Geography

Geographies of Race and Racisms, Injustice, Difference and Identity

Module code: L022GRAID
Level 6
30 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Workshop
Assessment modes: Not yet finalised

The module will consider geographical research on ‘race’ and ‘racisms’. There will be a focus on what the axes of injustice, inequality, difference and identity influence in everyday geographies. The course will engage with a range of theoretical tools with which to conceptualise such differences (including space, place, embodiment, intersectionality, essentialism v. non-essentialism, representation, nonrepresentational theory). By the end of the module, students will be able to demonstrate critical understanding of different social, cultural and political issues arising in research on the geographies of race, racism, difference and identity, and will be able to apply such understandings to an in-depth case study of their own choosing. Themes will include: Race and the politics of landscape (public space, the national park, the city); Race and geographies of the street; Race and Black histories; Race at the Museum; Race and Visual Culture; Race and the politics of the environment; Race and Environmental Justice (North and South); Race and the politics of Indigeneity. This experience of race in the cultural politics of the everyday is routed through histories of empire, land, earth, identity and the body. The intersections of ethnicity, identity, 'race' and the theorisation of geographies of whiteness are explored. The module uses case study examples in published research in Geography, Sociology, Cultural Studies and beyond to focus on the specificities of racialisation and identity.

Module learning outcomes

  • Define ‘race’ and ‘racisms,’ locating these definitions in published academic literatures.
  • Locate the roots of ‘race’ thinking in histories of geography, anthropology, scientific thought and sociology.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of geographies of race and racism in case studies in academic literatures.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the intersections of ‘race’, gender, nation, class, environment and regimes of colonialism