and to contribute to a productive classroom. 7. Work independently to research, formulate, write, and present critical analyses that engage an appropriate mix of theoretical and empirical content. 8. Develop a self-reflexive academic practice that integrates reading and research, explores practical or creative modes of expression, and engages productively with peer and instructor feedback.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics, through both theoretical and practical approaches:

Beginning Where We Are

Politics, Space and Place in the Everyday
Approaches to Interdisciplinary Knowing: Methods, Forms, and Practices

Modern Political Geography

The Space of the State and the International
Territory and Place
Borders and Boundaries

“We Have Never Been Modern”: Spaces Against the State

Feminist and Queer Spaces
Coloniality, Racialisation and Post-/Decolonial Political Geographies
Urban Geographies

Contemporary Challenges: Selected Studies in Reterritorialization (different every year)

Migrations, Refugees, Camps, and Sanctuaries
Indigenous Sovereignty Claims
Transnationalism and Social Movements
Anthropocene, Ecology, and Global Climate Change
Spaces of Security: Geopolitics and Urban Geopolitics

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
22	128	0

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	22	11 x 2 hour seminars
Guided Independent Study	48	Private study students are expected to read suggested texts and make notes prior to seminar sessions. More specifically, students are expected to devote approximately: 48 hours to weekly readings and seminar preparation
Guided Independent Study	10	Formative activities and reflecting on assessment feedback
Guided independent study	40	Independent research, reading, and writing
Guided independent study	10	Guidebook preparation and reflection
Guided independent study	20	Critical research essay preparation, editing, peer reviewing

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).