Geography

Geographies of Race and Racisms, Injustice, Difference and Identity

Module code: L022GRS
Level 6
30 credits in spring semester
Teaching method: Workshop
Assessment modes: Coursework, Essay

This module considers 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 module will engage with a range of theoretical tools with which to conceptualise such differences. This includes space, place, embodiment, intersectionality, essentialism vs non-essentialism, representation, non-representational theory).

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.

By the end of the module, you’ll have developed a critical understanding of different social, cultural and political issues arising in research on the geographies of race, racism, difference and identity. And you'll be able to apply such understandings to an in-depth case study of your own choosing.

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