Geography

Geographies of Race and Racisms, Injustice, Difference and Identity

Module code: L022GRA
Level 6
30 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Workshop
Assessment modes: Essay, Coursework

On this module, you’ll explore geographical research on ‘race’ and ‘racisms’.

You’ll focus on what the axes of injustice, inequality, difference and identity influence in everyday geographies. You’ll engage with a range of theory and ways of thinking about such differences, including:

  • space
  • place
  • embodiment
  • intersectionality
  • essentialism vs. non-essentialism
  • representation
  • nonrepresentational theory.

By the end of the module, you’ll understand different social, cultural and political issues arising in research on the geographies of race, racism, difference and identity. You’ll also be able to apply your understanding to an in-depth case study of your choosing.

Themes 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. You’ll explore intersections of ethnicity, identity, ‘race’ and the theorisation of geographies of whiteness. Case study examples will be from published research in Geography, Sociology, Cultural Studies and beyond to assist 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