Geography

The course introduces a range of key issues, concepts, principles and methods in environmental management. The major components, processes, and attributes to environmental management are also covered. The roles of civil society, market mechanism and government regulations in environmental management are examined. Real-life examples from Hong Kong, China, and overseas countries are discussed to illustrate how integrated approaches should be applied for identifying optimal options in environmental management decision-making processes. 

How do people understand, experience, and shape place and space? How do space and place interface with difference, identities and groups in day-to-day life? How can we make sense of the social world through a critical lens? How does culture shape, and how is it shaped by, space and place? What are the practices, material artifacts, values and lived experiences that express and reinforce cultures? These are all key questions to social and cultural geography, an exciting and vibrant sub-discipline. This course sets out to examine themes such as place, space, power, difference, culture, and identity and demonstrates the value of a geographical perspective on a range of social and cultural phenomena worldwide. It also deepens students’ critical engagement with theoretical and methodological approaches that underpin contemporary social and cultural geography.

The goal of this course is twofold. First, this course offers insights into the relationship between digital technologies and the city by engaging with ‘smart city,’ ‘surveillance,’ ‘big data,’ and a few other concepts. A range of case studies will be provided to demonstrate the agendas of various technologies, their effects on the material condition and organization of cities, and to evaluate the promises (and failures) of the “technological fix” with respect to social justice and equality. Second, this course introduces the opportunities of digital research in urban studies by offering hands-on experience in using basic Python and data analysis skills to extract and interpret data from social media platforms. Digital skills can be used toward dissertation research or projects at work. No prior knowledge is required.
 

This course offers students a conceptual and geographical grasp of key debates within human geography. Most notably, the course explores how geographers have understood and examined issues of social difference, identity (gender, sexuality - along with race and ethnicity), morals and ethics, bodies and emotions, the geopolitics of nation-states and borders, the politics and process of international migration, and the social geographies of the city. Using a range of contemporary examples from both the Global North and the Global South, the course helps students understand the ways in which geographical debates have shaped our knowledge of culture, place, and politic

This course introduces students to the principles of environmental pollution. Students explore the major types of pollution in air, water, and on land. Students think about the impacts and issues posed by environmental pollution. Finally students reflect on the strategies used to prevent and control environmental pollution.

This course provides a foundational understanding of dynamic oceanography, including both global and regional ocean circulation, ocean–atmosphere interactions, as well as the basic equations used to describe fluid motion. A field-based component, involving embarkation on research vessels, familiarizes students with real working conditions in the marine environment and introduces them to observational techniques and data collection at sea.

This course provides both fundamental and advanced knowledge in chemical oceanography, specifically to describe the chemistry of seawater and to present the processes that control its composition. The course offers a quantitative approach to material transfer processes at environmental interfaces, as well as their interactions with the oceanic biosphere, and details the (bio)geochemical processes responsible for modifying these transfers across time and space. The lectures cover topics such as the chemical composition of seawater, inputs of dissolved and particulate material to the ocean, elemental cycles, gases in seawater and ocean–atmosphere exchanges, redox conditions in the ocean, the use and relevance of stable and radioactive isotopes, particle transfer from the ocean surface to the sediments, and material exchanges between the oceanic crust and seawater. The course is complemented by a field excursion in a coastal environment involving sample collection, as well as tutorials and laboratory practical sessions during which the collected samples are analyzed.

This course provides the tools to develop an analysis when confronted with information related to indicators of spatial disparities and development, such as GDP, HDI, economic growth rates, and others. The course places emphasis on concepts, issues, and challenges—of a social and political nature—associated with understanding how indicators are produced, their roles, their limitations, and their embeddedness within political contexts and ideologies. The course encourage students to formulate well‑reasoned arguments supported by knowledge (literature and examples) and by skills (analysis, reformulation, argumentation) on the theme of spatial disparities and development indicators. It equips students to develop their own critical analysis when faced with information concerning spatial organization, spatial inequalities, and development indicators.

This course approaches the city from an urban geography perspective. It repositions cities as a social construct, i.e., as the result of political, economic, technical, and cultural dynamics. It addresses the internal organization of cities, the mechanisms of differentiation between intra-urban spaces, and the social, political, economic, and environmental issues that this entails. Finally, it provides factual and theoretical knowledge (analytical frameworks, theories, concepts) to move from knowledge of urban facts and dynamics to an understanding of the processes that underlie them. This course opens up further study on intra-urban dynamics: processes of gentrification and impoverishment of territories, functional changes, demographic dynamics; the effects of these dynamics on urban organization and functioning: urban sprawl, spatial segmentation and mobility, theatricalization of city centers; and the construction of public problems: socially constructed identification of certain urban dynamics as problematic and requiring intervention by the authorities of the public powers. A minimum knowledge of the different types of intra-urban spaces (city center, suburbs, peri-urban areas) as well as the different types of cities and their functions is a prerequisite for the course.

This course examines concepts of justice and injustice as they apply to the social, spatial, and environmental realms—and to the intersections between them. It offers a critical exploration of the origins of these notions, the contributions of key thinkers, and the ways in which ideas of justice have circulated, been debated, and been mobilized across academic, social, and political spheres. The course focuses on applying these analytical frameworks to a range of spaces, including metropolitan areas, peripheral territories, and natural (protected) environments, in both the Global North and the Global South. From a methodological perspective, the course introduces students to actor-based analysis, critical source evaluation, and the processes of translating concepts and debates between Anglophone and Francophone academic and activist contexts.