Lecture: 4 hours per week
The course will employ a variety of learning activities, including some of the following: lectures, fieldwork, videos and animations, individual and/or team projects, small group discussions, and map analysis.
- Introduction
- Traditions in social geography
- Different social geography theories
- Social geography and everyday life
- Restructuring society and space
- The body
- "The geography closest in” (Rich, 1986)
- Body as surface
- Body as project
- Cartesian dualism
- Marked bodies: gender, sexualities, race, and disabilities
- Geography of identity and difference
- Definitions and classifications
- Social construction of place
- Social meanings of the built environment
- In place/out of place
- Public/Private Space
- Urban morphology and the social arrangement of cities
- Public space, private space, quasi-public space, and the public realm
- Homelessness and housing
- Regulating sex work
- Urban life
- Urban life in Western places
- The neoliberal city and social life
- Patterns of socio-economic inequality
- Social interaction and community
- Online-offline geographies
- Place and power
- Theories of power and control
- Public institutions and private life
- Governance structures
- Places of exception
- Social justice
- Fear, crime, and disorder
- Geographies of fear and crime
- Role of the built environment
- Neoliberalism and the carceral state
- Race, ethnicity, and ‘the Other’
- Race vs. ethnicity
- Spatial discrimination of racialized groups
- Colonies, enclaves, congregations, and ‘ghettos’
- Nationalism and internal Orientalism
- Colonialism and Indigeneity
- Identity and struggles for place
- Defining agency
- Conflict and transgression
- Place and resistance
- Speaking from the margins
- Spaces of hope
- Social activism and civic responsibility
- Transnational activism
- Online and offline social networks
- ‘The Power of Place’
- Synthesize the concepts, techniques, and theories of social geography.
- Communicate effectively orally, graphically, in writing, and using quantitative methods.
- Describe the development of social geography and explain the alternative paradigms of social geography.
- Explain the concept of the spatial structuring of social differences and inequalities.
- Apply the concepts, methods, and theories to different scales of geographic analysis.
- Describe and analyze the arrangements and patterns of different types of groups within a given society.
- Evaluate the most relevant issues and needs confronting different groups within a given society.
- Describe and analyze the concepts and spatial patterns of social transformation through the collection, interpretation and presentation of relevant geographic data.
An example of an evaluation scheme would be:
| Preparation & class contributions | 15% |
| Quizzes | 15% |
| Project | 25% |
| Field trip | 10% |
| Exams | 35% |
| Total | 100% |
A text or custom course reader may be used. Texts will be updated periodically. Example course texts include:
Anderson, Jon. (2015). Understanding Cultural Geography: Places and Traces, 2nd Edition. London, UK: Routledge.
Browne, Kath; Borisa, Dhiren; Gilmartin, Mary; & Banerjea, Niharika. (2024). Social Geographies: The Basics. London, UK: Routledge.
Del Casino Jr., Vincent; Thomas, Mary; Cloke, Paul; & Panelli, Ruth (editors). (2011). A Companion to Social Geography. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Enos, Ryan. D. (2017). The Space Between Us: Social Geography and Politics. New York, NY; Cambridge.
Oberhauser, Ann M.; Fluri, Jennifer L.; Whitson, Risa; & Mollett, Sharlene. (2017). Feminist Spaces: Gender and Geography in a Global Context. London, UK: Routledge.
Smith, Susan J.; Pain, Rachel; Marston, Sallie A.; & Jones III, John Paul (editors). (2010). The Sage Handbook on Social Geographies. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
The Newcastle Collective. (2021). Social Geographies: An Introduction, edited by Rachel Pain & Peter Hopkins. Newcastle, UK: Rowman & Littlefield.
GEOG 1100 or permission of the instructor
None
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