BA Geography

Youth activism has highlighted how the young face the burden of climate change, a problem created by the lifestyles of previous generations, while at the same time, ageing societies have prompted important questions about infrastructures of care. This module critically considers the role of the life-course, age and ageing in relation to a raft of urban, social and cultural thinking from Human Geography and cognate disciplines. The life-course relates to the sequence of events that individuals and age-cohorts go through, as shaped by a whole host of social, cultural, economic and political factors. The life-course is pertinent to all of our lives and questions of ageing and intergenerational justice are increasingly central to the events of our time. Whether in relation to social mobility, COVID-19, or Brexit, questions of age and generational divisions have featured prominently.

In considering a range of intergenerational issues, this module asks whether intergenerational justice is possible to achieve, asking questions of responsibility, reparation and the enduring presence of the past. In thinking critically about age and the life-course, the module troubles linear portrayals of the life-course and the representational whitewashing of categories such as ‘youth’, ‘adulthood’ and ‘older age’. It explores how (in)fertility, birth, death, loss, absence, remembering, forgetting and encounters intersect with austerity, cultural ideals, political community, and aspirations to complicate the standardised life-cycle. It examines how age intersects with class, gender, sexuality and other factors to shape individuals’ lived experience and subjectivities, complicating reductive representations, catch-all policies and simplistic accounts of ‘generational divides’. This course will equip students with the conceptual tools to explore the twin questions of how we achieve intergenerational justice and an age-inclusive society.

In the first half of the module we will look at literature that challenges these periods of life and what they mean. The second half of the module will focus on a number of themes including memory and materiality, place-making, how age-friendly policies are linked with cultural assumptions about age and how different groups experience the city. We will look forwards to consider indebted futures and intergenerational questions around climate activism and sustainability. We will look backwards and think about reparations, responsibility and the ways in which past injustices, such as slavery and colonialism, come into the present. Towards the end of the module we will hold a seminar debate about intergenerational justice, what it might look like, whether it is possible, and in relation to what issues. Seminars will connect the theoretical material we have discussed in class with the issues we are all living with.

This module will be structured around 2 blocks of teaching: Rethinking the life-course (Block 1) and Pasts, presents and futures (Block 2).
 

• Understand geographical and social scientific approaches to the life-course, age and ageing
• Enable students to understand the range of economic, political and cultural implications of age and ageing
• Critically consider questions of social transformation and intergenerational justice
• Examine and disrupt representations of age categories (e.g. youth and older age) and the life-course
 

(indicative curriculum content):

Block 1 – Rethinking the Life-Course
Week 1: Introducing Geographies of the Life-Course 
Week 2: Rethinking the Life-Course
Week 3: Children’s Geographies and Youth 
Week 4: Middle Age and Reproduction 
Week 5: Ageing and the Geographies of Older Age 
Week 6: Study Week, Coursework 1 due 
Week 7: Geographies of Death 
Block 2 – Pasts, Presents and Futures 
Week 8: Intergenerationality and Generational (In)Justice 
Week 9: Memory, Materiality and Feeling Your Age
Week 10: Age-Friendly Place Making 
Week 11: The Future of the Life-Course (Coursework 2 due)
Week 12: Study week
 

Life-Course Geographies: Social Transformation and Intergenerational Justice will be delivered through a range of lectures (10x 2hour lectures), seminars (9x 1hour seminars) and independent learning activities. Lectures will introduce key concepts, ideas and case studies relating to ageing and its social, political and cultural implications. In seminars, students will develop and demonstrate a detailed understanding of the subject matter, working interactively in small groups. In their independent learning, students will draw upon weekly reading lists to sharpen, deepen and widen their understanding. All course materials will be available on Blackboard. You are expected to contribute fully to lecture and seminar discussions and activities, and to complete all readings.

• Understand and deploy a range of geographical and social approaches to understanding age, ageing and the life-course
• Discuss the key social, political and cultural implications of the life-course and ageing
• Critically evaluate policy approaches to age inclusivity and intergenerational justice
   

• Think critically about lived experience in relation to representations
• Evaluate and apply key concepts and approaches to study the life-course and ageing
   

• Communicate effectively when discussing the life-course, ageing and urban geographical analysis
• Communicate effectively with non-academic audiences through blog writing
   

• Demonstrate critical reflection and analysis
• Demonstrate a capacity for independent learning, information gathering and critical appraisal
   

Formative Assessment Task :  

(1) Pitch your plan for assessment 1 (blog) to your peers and provide feedback on their work.

• Split into groups.
• Pair up.
• Person A to pitch their coursework to Person B.
• Person B – give feedback around:
• What you think is a good about their idea?
• What you would do to improve it?
• When you are done – swap roles.

The teaching staff will circulate and provide feedback.

Length (word count/time):  10 mins.

How and when feedback is provided:
Peer and teaching staff feedback during the seminars of Week 4.

(2) Produce a plan for assessment 2 (academic essay) and discuss it in a seminar.

Length (word count/time):  Up to 1 page of A4.

How and when feedback is provided:
Verbal feedback from peers and teaching staff in class in week 10.

Summative Assessment Task:

Assessment 1:   
Blog Post. Students will write a blog post about an age category (e.g. children, youth, adults, middle-age, older age) and how it is represented. The assessment will allow students to practice communicating the subject matter to non-academic audiences in relation to information they have gathered.

Length:  1,200 words

How and when feedback is provided:
Online and verbally. Feedback will be provided within three working weeks and ahead of the final assessment.

Weighting:   40%

Assessment 2: 
Essay. Students will choose from three questions which will allow them to demonstrate a detailed understanding of urban, social and cultural thinking on ageing and to connect themes across the module.

Length:  2,500 words

How and when feedback is provided:
Online. Feedback will be provided within three working weeks.
Formative feedback will be provided through seminar discussions (specifically week 10) and in student hours.

Weighting:   60%

 

• Barron, A., 2019. More-than-representational approaches to the life-course. Social & Cultural Geography, pp.1-24.
• Barron, A., 2021. The taking place of older age. cultural geographies, p.14744740211020510.
• Darling, J. and Wilson, H.F. eds., 2016. Encountering the city: Urban encounters from Accra to New York. London: Routledge.
• Diprose, K. and Valentine, G., 2019. Climate change, consumption and intergenerational justice: Lived experiences in China, Uganda and the UK. Bristol University Press.
• Horschelmann, K. and Van Blerk, L., 2013. Children, youth and the city. Routledge.
• Hoelscher, S. and Alderman, D.H., 2004. Memory and place: geographies of a critical relationship. Social & Cultural Geography, 5(3), pp.347-355.
• Jassal, L.K., 2015. Necromobilities: The multi-sited geographies of death and disposal in a mobile world. Mobilities, 10(3), pp.486-509.
• Latham, A. and McCormack, D.P., 2004. Moving cities: rethinking the materialities of urban geographies. Progress in human geography, 28(6), pp.701-724.
• Nash, C., 2015. Genetic geographies: the trouble with ancestry. U of Minnesota Press.
• Romanillos, J.L., 2015. Mortal questions: Geographies on the other side of life. Progress in Human Geography, 39(5), pp.560-579.
• Simpson, P., 2020. Non-Representational Theories. London: Routledge.
• Skinner, M.W., Cloutier, D. and Andrews, G.J., 2015. Geographies of ageing: Progress and possibilities after two decades of change. Progress in Human Geography, 39(6), pp.776-799.
• Stevenson, O., Kenten, C. and Maddrell, A., 2016. And now the end is near: enlivening and politizising the geographies of dying, death and mourning. Social & Cultural Geography, 17(2), pp.153-165.
• Wilson, H.F., 2017. On geography and encounter: Bodies, borders, and difference. Progress in Human Geography, 41(4), pp.451-471.