| Module Identifier | GG39820 | ||
| Module Title | SPACE, POWER AND SOCIETY | ||
| Academic Year | 2000/2001 | ||
| Co-ordinator | Dr Tim Cresswell | ||
| Semester | Semester 2 | ||
| Course delivery | Lecture | 14 Hours 14x1 hour lectures taught within a 10x2 hour timetable slot. | |
| Seminars / Tutorials | 4 Hours | ||
| Assessment | Exam | 2 Hours A 2 hour seen final exam paper, answering two questions from four. | 50% |
| Essay | A research essay of 2,500 words to be submitted in week 11. Late submissions subject to a departmental penalty of 5% points per day. Both elements to be completed to obtain a pass; mark based on the aggregate performance. | 50% | |
| Resit assessment | Resit: For a condoned (medical grounds) non-completion of examination or coursework involves the completion of the missing component(s) for the full marks on dates set in the Supplementary Examination period. Resit due to aggregate failure or non-completion of part of the assessment requires reexamination of each component if marks of<35% in both were obtained, or re-examination or re-submission of the failed component (examination of assignments(s) to obtain a maximum mark of 35% for the module). | ||
Module outline
In this course we will examine the geographical basis of social power - its creation, maintenance and transformation. Examples will range from contemporary Los Angeles to Soviet Russia to rural Tanzania and from the scale of the household to the scale of the Nation. The dialectic relationship between society and space expressed in the idea of "spatiality" will be central to the course. We will see how spaces of one kind or another are created in order to produce power and particular kinds of relations between social groups. Examples include the architectural design of country houses, the spaces of Berber huts in Algeria, the production of public space in modern cities and the 'villigification' of rural communities in Africa and Asia. In addition to an examination of power we will also look at the way space comes into play in the transformation of power through innovative forms of resistance (graffiti, political art, revolution etc.) Through these explorations we will focus on a range of social groups including children, poor people, gay people, disabled people and ethnic minorities. Students will come away from the course with the theoretical tools necessary to understand the variety of relations between space and power and a firm knowledge of the way this works on the ground.
Topics include:
Theorising Space, Place and Power
The socio-spatial dialect
Human Territoriality
Object relations Theory and the Purification of Space.
Geographies of Domination
Bodyspace and Power
homes, Offices, Schools
Suburbs, Neighborhoods, Communities
Modern Urban Planning - Los Angeles, Paris, Brasilia, Letchworth
Modern Rural Planning - Tanzania, Soviet Union, British Gypsies
The Nation, Refugees and Asylum
Space and Resistance
Theorising Deviance, Transgression and Resistance
The Politics of Mobility
Transformation and Appropriation - Graffiti, Public Art, Subculture, The Paris Commune.
Geographies of Protest - Greenham Common, Protest in India
Social Transformation, Soft Boundaries and the Politics of Difference
Module Aims
To develop a thorough understanding and appreciation of the role space and place play in the creation, maintenance and transformation of power relations.
Module objectives / Learning outcomes
On completion of this module students will have gained a thorough understanding of the role of space in the creation, maintenance and transformation of social relations in a number of contexts and scales from around the world. In addition they will have an extensive knowledge of theoretical approaches to space and society. Finally, students will have developed their ability to critically engage with both theory and the world.
Reading Lists
Books
Cresswell, T.. (1996)
In Place/Out of Place: Geography, Ideology and Transgression.. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press
Pile, S. and M. Keith, Eds.. (1997)
Geographies of Resistance. London, Routledge
Sack, R.. (1986)
Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
Scott, J.. (1985)
Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, Yale University Press
Scott, J. (1998)
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT., Yale University Press
Sibley, D.. (1995)
Geographies of Exclusion: Society and Difference in the West. London, Routledge