Geography

This course examines the urbanization context, the modalities of development of cities, and the role of change agents. Topics include the theoretical and conceptual foundations that support urban geography as a subdiscipline of human geography. Students analyze different urban theories, the origin of cities, and the global context of urbanization.

The course's main topics are demography and epidemiology, with a special focus on population ageing and migration as important demographical developments in the European Union (EU). Learn to apply epidemiological methods to examine the impact of important demographical developments on public health in the EU. The course consists of three parts. In Part I, demography is introduced and students learn to describe and analyze the extent and causes of population ageing and migration in the EU. In Part II, several core epidemiological concepts and methods are dealt with, including research designs, association measures, bias, effect-modification, validity & reliability, and causal interpretation of research findings. Students familiarize themselves with these concepts by applying them to examine how population ageing and migration impact health in the EU. The role of socio‐economic differences is considered. Next to the exploration of ageing-related diseases (e.g. dementia), the course also introduces reproductive/child health. In Part III, to apply the knowledge from the first two parts to compare and critically appraise preventive measures (e.g. population screening) and public health policies for controlling negative health consequences of population ageing and migration in the EU.

This course provides an understanding of the key concepts underlying Geographical Information Systems (GIS), how Geographical Information (GI) may be defined, measured, structured and represented in a GIS, and the development of skills in the use and application of GIS through practical exercises. The course also covers the role of GI in society; the nature and construction of GI; measurement of location; principles and techniques of spatial data modelling; field-based and object-based conceptualizations of space, and their expression as spatial data structures; and concepts of spatial and non-spatial data retrieval, manipulation and analysis. Hands-on training in GIS will be provided in the laboratory sessions.

The course covers the fundamental concepts of the social geography with the purpose of analyzing the relation between society and the space. Students examine the theoretical and epistemological foundations that support social geography as a sub-discipline of human geography and apply these concepts in empirical studies.

This course covers the politics of development at various geographical scales (urban, national, and international). It also examines how partnerships and negotiations work among various participants who have conflicted, competed, and cooperated throughout the modern history of space/place making. Students learn skills to critically analyze the power relations that exist among different actors involved in development. The course asks “Who governs?” and “Who makes decisions or influences decision-making that leads to the formation of space?” Regarding the influence of decision-making, the course focuses on the politics of policy narratives and environmental discourses. Topics include What is the power in placemaking; Body Politics- Capitalizing, industrializing, and disciplining bodies; Critical Geopolitics; The geopolitics of nuclear weapons and nuclear power; The politics of memory and memory placemaking.  

This course focuses on the design and conduct of qualitative research. It explores the epistemological foundations on which different strands of qualitative research rest, introduces students to a range of techniques for collecting qualitative data, and helps students consider methodological questions related to the conduct of qualitative research. The unit encourages critical thinking about what constitutes the field and data, as well as about issues of ethics, positionality, voice, representation, and the hermeneutic location of records and data.

This course provides students an interdisciplinary introduction to climate change, using approaches from both the social sciences (history, sociology, geography, politics, economics), and the natural sciences (engineering, physics, biology). The course provides a brief look into historical and sociological causes of the climate crisis, followed by both the physical and human consequences. The course has a strong focus on potential solutions, drawing on ideas from engineering and science (renewable technology), and politics, sociology, and economics (social change).  This leaves students with a positive, action-based knowledge base on the context of the climate crisis, and current theories on how to act.

The course is built on the recognition that the key challenges of the Anthropocene are complex, dynamic, and multifaceted and that understanding and tackling these challenges requires working across the boundaries of academic disciplines. Students experience teaching where multiple disciplinary lenses and different approaches come together in dialogue around specific themes (like carbon, energy, water, plastic, or sea level rise). Students examine the interactions between scientific knowledge and economic, political, social, and cultural processes involved in making and tackling of climate and nature crises. Students learn how taking action for more sustainable planetary futures requires scientific knowledge; collaboration; an openness to different perspectives; a commitment to social justice; and communication.

This course proposes a critical approach to the political geography of Mexico: a political, analytical and denouncing position, which understands that neither geography univocally conditions the political nor is the political foreign to spatialization. It provides theoretical and methodological tools to understand how power is exercised in and from space, and how that exercise has configured Mexican political geography in its historical, corporal and structural dimension. In this framework, the traditional categories of analysis - such as the State, territory, sovereignty or scale - are questioned from an analysis of power that allows to problematize its constitution, its contingency and its spatial production. This course invites one to think about the geographies of power in Mexico not as fixed and neutral expressions, but as fields crossed by violence, desire, inequality and resistance. The analysis starts from the spatial, products of power relations in constant (re)production, tense by daily struggles that seek to dispute the very meaning of what we call geography.

Short-lived, high magnitude extreme events, from meteorite impacts, to volcanic eruptions, fire, and storms, have shaped the surface of the earth throughout its geological history. Increasing population densities in critical locations on our planet (e.g. cities at the foot of volcanoes, on tectonic fault lines, and at the coast) and human impacts on the environment at the local, regional and global scale, however, have altered the likelihood and magnitude of certain types of natural hazards. This has brought the vulnerability of societies to natural hazards into sharp focus over recent decades. In October 2020, the UN Office on Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) reported that, over the past two decades, 1.23 million people had lost their lives in a total of 7,348 ‘disaster events’ that had been recorded globally (with floods (40% of occurrences), storms (28%), earthquakes (8%), and extreme temperatures (6%) as the four most impactful types of hazard). In our efforts to reduce the human and economic impact of such events, an understanding of the reasons for their occurrence, their spatial and temporal variability, the degree to which they are ‘natural’ as opposed to ‘anthropogenic’ as well as past and potential future societal responses to such events is critical. This course addresses the above aspects beginning with an introduction to ‘natural’ hazards and general concepts or risk and vulnerability. The introductory lectures are then followed by lectures, targeted reading and discussion groups. Finally, students explore case studies highlighting past, present, and potential future societal solutions for the mitigation of the impact of natural hazards with guest speakers bringing an applied natural hazard and risk management perspective to this course.