Places and Regions in Human Geography
Code: 100333 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2500256 Social and Cultural Anthropology | FB | 1 | 2 |
| 2500501 History | FB | 1 | 1 |
| 2502758 Humanities | FB | 1 | 2 |
| 2503710 Geography, Environmental Management and Spatial Planning | FB | 1 | 1 |
Errata
In the “Assessment” section of this guide, a few mistakes have been detected: in page 5, the correct sentence about “not assessed / not submitted” is the following one: If the student does more than a 1/3 of the course tasks, s/he will be assessed. In addition, in the same page, there is an old text related to the on-line lectures during Covid-19 pandemic that is not valid anymore. This is a 100% on-site course, and there is not any on-line teaching option.
Contact
- Name:
- Angel Cebollada Frontera
- Email:
- angel.cebollada@uab.cat
Teaching groups languages
You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject. Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2023.
Teachers
- Nuria Valdovinos Perdices
- Ricard Moren Alegret
- Francesc Romagosa Casals
Prerequisites
Apart from the general knowledge acquired for passing university access exams, the only other general requirement for participating in this course is to have interest for learning about complex issues. This is a general requirement for any university student along the years.
In addition, students should also have at least basic knowledge in some Romance languages (e.g. Spanish, Catalan, French, Portuguese, Italian) and English in order to be able to read geographical texts in various languages.
At the start of term, in the group in English, students must demonstrate that they have already acquired, at least, a B2 level in English language. This is a basic requirement in order to be able to participate in this course.
Objectives and Contextualisation
This course is mainly devoted to first year students of the BA in Anthropology, the BA in History, the BA in Humanities andBA in Geography.
Goals of the subject: It constitutes an introduction to the main human geography topics for social sciences and humanities students with special focus on socioecological crisis and gender perspective. It pays preferential attention to some of the most significant aspects of the contemporary world.
The program is structured in four main issues: human population dynamics and structure; economic geography; political geography; and cultural geography. These issues will be approached from a world perspective, paying special attention to interrelations in the uneven, interrelated and unequal planet that we inhabit.
At the end of the academic term, students will acquire the following:
- Basic and fundamental knowledge on each topic approached.
- A command on the most important concepts in human geography.
- A global vision and some basic interpretative tools about the world order functioning.
- An understanding of the main geographical elements, which form the structure of territories around the world.
- A capacity to analyse and to interpret geographical information and data.
- A capacity to connect in a significant way a variety of topics in the course program.
Competences
- Social and Cultural Anthropology
- Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
- Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
- Students must develop the necessary learning skills to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
- Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
- History
- Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
- Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
- Students must develop the necessary learning skills in order to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
- Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
- Humanities
- Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
- Students must develop the necessary learning skills to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
- Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
- Geography, Environmental Management and Spatial Planning
- Analyse and understand geographical dynamics (sociodemographics, geo-economics and environmental) on different territorial scales.
- Critically analyse the relationship between society and the region applying the conceptual and theoretical framework of geography.
- Demonstrate skills of self-analysis and self-criticism
- Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
- Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
- Students must develop the necessary learning skills to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
- Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
- Systematically analyse and interpret environmental, demographic, urban and landscape elements.
Learning Outcomes
- Analysing the main dynamics of today's world from a geographic viewpoint.
- Analysing the main dynamics of today's world from a geographical point of view.
- Comparing and contrasting the different interpretations of geographic maps.
- Consider problems of inequality, population distribution and urbanisation in the world, among other things.
- Contrasting and comparing several interpretations of geographical maps.
- Demonstrate skills of self-analysis and self-criticism.
- Describing spatial relationships of the physical, economic, social and cultural diversity of territories on different territorial scales.
- Describing the economic, social and cultural world's main problems.
- Describing the main economic, social and cultural contemporary problems in the world.
- Describing the spatial relationships, on different territorial scales, of the physical, economic, social and cultural territorial diversity.
- Explaining the structure of today's world from a geographic viewpoint.
- Explaining the structure of today's world from a geographical point of view.
- Identify geographical diversity on a global scale in human processes.
- Identifying the main ideas of a related text and drawing a diagram.
- Identifying the main ideas of a subject-related text and making a diagram.
- Interpreting today's main events from physical, economic, social and cultural diversity.
- Presenting the specific concepts of Geography.
- Producing an individual work that specifies the work plan and timing of activities.
- Use the main concepts related to territory and their consequences.
Content
- Introdution to the Geografia. Keywords
- Human population
- A geographical vision of the world economy
- Political geography: a complex and changing world
- Cultural geography
Each group will adapt these contents in a concret program
Methodology
- Directed activities: The faculty will make an exposition of the main concepts and theoretical proposals in each study unit. Specific cases will be explained that exemplify the studied concepts. The intention is to promote debate and discussion on the treated topics.
- Supervised activities: The process of learning and acquisition of competences will be supervised by the teaching staff through individual and / or group tutorials. The teachers of the subject will be available to the students to solve the doubts and follow the evolution of the aforementioned process of learning and the acquisition of competences of the students. In addition, there may be a field trip: in this case at the beginning of the course, the teacher will explain the protocol of measures and good practices for field trips.
- Autonomous activities: it will be able individuals or in group, depening of the homewok.
- The student must take into account the news and information weekly published on the Virtual Campus / Moodle.
- All activities have a deadline that must be met strictly, according to the proposed schedule.
On the first day of class, lecturers of each group will explain on the subject program. The program will include the detailed content, the assessment activities to be carried out, the delivery dates and the compulsory readings for each subject as well as whether or not it is compulsory to complete the library training module.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Activities
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Practicals and/or seminars | 15 | 0.6 | 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15 |
| Theoretical classes | 32 | 1.28 | 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Tutorial supervision of the course essays | 20 | 0.8 | 1, 5, 8, 11, 15, 16 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Personal study effort | 37 | 1.48 | 7, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16 |
| Preparation of Practical work | 40 | 1.6 | 2, 5, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18 |
Assessment
Some of the main evaluation activities are the following:
1) Written exams: capacity to interrelate the different geographical issues studied in the course until the moment of each exam.
2) Practices activities: It can include: a) practices exercicies in the classroom and in the whole campus to solve specific problems. b) course report / essay on reading materials; students should show capacity to search for information, to select it, to synthesise it and to organise it in a rational way. In addition, capacity to submit formally presented, almost impeccable texts, including the correct citation of all sources of information and data.
At the start of term, the lecturers of each group will indicate further details about evaluation procedures and dates.
Recovery
On the first day of class, each teacher will inform the students of the recovery process, which evaluation activities may be subject to recovery and under what conditions and will publish them on the group's Campus Virtual (Moodle).
Not assessed/Not submitted
The student will receive the grade of "Not assessed" in the event that he / she does not take some of the final written tests or does not do the course work requeried.
Students will obtain a Not assessed/Not submitted course grade unless they have submitted assessment items at least than 1/3 of global mark.
In the event that the tests cannot be done in person, their format will be adapted (maintaining their weighting) to the possibilities offered by the UAB’s virtual tools. Homework, activities and class participation will be done through forums, wikis and / or exercise discussions through Teams, etc. The teacher will ensure that the student can access it or offer alternative means,which are available to them.
VERY IMPORTANT: Partial or total plagiarising will immediately result in a FAIL (0) for the plagiarised exercise (first-year subjects) or the WHOLE SUBJECT (second-, third- and fourth-year subjects). PLAGIARISING consists of copying text from unacknowledged sources -whether this is part of a sentence or a whole text- with the intention of passing it off as the student's own production. It includes cutting andpasting from Internet sources, presented unmodified in the student's own text. Plagiarising is a SERIOUS OFFENCE.Studentsmust respect authors' intellectual property, always identifying the sources they may use; they must also be responsible for the originality and authenticity of their own texts.
In the event that the student commits any irregularity that could lead to a significant variation in the grade of an assessment act, this assessment act will be graded with 0, regardless of the disciplinary process that may be instructed. In the event of several irregularities in the evaluation acts of the same subject, the final grade for this subject will be 0.
Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exams | 40% | 3 | 0.12 | 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 |
| Practices activities I | 30% | 3 | 0.12 | 1, 2, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 19 |
| Practices activities II | 30% | 0 | 0 | 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 |
Bibliography
GENERAL REFERENCES:
Attané, Isabelle; Burgeilles, Carole; Rault, Wilfried (2015) Atlas mondial des femmes. Les paradoxes de l'émantipation. París: Autrement
Brown, David L. and Schafft, Kai A. (2019) Rural People and Communities in the 21st Century. Resilience and Transformation, Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2nd edition.Diamond, Jared (2020) Upheaval. How nations cope with crisis and change, London: Penguin.
Diamond, Jared (2020) Upheaval. How nations cope with crisis and change, London: Penguin.
Dorling, Danny & Lee, Carl (2016) Geography, London: Profile Books.
Durand, Marie-Françoise; Copinschi, Philippe; Martin, Benoît; Placidi, Delphine (2008). Atlas de la globalización. Comprender el espacio mundial contemporáneo. València: Publicacions de la Universitat de València.
Folch, Ramon (2011). La quimera de créixer. La sostenibilitat en l'era postindustrial. Barcelona: La Magrana.
Fouberg, Erin H.; Nash, Alexander J.; Murphy, Alexander B. & de Blij, HarmJ. (2015) Human Geography: People, Place, and Culture, Somerset, NJ: Wiley.
Hiernaux, Daniel; Lindón, Alicia [eds.] (2006). Tratado de geografía humana. Barcelona: Anthropos.
Marshall, Tim (2020, de la traducció) Prisioneros: Geografía. El mundo explicado en 12 sencillos mapas, Barcelona: Planeta. (Marshall, T. (2016) Prisoners of Geography, London: Elliot & Thompson.)
Marshall, Tim (2021) The Power of Geography, London: Elliot & Thompson.
Murphy, Alexander B. (2020). Geografía. ¿Por qué importa?. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
Morén-Alegret, Ricard & Wladyka, Dawid (2019) International Immigration, Integration and Sustainability in Small Towns and Villages. Socio-Territorial Challenges in Rural and Semi-Rural Europe, Londres: Palgrave Macmillan / Springer.
Ortiz, Anna [coord.]; Badia, Anna; Cebollada, Àngel; Mendizàbal, Enric; Solana, Miguel; Vera, Ana (2011). Visions geogràfiques del món. Bellaterra: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Servei de Publicacions (Materials, 222).
Pelletier, Philippe (2017) Quand la géographie sert à faire la paix. Lormont: Le bord de l'eau.
Richardson, Douglas et al. (eds.) (2017) The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology, Chichester, UK; Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Romero, Joan [coord.] (2007). Geografía humana. Procesos, riesgos e incertidumbres en un mundo globalizado. Barcelona: Ariel, 2a ed.
Solana, Miguel [coord.] (2016). Espacios globales y lugares próximos. Setenta conceptos para entender la organización territorial del capitalismo global. Barcelona: Icaria.
United Nations Development Program / Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (2022). Human Development Report 2022 / Informe sobre DesarrolloHumano 2022, New York: UNDP/PNUD (: https://hdr.undp.org/content/2022-special-report-human-security ).
Urry, John (2017). Offshore: la deslocalización de la riqueza. Madrid: Capitán Swing.
VVAA (2022) Migrations. A history of where we all come from, London: DK / Penguin Random House.
BIBLIOGRAFIA TEMÀTICA:
Davis, Mike (2007). Planeta de ciudades miseria. Madrid: Foca.
Lacoste,Yves (2010). Geopolítica.Madrid: Síntesis.
Livi-Bacci, Massimo (2002). Historiamínima de la población mundial. Barcelona: Ariel.
Méndez, Ricardo (2011). El nuevo mapa geopolítico del mundo. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch.
Naím, Moisés (2013). El fin del poder. Barcelona: Debate.
Nel·lo, Oriol(2001). Ciutat de ciutats: reflexions sobre el procés d’urbanització a Catalunya. Barcelona: Empúries.
Tertrais, Bruno; Papin, Delphine (2018) Atlas de las fronteras. Madrid: Cátedra.
* * * * *
Atlases published in various languages by Le Monde Diplomatique during the last years can be useful, see: https://mondediplo.com
During the course, additional academic books, journal articles and databases will be recommended.
Software
The main computer programs used by students are Word, Excel, PDF, Power Point ... In addition, the MOODLE platform and, where appropriate, TEAMS will be used, as well as, eventually, social networks such as TWITTER.