Geography

At the end of the course students should have gained:

• knowledge of geographical diversity in Europe and the way in which this is subject of policy-making on the level of states, regions and the EU;
• insight in the functioning of organisations and actors on several levels within the European arena on behalf of local and regional interest;
• experience in analysing, reporting and discussing EU policy within the scope of distinct scales and geographical diversity.

Content

European Integration is a complex process, with many stakeholders involved. A couple of years ago an increasing number of authors expected a collapse of the EU, due to many challenges. We witnessed the effects of the  major financial crisis in the EU that started in 2008, and the almost collapse of the Eurozone. In 2015 the influx of asylum seekers was another challenging topic for the EU. A major divide has become visible (again): between the Northern and the Southern part of the EU, between the old and the new member states in Central and Eastern Europe.
Recently, some of the aforementioned authors, changed their mind and are more positive. More integration seems to take place, forced by external circumstances (like the changing position of the US and China in the world order and the war in Ukraine), and the need to have a more common Climate Policy. But still, it is difficult to reach consensus, and discussions continue.
Perhaps the main reason for the current EU crisis is (geographical) diversity. Many say that further integration is not possible without a political union. But a stronger political union would mean deeper integration, meaning that member states should give up more sovereignty and hand over power to Brussels.
The EU is therefore at a crossroad. How have we reached this point, and what are the further possible steps: that is the mean focus of our course. But we will always relate European integration to the geography and the diversity of Europe. There are many geographical dimensions of the Integration Process. We will focus on the following questions:

• What was the effect of European integration on regional differentiation in the EU? Is EU membership in general ‘good’ for economic and regional development?
• How successful were/are regional funds?
• What are the (geographical) limits of enlargement?
• What were the causes of the euro crisis, and were the problems related to the Monetary Union fixed?
• How to deal with migration and asylum seekers? What could be the design of a common Asylum and Migration Policy?
• What are the pros and cons of the Common Agricultural Policy?
• What are the effects of BREXIT?
• What are the challenges of the EU Climate- and Energy policy?
• What are the effects of the war in Ukraine?

During the course we try to explain the backgrounds of all these problems and dimensions, and will discuss the future of European Integration.
There will be lectures and exams, and several debates to discuss the major EU policies. A major component of this courses are debates, with role-playing. Groups of four students take the role of one member states.
 

This course analyzes natural resources, natural spaces, categories and types of protection. It examines instruments and planning models in the managements of the natural environment.

This course introduces the basic elements of economic geography, such as the location, spatial pattern of economic activities, the distribution and exploitation of resources, and land use. It also examines the case of regional development, focusing on the features, problems, and alternatives of human land use.

Economic Geography is the study of the unequal distribution of the world’s resources and economic activity in the global space economy. While the geographic scale of analysis can vary - from a firm, to a cluster or community, to a city, to a country or a region, there is also an emphasis on the relationships between activities taking place within and across these various scales and ‘the global’. Economic factors exert an important influence, yet other factors such as cultural and political should not be ignored. This course highlights the geographic logic of economic activities in space, and relies on other relevant explanations when necessary to understand contemporary economic geographies. This course places particular emphasis on historical and contemporary economic events that have shaped East Asia. Also, there is an educational component to this course, particularly when it comes to energy, the environment, and the role of education as a tool to help foment positive changes for tomorrow’s society

This course explores the field of cultural geography. It draws on examples both historical and contemporary, in the UK and beyond, to demonstrate how spaces, places, and landscapes are laden with meaning. It shows that culture is not something that is fixed, but rather constructed through relations with different people, places, ideas, objects, and practices. The course therefore helps students understand and interpret matters of culture critically, with careful attention to plurality, complexity, and power. Students examine power and identity, cultural representations, more-than-representational geographies, geographies of embodiment and mobility, cultural geographies of food, emerging cultural landscapes and politics, and tensions and new directions in cultural geography. 

This course is an introduction to political geography. The course explores what political geography is, the key concepts, its subject matter, and why political geography is needed. Topics such as knowledge and power, representations of the other, nationalism, states and territories, globalization, feminist geography, and human-environment relations are covered. A key aspect of the course is to introduce critical thinking in relation to subject matters but also the production of knowledge. A fundamental question emerging from the course is thus what is the role of geography in an increasingly complex and intertwined world.

This course introduces the idea that space is lived and experienced as part social and cultural life. Drawing from the arts, food, sports and film, and/or other related topics, the course delves into critical developments in social and cultural geography and provides students with the foundational knowledge to read advanced courses in the sub-discipline. It introduces methodological approaches which include ‘ways of seeing’ and ‘landscape as text' and is critical to understanding the human/culture and environment/space relationship.