POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

This course is part of the Bachelor's Degree Programme in Linguistic and Cultural Mediation. It aims to provide students with the main conceptual and methodological tools proper of critical human geography to bring together and analyse the territorial and power dynamics which shape the processes of “mediation” between subjects speaking in different languages and belonging to different cultures. Critical geographical approach is aimed to emphasise how culture, power, economy and space shape social interrelations and interactions, discussing the main themes and topics within and across political and economic geography.

The module objective is to promote the idea that geography enhances critical and interdisciplinary thinking, helping move towards transformative choices and rebalance the human-nature relationship.

1. Knowledge and comprehension
- learn how contemporary geography approaches and theorises concepts and topics such as place, territory, power, borders, race and ethnicity, nation-state, identity and otherness, capitalism, production, consumption, nature as a resource, multinational corporations, uneven development, mobility, gender
- develop an awareness of how geographical context and geographical imaginations shape social interactions and relations
- to know some basic techniques and methodologies applied to the critical research
2. Capacity to apply knowledge and comprehension
- to acquire and apply conceptual terminology related to political, economic, and critical development geographies, in order to analyse socio-cultural practices made visible through visual-textual devices, grasping the rhetoric and discursive aspects of geographical imaginations and their representations
- to recognise local-global interactions, power asymmetries and their spatialities, and the sharing of visions and practices at different scales
- to acquire methods applied to the study of cultural-economic phenomena
3. Acquired skills
- to be able to critically discuss socio-cultural phenomena in a local-global relational context, taking into account political and economic spatial entanglements, and post/decolonial worldviews
- to develop a critical approach to the literature and the digital sources
- to reinterpret the concepts in a logic, coherent and synthetic style, using specific linguistic and semantic register and terminology, and conduct individual and group work.

General knowledge of the earth geography. Ability to read basic cartography (Atlas).

The course will provide some elements useful to narrow approaches and key concepts of political-economic geography developed in the Anglo-American geographical debate, with particular reference to the human-environment relationship in a critical cultural perspective. In particular, the following topics will be addressed: methodologies of geographical research; the human-environment relationship in geo-economic terms (territory, regions, networks), in terms of development (sustainability, green economy, post-development), landscapes of power (control, resistance, transgression), and commodification (nature as a resource, capitalisms); fundamental concepts of population geography; mobility and borders; the cultural elements that characterise the different populations (beliefs, values, sense of belonging, sense of place); economic activities, transport and communications; urbanisation and urban-rural relationship; geopolitics and the body as a place.

M. Jones, R. Jones, M. Whitehead, M. Woods, D. Dixon, M. Hannah, Introduzione alla geografia politica. Spazi, luoghi, politiche (a cura di G. Pettenati, R. Sommella, A. Vanolo), UTET, 2021 (selected chapters explained on moodle).
C. Certomà, S. Conti, P. Giaccaria, U. Rossi, C. Salone, Geografia economica e politica, Pearson, 2022 (selected chapters explained on moodle).
E. Bignante, F. Celata, A. Vanolo, Geografie dello sviluppo. Una prospettiva critica e globale, UTET, 2022 (selected chapters explained on moodle).

All additional readings are available on moodle.

Students will be required to complete a set of diverse tasks and online assignments in Moodle. Response papers should be uploaded on Moodle and have a length of 300-500 words. These amount to 20% of the final grade.
The exam consists of writing a research paper of approximately 10 pages, based on one or more topics discussed in class, to be completed at home and submitted via Moodle to the teacher (80% of the final grade). The precise instructions for writing the essay will be explained in class and written in a document which will be uploaded on the course Moodle page.

Lectures, seminar, experiential learning aimed at understanding the proposed themes. Group work.

Italian

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