BA Geography

We are living in what has been termed ‘The Age of Migration’. The cultural turn in Human Geography transformed understanding on the lives and experiences of migrants and their spatialities. In this course we will examine the contributions of geographers to the theorizing and study of migration. The course takes a primary focus on the British Empire and the legacies of colonialism to understand migration patterns, processes and lived experiences; however there is scope to investigate other examples of global migration across the course and assessment. To critically advance knowledge and understanding with the geographies of migration we draw on theories of post-colonialism and anti-racism strategies, with reflection on ethnicity, race and racialisation and minority religion, and reflect on the important contributions of feminist and intersectional approaches. For instance we will consider the post-colonial interconnections between areas of Pakistan and Greater Manchester in the Textile and Garment Industry that continue to impact space, place and lives today. In the second half of the course we will deepen your knowledge of key concepts including transnationalism, mobilities, encounter, integration, citizenship and belonging. We will use a series of ‘grounded’ examples to explore how these ‘big’ ideas are produced and transformed in relation to specific migrant lives in different places, looking at, for instance, recent Muslim arrivals and notions of citizenship. This involves consideration towards policy-making and national borders, but also institutions (e.g education, museums), cultural forms (e.g music, fashion, food), and analysing different textual forms (e.g oral life histories, films, newspapers). 

• Develop student’s critical understanding of key paradigms of human geographers’ contribution to migration theory in the twentieth/twenty-first century
• Enable students to evaluate the strengths of a transition from macro to micro level enquiry
• Use qualitative and visual methods to advance knowledge and understanding of human migration in different lives and places
• Enable students to link different theoretical debates with a range of mediums in a transdisciplinary, cross-sectoral field for understanding migration and 
   migrant lives
• Enable students to examine and explain issues of representation, embodiment and materiality in relation to migration with attention to policy and law, 
   culture and institutions, and the media
• Develop and apply knowledge of migrant-led social change, including examples of urban, cultural and education-based case studies
• Develop oral communication and presentation skills through contributions to seminars and class discussions 
   

Introduction to Migration: how geographers have theorised and developed migration scholarship in the 20th/21st centuries
Migration and the Cultural Turn: Understanding qualitative methods, real lives, imaginations
Empire, Emigration, Settler Colonialism *Dr Katie Higgins, University of Oxford
Post-colonialism, Immigration, Identities  
Gender, Labour and Migration
The Migrant City: Stories of Encounter, Belonging, (Non-)Citizenship 
British Muslims, Muslim Activism & Islamophobia
Education, Inequality and Migration
Critical Heritage, Museums and Migration *Fieldtrip to Manchester Museum
Migration Futures and Revision

 

The course is delivered through a range of lectures, seminars, a fieldtrip and student readings. Most weeks will comprise a 2hr lecture and 1hr seminar. These will draw on a wide variety of sources to show how the topic of migration is a key theme for Geographers but best understood as interdisciplinary and cross medium. All course materials (subject to copyright laws) will be available on the VLE. It is anticipated that learning will be mostly face-to-face, with potential for a blended learning approach of online coursework surgery and the potential for online guest lecture(s). 

• Demonstrate knowledge, and the ability to explain, the contribution of Human Geography to migration theory with critical understanding of the cultural turn and mobilities turn in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

• Apply theoretical perspectives from cultural, social, political and feminist geography, and demonstrate the ability to explain, key conceptual debates including migration and mobility, transnationalism and translocalism, integration, citizenship, encounter and belonging to real life examples of migration and migrant lives  
• Reflect upon, and demonstrate the ability to explain, how migration and migrant experiences are connected to Empire and colonial legacies
• Critcially evaluate how migration theory informs the transformation of society, including geographies of labour, education and culture.
   

• Develop and demonstrate skills in knowledge production; written, communication and presentation skills
• Develop information handling skills, using qualitative and visual sources (oral life histories, ethnographies, photography, film, archival research) to gain insights into the experience of migration and everyday migrant lives
• Confidently and accurately use wider reading beyond the course materials, demonstrating and developing skills in self-directed learning
   

• Assess the different ways that policy, media and social action influence knowledge and understanding of migration and migrants today  
• Write for an academic audience, developing high quality assignments that are well structured and imaginatively executed 
• Develop and demonstrate the ability to synthesise complex material 
   

Formative Assessment Task :  

Develop an essay plan in a seminar

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

How and when feedback is provided:
Verbal feedback provided through whole class discussion

Summative Assessment task:

1. Coursework Essay
One piece of coursework on how the cultural turn informs the theory of migration. The title will be provided to students at the beginning of Semester 2. Students can choose any relevant example that shapes understanding of global migration to answer the title.

Length:  2000 words (excluding references)

How and when feedback is provided
Online within Faculty guidelines

Weighting:   50%

2. OBE exam
Part A: Source Evaluation NB: close reading and analysis (1 to be chosen from a total of 4 sources)(50%)
Part B: Essay-style question (1 to be chosen from a total of 4 questions)(50%)

Length: 
3 day online open book exam
Section A 1000 word upper limit
Section B 1000 word upper limit

How and when feedback is provided
Following submission, through comments

Weighting:   50%
 

Blunt, A. (2007). Cultural geographies of migration: mobility, transnationality and diaspora. Progress in human geography, 31(5), 684-694.
Gilmartin, M. (2008). Migration, identity and belonging. Geography Compass, 2(6), 1837-1852.
Gorman-Murray, A. (2009). Intimate mobilities: Emotional embodiment and queer migration. Social & Cultural Geography, 10(4), 441-460.
Halfacree, K. H., & Boyle, P. J. (1993). The challenge facing migration research: the case for a biographical approach. Progress in Human Geography, 17(3), 333-348.
Hyndman, J. (2012). The geopolitics of migration and mobility. Geopolitics, 17(2), 243-255.
King, R. (2012). Geography and migration studies: Retrospect and prospect. Population, space and place, 18(2), 134-153.
Ralph, D., & Staeheli, L. A. (2011). Home and migration: Mobilities, belongings and identities. Geography Compass, 5(7), 517-530.
Rogaly, B. (2020) The Migrant City: Living and Working Together in the Shadow of Brexit, Manchester University Press, Manchester..
Raghuram, P. (2009) Which migration, what development? Unsettling the edifice of migration and development Population, Space and Place 15, 103–17.
Said, E. W. (1985). Orientalism reconsidered. Race & class, 27(2), 1-15.
Warren, S (2019) #YourAverageMuslim: Ruptural geopolitics of British Muslim women's media and fashion, Political Geography, 69, 118-127.
Warren, S (2022) British Muslim Women in the Cultural and Creative Industries, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Waters, J. L. (2006). Geographies of cultural capital: education, international migration and family strategies between Hong Kong and Canada. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 31(2), 179-192.