Module POC3136 for 2021/2
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
POC3136: Field Trip
This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.
Please note that this module is only delivered on the Penryn Campus.
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, particularly in response to students’ own research interests, it is envisaged that the taught syllabus will cover at least some of the following material, in a mix of seminars and methods workshops before and after the field trip and through students’ extensive self-directed study.
The precise location of the field trip will vary from year to year and will be subject to UK Government travel restrictions. Should the trip not be deliverable as specified (e.g. in Online Module Selection or marketing) then you will be notified of the alternative delivery that nonetheless meetings the ILO of the module.
- Politics in Place: Cities, Urbanism, and Urbanization
- Whose Politics and Whose Place?: Dominant Narratives and Critical Orientations
- Fixes and Flows: The Complex Economies of Cities
- Postcolonial, Settler-Colonial, and Decolonial Cities
- The Aesthetic City: Feeling Sensing Living Breathing Wearing Creating Politics
- Building the Good Life: the Built Landscape
Field Trip:
A six day field trip, including visits to iconic sites, sites of community differentiation and determination, and sites of aesthetic enactments such as museums . Content of the field trip will vary from year to year, depending on the current political climate.
Methods Workshop 1: Field Work Ethics and Public-Engaged Research
An introduction to power relations in politics research, reviewing key concepts such as voluntary informed consent, research bias, anonymity, confidentiality and the dignity of research participation. Focuses on the politics of “public” research, from engaging with community organizations and marginalised people to structuring interview questions and participating in shared knowledge production.
Methods Workshop 2: Ethnography, Data Diversity and Research Reflexivity
A seminar on interdisciplinary approaches to the politics of ethnographic research, including participant observations, ethnographic walking, photography/visual recording, rhythmanalysis and other methods. Students will learn about using multiple forms of data gathering and keeping effective records of fieldwork.
*Training provided through the methods workshops is mandatory for participation in the field trip. Participation will be monitored, and those students who miss the seminar will have to retake it.
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 | 238 | 40 |
...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 | The module will be taught through 6 seminars of 3 hours each, and 2 methods workshops of 2 hours each |
| Placement/Study Abroad | 40 | The module will include one field trip under staff supervision. Hours include field research, keeping field guide, and participating in field-based seminar discussions. |
| Guided Independent Study | 60 | Private study reading and preparing for seminars/workshops |
| Guided Independent Study | 60 | Private study guided and independent research around field trip sites and thematics, before and after trip |
| Guided Independent Study | 118 | Researching, creating/writing assessments: planning and writing presentation, portfolio and critical essay. |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
How this Module is Assessed
In the tables below, you will see reference to 'ILO's. An ILO is an Intended Learning Outcome - see Aims and Learning Outcomes for details of the ILOs for this module.
Formative Assessment
A formative assessment is designed to give you feedback on your understanding of the module content but it will not count towards your mark for the module.
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team Formative: Seminar Plan (4-8 students/team) | 10 minutes during office hours + 1-page summary | 1, 3, 4-7 | Written Feedback |
| Individual Formative: Ethics, Methods and Research Reflection | 500 words + 5 citations | 2, 4-7 | Peer and Written Feedback |
Summative Assessment
A summative assessment counts towards your mark for the module. The table below tells you what percentage of your mark will come from which type of assessment.
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 80 | 0 | 20 |
...and this table provides further details on the summative assessments for this module.
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team-led Seminar (4-8 students/team) | 20 | 45 minutes per team | 1, 3, 4-9 | Written Feedback |
| Methods Portfolio | 30 | 4 pieces of writing + visual documentation (2,000 words total) | 1-10 | Written Feedback |
| Critical Research Essay (that explores a problem or question in contemporary politics using the field site as a locus of analysis. Essays should engage seminar and workshop themes and incorporate field research from the trip.) | 50 | 4,000 words | 1-10 | Written Feedback |
| 0 | ||||
| 0 | ||||
| 0 |
Re-assessment
Re-assessment takes place when the summative assessment has not been completed by the original deadline, and the student has been allowed to refer or defer it to a later date (this only happens following certain criteria and is always subject to exam board approval). For obvious reasons, re-assessments cannot be the same as the original assessment and so these alternatives are set. In cases where the form of assessment is the same, the content will nevertheless be different.
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team-led Seminar | Seminar plan + presentation slides and speaking notes | 1, 3, 4-9 | August/September reassessment period |
| Methods Portfolio | Methods Portfolio 4 pieces of writing + visual documentation (2,000 total) | 1-10 | August/September reassessment period |
| Critical Research Essay | Critical Research Essay (4,000 words) | 1-10 | August/September reassessment period |
Re-assessment notes
Reassessment of the presentation will take the form of a seminar plan, presentation slides and speaking notes.
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
Seminars:
Amin, Ash. 2013. The Urban Condition: A Challenge to Social Science. Public Culture 25 (2): 201-208.
Amin, A. and N. Thrift. 2002. Cities: Reimagining the urban. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Boudreau, Julie-Anne. 2017. Global Urban Politics: Informalization of the State. Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Brenner, N. 2013. Theses on urbanization. Public Culture 25 (1): 85-114.
Closs Stephens, A. 2010. Citizenship without community: Time, design and the city. Citizenship Studies. 14 (1): 31-46.
Coward, M. 2009. Urbicide: The Politics of Urban Destruction. New York: Routledge.
Curtis, Simon. 2016. Global Cities and Global Order. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Diouf, Mamadou and Rosalind Fredericks, eds. 2015. The Arts of Citizenship in African Cities: Infrastructures and Spaces of Belonging. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Farías, I. and Bender, T., eds. 2010. Urban assemblages: How actor-network theory changes urban research . New York: Routledge.
Jacobs, Jane. 2012. Urban geographies I: Still thinking cities relationally. Progress in Human Geography 36 (3): 412–422
King, AD. 1990. Urbanism, colonialism and the world-economy: cultural and spatial foundations of the world urban system. London: Routledge.
Lefebvre, Henri. 2003 [1970]. The urban revolution, trans. R. Bononno. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Low, N. 1991. Planning, politics and the state. Abingdon: Unwin Hyman Ltd. Part I: Planning practice and political theory pp 11-51.
Magnusson, W. 2011. Politics of urbanism: Seeing like a city. London: Routledge. (selections TBD)
McLean, Heather. 2017. In praise of chaotic research pathways: A feminist response to planetary urbanization. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 0(0) 1–9 DOI: 10.1177/0263775817713751
Merrifield, A. 2012. The politics of the encounter and the urbanization of the world. City 16 (3): 269-283.
Peake, Linda. 2016. The Twenty-First Century Quest For Feminism And the Global Urban. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 40 (1): 219–227. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12276
Pratt, G. 2017. One hand clapping: Notes towards a methodology for debating planetary urbanization. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 0(0) 1–7 DOI: 10.1177/0263775817716555
Robinson J. 2002. Global and world cities: A view from off the map. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 26 (3): 531-554
Roy A. 2009. The 21st-century metropolis: New geographies of theory, Regional Studies 43 (6): 819-830. DOI: 10.1080/00343400701809665
Sassen S. 2010. The Global City: Strategic Site, New Frontier. Accumulation by Dispossession: Transformative Cities in the New Global Order ed. Swapna Banerjee-Guha. New Delhi: SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ldt.
Sennett, Richard. 1969. Classic essays on the culture of cities. New York: Appleton Century Crofts.
Wekerle G. 2004. Framing feminist claims for urban citizenship. Mapping Women, Making Politics: Feminist Perspectives on Political Geography ed. LA Staehali, E Kofman, LJ Peake. New York and Oxford: Routledge. 245-259.
Methods Workshops:
Calvey, D. (2008) The Art and Politics of Covert Research: Doing Situated Ethics in the Field. Sociology, 42, 5, 905-918.
Iphofen, R. (2009) Ethical Decision Making in Social Research. A practical guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mertens, D.M. and Ginsberg, P.E. (Eds) (2008) The Handbook of Social Research Ethics. London: Sage.
Munro, E. (2008) Research Governance, Ethics and Access: A Case Study Illustrating the New Challenges Facing Social Researchers. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 11 (5), 429-439.
Israel, M., and Hay, I. (2006) Research Ethics for Social Scientists. London: Sage.
Van Maanen, J. (1983) The Moral Fix: On the Ethics of Fieldwork, in R. E. Emerson (ed) Contemporary Field Research: A Collection of Readings, Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
