Course description
'Cultural' approaches in human geography have become an increasingly important dimension of the discipline. Culturally-oriented human geographers have drawn on a wide range of subject areas, including cultural and media studies, gender studies and sociology. In turn, they have contributed spatially-informed analyses to current debates surrounding a great variety of theoretical and empirical issues, including understandings of power, knowledge, identity and morality, processes of social ordering, exclusion and marginalisation, and instances of social resistance and transgression. Another focus has been on particular cultural groups, including those who are often regarded as 'deviant' or 'other'.
The course aims to:
a) Provide students with a substantive knowledge and understanding of a variety of methods, techniques and approaches that support advanced-level research in cultural geography and the social sciences
b) Allow and encourage students to pursue a sustained programme of original research into a chosen aspect of cultural geography
c) Develop a range of professional competencies and personal transferable skills that will enable students to pursue a variety of opportunities on graduation.
Future prospects
The programme will benefit students contemplating an academic or research-oriented career, providing a manageable but stimulating introduction to the world of advanced level research in a highly topical subject area.
Course content
This course is designed to equip students with the advanced level theoretical understanding and research skills required to support a substantive piece of original research into a chosen area of cultural geography. Potential research projects relevant to the programme might include: projects focusing on the spaces and cultures associated with specific cultural groups or subcultures in urban or rural contexts (eg urban youth cultures or women involved in farming); projects examining the cultural geographies of particular events, situations or processes (eg environmental protests or sporting events); and projects focused on the cultural geographies of particular spaces or places (including the 'virtual' spaces of the internet).