BA Geography (L700)

This paper provides a critical account of how different actors (farmers, animals, plants, pathogens, etc.) and social forces (state and corporate power, colonial violence, developmental strategies, technology and infrastructure, etc.) come together to produce - or rather co-produce - changes in the global food system. As well as documenting these 'revolutions' to the production, distribution and consumption of food, the paper interrogates the meaning of such changes for the different worlds we...

This paper provides a critical account of how different actors (farmers, animals, plants, pathogens, etc.) and social forces (state and corporate power, colonial violence, developmental strategies, technology and infrastructure, etc.) come together to produce - or rather co-produce - changes in the global food system. As well as documenting these 'revolutions' to the production, distribution and consumption of food, the paper interrogates the meaning of such changes for the different worlds we...

This course explores volcanic processes, and their climatic, environmental and human consequences. It begins by probing what goes on beneath a volcano – the physical and chemical evolution of magma chambers; why bubbles are so important in triggering and driving eruptions, and how dramatic (and deadly) switches in eruptive style can occur. It then examines eruption clouds and ash deposits, and how the latter provide a record that can be combined with tree-ring, ice core and archaeological evid...

This paper examines the science-based understanding of ecosystem services and climate change scenarios crucial for life on Earth. Our intention is to provide students with a deeper understanding of the ways in which science is integrated into policy making and underscores the synthesis reports made by organisations such as the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - both of which aim to su...

Who gets to use natural resources, and who is excluded? How do ideas about the environment influence ecologies, and how do ecologies influence ideas and power relations? In what manner does the governance and understanding of nature change across scales from the molecular to the global? This paper explores such questions through a central provocation of political ecology - that environmental change (both material and discursive) affects changes in power (and vice versa). Taking various politi...

This course explores volcanic processes, and their climatic, environmental and human consequences. It begins by probing what goes on beneath a volcano – the physical and chemical evolution of magma chambers; why bubbles are so important in triggering and driving eruptions, and how dramatic (and deadly) switches in eruptive style can occur. It then examines eruption clouds and ash deposits, and how the latter provide a record that can be combined with tree-ring, ice core and archaeological evid...

Who gets to use natural resources, and who is excluded? How do ideas about the environment influence ecologies, and how do ecologies influence ideas and power relations? In what manner does the governance and understanding of nature change across scales from the molecular to the global? This paper explores such questions through a central provocation of political ecology - that environmental change (both material and discursive) affects changes in power (and vice versa). Taking various politi...

This paper examines the science-based understanding of ecosystem services and climate change scenarios crucial for life on Earth. Our intention is to provide students with a deeper understanding of the ways in which science is integrated into policy making and underscores the synthesis reports made by organisations such as the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - both of which aim to su...

This document provides a critical exploration of the ideas and practices of global development. The focus is on the history of development ideologies. The aim here is for students to understand some of the precursors of the ‘modern’ (post-1945) development era, including the Enlightenment and western colonialism. It explores how different development ideas and actors came to prominence in different decades, the way these ideas were translated into practice, critiqued and resisted, and their ...