KE5006 - P/political Geographies

You will learn through lectures and seminars/reading groups. These will be 2 hour long sessions and will run alternately throughout semester one and semester two. The lectures will allow you to learn and review key theories, concepts and contemporary issues examined by political geographers and the seminars will allow you to critically discuss key readings relevant to those theories, concepts and issues. These more interactive sessions will allow you to learn through group work and peer to peer discussion whilst guided by your tutor. Both lectures and seminars will reference a range of academic, media and policy sources allowing you to understand the importance of the mechanisms of knowledge production in constructing political realities. There will also be seminar sessions devoted to the methods required to complete all three assignments. All your learning will be supported through resources made available on the module ELP.

Support will include directed reading from the lectures, feedback and directed tasks from tutors during small-group seminars/reading groups. Ongoing support will be provided to help with the development of assignments and specialist sessions will run across the module focussed on how to approach each of the assignments methodologically. Your tutors will provide an open door policy in office hours. All your learning will be supported through resources made available on the module ELP.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. Online reading lists (provided after enrolment) give you access to your reading material for your modules. The Library works in partnership with your module tutors to ensure you have access to the material that you need.

Knowledge & Understanding:
• MLO 1: You will evaluate the impact and significance of geographical scale on a range of political processes.
• MLO 2: You will demonstrate an understanding of the ways in which spatial relations are an important feature of political phenomena through critical evaluation and analysis.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
• MLO 3: You will explain the merits of contrasting and contested theories and policies.
• MLO 4: You will generate informed and reasoned arguments through the application of qualitative analysis to a range of secondary sources.

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
• MLO 5: You will demonstrate informed concern about the Earth and its people through an understanding of the impact of political processes and practices on a range of social groups.

There are two elements of summative assessment for this module.

The first of these is an essay submitted towards the end of semester one (50%) which will ask you to critically analyze the politics of representational practices in the media. This will be done with reference to appropriate theories, concepts and approaches discussed in the module. (MLOs 1, 2, 4, 5)

The second element (50%) is an essay and will be submitted in semester two. This assessment asks you to critically examine the competing ideas and theories underpinning the development of a specific policy/piece of legislation mentioned in the module. In so doing you will be asked to employ a form of discourse analysis. (MLOs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Formative assessment will take place in your seminars in throughout the year where your tutor will provide regular feedback on the reading based discussion.

Feedback is available to you on an informal basis through all taught sessions, either on a one to one or group basis. Written feedback is supplied on all summatively assessed work.

None

Political geographies will enable you to build on Introduction to Human Geography at level 4, by exploring in much more depth this important sub-disciplinary area of Human Geography. Through an exploration of topical contemporary political issues at a range of scales you will discover the crucial relationship between spatial and political relations. You will be given the opportunity to both reflect upon the contribution made to political geography debates by selected scholars and to think about how you can use qualitative research methods to investigate how political issues are presented via the media, but also how policies are the outcome of contested interests, ideas and theories.