Geography: Society, Place, and Power

An introduction to human geography: a spatial perspective on the study of population and migration, globalization, uneven economic development, geopolitics, cities and rural spaces, cultural meanings of place, and struggles for spatial justice.

Asynchronous online

https://soc.uvm.edu/?details&srcdb=202506&crn=61891

• The purpose of this course is to identify and analyze the ways that human societies create places and – in turn – live in and through those places. • The tools we will use to understand the relations between space, place, and society, include maps, place-based case studies, narratives, and quantitative data. Students will employ these tools to do their own analytic work. • Geographic concepts we’ll explore include diffusion, mobility and migration, scale, construction of place, and the intersections of economic, political, and social processes with natural environments. • We will pay special attention to spatial patterns and discovering the processes that generate them. We examine tensions between globalization, sustainability, social justice, and cultural identities in places around the globe, but with a particular focus on the US. • The sustainability approach for this class starts with a critical social justice lens to engage with three dimensions of interactions between nature and society: equity (social justice), economic processes, and environmental issues (the “three E’s”).

Learning Goals Include (1) Applying spatial perspectives to fundamental human processes/phenomena (2) Demonstrating understanding and use of the ‘social-spatial dialectic’ (3) Identifying reliable sources of geographic data and the production of trustworthy knowledge (4) Exploring methods used in geography (quantitative, qualitative, mapping) and consider them critically (4) Examining conceptual and empirical approaches to social/spatial justice and the intersection of social justice with notions of ‘sustainability’ REQUIRED TEXT: Rubenstein, James. 2022. Contemporary Human Geography 5th Ed, New York: Pearson. ISBN-13: 9780137631513. ***Just the text, no extra study packs. Only buy/rent the 5TH EDITION w/ NO ADD-ONS***

All work will be submitted online by the stated deadlines in order to receive credit. Because this is an online, asynchronous course lasting four weeks, reading (with responses and quizzes), film viewings (with responses), discussion boards, and written assignments will formulate the grade.