Geography

This course covers theories and processes of contemporary urban development from a critical political economy perspective, addressing urban problems and policy responses in our rapidly urbanizing world. The course examines what urbanization means to the state, to (global/domestic) businesses, and ordinary citizens, focusing on a selected set of key themes that are pertinent to the understanding of urban injustice. Such themes may include, but are not limited to, the understanding of the (social) production of unequal urban space, global circulations of urbanism, gentrification, displacement, and dispossession. Case studies are largely drawn from a diverse range of cities across the world, providing opportunities for students to contest urban theories that have largely been rooted in the experiences of the advanced economies.

This is a research-led and research-based course, providing an introduction to the fields of cultural and historical geography. It has a slightly different emphasis to other courses because it explores some of the philosophies and methodologies used to create cultural and historical geographies, and is designed to give students the experience and confidence to undertake their own independent research using UCL’s museum and archive collections. The course encourages students to think critically about questions of representation, different kinds of materials, forms of analysis, and engage with questions of politics and ethics.

This course introduces students to geographical scholarship that has sought to explain, understand, and critically analyze the manifold relationships between space and society in different contexts. The course familiarizes students with innovative geographical research exploring issues such as, for example, environment and uneven development; culture, the global, and the local; transnationalism and migration; gender, race, identity; politics, the state, and regions; empire, colonialism, and postcolonialism; nature, materiality, and non-human agencies.

This course explores the relationship between landscape-scale spatial patterns and the ecological, physical, and social process that drive environmental change. It then applies this to real-world problems to achieve sustainable landscapes in the context of biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and social-ecological outcomes.

The course develops an awareness of the structure and function of tropical forest ecosystems and provides an intellectually stimulating understanding of the biophysical, ecological and anthropic processes which characterize these environments. To develop an awareness of the human impacts on these important systems and the kinds of geographical tools available for monitoring, modelling, and mitigation of the worst effects of these impacts. 

The course examines contemporary social theoretical explanations of the salience of risk within so-called "late modern" society.  The course then explores the factors that shape the politics, processes, and outcomes of risk governance, as well as the factors that shape public perceptions of environmental risk and the associated problems posed for policy-makers, businesses, and other stakeholders in communicating risk issues.  The course finishes with reflections on the future management of environmental risk issues.

This course begins with exploring how digital technologies have proliferated every aspect of our daily lives, around work, travel, leisure, consumption, production, and reproduction, in ways that are simultaneously virtual and material. This focuses on how digital technologies, infrastructures, devices, logics, and methods are blurring the divides across analog and digital spaces. It then looks at how digital technologies can simultaneously break down and reinforce inequalities along class, race, gender, sexuality through new "digital divides." Finally, it examines the implications this has for producing new forms of digital citizenships and claims to social and spatial justice.

This is a highly interdisciplinary course about natural hazards and risk. This course is structured around a series of lectures and discussions aimed at understanding current methods for assessing, communicating, and visualizing risk and reducing disaster for hazards that are natural (e.g. earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, mass wasting, floods, climate and extreme temperatures, multi-hazards) and environmental (e.g. heavy-metal contamination, chemical hazards), and the complex relationship that exists between these hazards and society. It is expected that students are already familiar with the material in the 2nd year Natural Hazards module (5SSG2042).

The course provides an introduction to the rapidly growing field of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for social science students. Some of the most important theories and practices of GIS, within social sciences are presented. The course also addresses some key conceptual debates and developments in GIS. Practical tasks include exercises in a computer lab environment, and common analytical methods and tools within GIS are introduced. The course makes aware of the potential uses of GIS as well as its application within various fields of study.

This introductory course deals with changes in our physical and biological environment on a variety of timescales, looks into the causes of natural environmental change and examines the progressive environmental impact of people from the last glacial stage up to the present. This course aims to place present-day environmental issues such as climate change, evolution, biodiversity and human-environment interactions in a long-term temporal perspective, arguing that an understanding of the present and prediction of the future both require an examination of the past.