Is garbage always "bad"? Are parks "good"? Are sewers political? This course will explore the social, political, and economic dimensions - processes, structures, and actors - that shape urban environments in the global South. To do this, we will draw on urban political ecology as a conceptual approach, and engage with the scholarship in South Asian and African urbanism, and post-colonial studies. Urban political ecologists understand cities to be (re)produced through a dialectical relationship between society and the biophysical environment. These processes often result in highly unequitable urban environments. In this module, we will explore socio-natural dynamics across resource and environmental service domains, as well as examining key actors and contemporary policy debates.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module, students should be able to:
Demonstrate an intermediate level of understanding of emerging themes in urban political ecology and southern Urbanism;
Critically analyse selected socio-environmental artefacts or conditions;
Demonstrate an ability to synthesize ideas from diverse intellectual traditions and from non-academic sources;