Geography

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.

This course studies the relationship between energy and urbanization, taking a global approach that gives pride of place to cities in the Global South and emphasizing a socio-material perspective and an understanding of the social practices and hierarchies that structure cities. Furthermore, energy governance is a major issue in urban policy today, particularly in the context of ecological transition. Therefore, it studies urban energy, taking into account the long term and also looking ahead to the future. In terms of methodology, the course is rooted in geography. It uses and familiarize students with certain geographical methods such as cartography and graphic visualization. It also encourages students to engage directly and critically with social science works in the form of articles and books, leading to presentations and lectures, as well as a graded written assignment.

This course examines key concepts of geographic information science as applied to earth and environmental sciences. It covers monitoring, analysis, visualization and modelling of landscape change for terrestrial and coastal environments, using imagery from satellites, airplanes (LiDAR) and UAVs. Principles and practice of field techniques, including RTK-GPS, LiDAR and UAV piloting will be reviewed with application to catchment management, conservation, natural hazards and civil infrastructure.

The course gives in-depth knowledge about climate systems and how climate models are constructed. In the first half of the course different components of contemporary climate models (ocean/land/atmosphere) and interactions between them are introduced and discussed. This includes handling of typical data formats associated with climate models and the analysis of model output with varying resolution and/or complexity. The second half of the course focuses on applications in paleoclimate reconstructions and impact models and the use of ensembles to assess model uncertainties. This includes projects where students independently and in groups solve tasks using programming. Exercise in the use of simplified climate models and analysis tools as well as information retrieval and oral and written presentation techniques are included as a part of certain learning activities.

This course examine core theories and frameworks used in geography to account for the social, spatial and economic unevenness in global development. it focuses on questions relating to who are the winners and losers from contemporary patterns of global economic change. This includes the analysis of relevant conceptual approaches to understand processes of global development and inequality (including comparative advantage, global value chain theory, developmentalism, structuralism, neo-liberalism, and post-development). Then, it adopts a livelihoods approach to better understand these broader processes from the perspective of individuals, households and communities. In general, issues are tailored to themes being played out in Asia-Pacific countries. 

Persistent gender and other inequalities in education, employment, income and other resources, including technology use, continue to deter adults and children from attaining their full potential in many parts of the world. Although there is some progress in addressing inequalities across the world, rapidly increasing access to digital devices and platforms in many parts of the world poses new challenges. This course addresses three interrelated questions about the drivers of digital inequality, how they are patterned across gender, racial, and ethnic identities as well as how they intersect with other forms of social inequalities. A strong emphasis is also placed on novel strategies for tracking and confronting these inequalities to attain a more just and equitable society for all.

This course examines theoretical concepts, debates and worldviews relevant to envisaging ‘just’ urban sustainability, based on comparative critical analyses of city transformations led by Indigenous, environmental and/or equity imperatives.

This course focuses on rural landscape management with emphasis on ends, means, and solutions in management and planning projects. The course consists of two parts: an introduction and a problem-based project. The introductory part of the course includes lectures, exercises, and seminars on landscape processes and functions as well as methods for analyzing landscapes and collecting data relevant to planning and management of rural landscapes. Topics include: analyses of cultural landscapes and their current changes and implication for landscape policy, planning, and management; farmers' and other stakeholders' values and practices in relation to land use, cultural heritage, nature conservation, and aesthetic values; spatial planning and the design and implementation of spatial plans in relation to conflict management and place-making; case study approach and relevant research methods. Students are expected to contribute substantially to the seminars in the introductory part by presenting relevant methods and literature as well as preliminary ideas for projects. The project part of the course is the main part of the course and starts with a visit to a Danish municipality to show practical landscape management and planning tasks and challenges that are found in the municipality. Students then form project groups and propose a project problem to be approved.