Module description
This module introduces students to the conceptual framework of the Right to the City by initially providing an overview of the concept itself, the meaning of ‘rights’ in the context of urbanisation, and the works of key contributors like geographer David Harvey and philosopher Henri Lefebvre. After this introduction, the module will take on a weekly case study approach, as a way of investigating the gaps in knowledge that exist within mainstream debates around the Right to the City. Special attention to everyday, ethnographic, and visual arts-based approaches will ground these weekly case studies into a deeper understanding of how rights in cities are violated, defended, upheld, and claimed by a multitude of different stakeholders.
Students will be exposed to the works of geographers, social scientists, visual arts practitioners, and activists who have been crucial in re-articulating the Right to the City in the context of non-dominant geographies (such as Southern, peripheral, racialised, gendered, migrant and refugee). By doing so, we will originally interrogate the possibility for the Right to the City to remain a relevant and applicable framework to claim social and spatial justice across different world geographies.
Do this module if:
- You want to know more about critical, everyday, and relational approaches to urban life
- You are interested in how rights discourses are related to geographical struggles
- You are curious about how ethnographic, interdisciplinary, and artistic perspectives can enrich a geographical understanding of cities
- You enjoyed Cities and Citizenship and/or Urban & Cultural Geography in Year 2
Assessment details
2 x coursework (50% each): 1 x group-assessment (zine: 1000 words + 10 visuals), 1 x individual essay (1500 words)
Learning outcomes
On completion of this module:
- Students will be introduced to the conceptual framework of the Right to the City (RTTC) and will understand its importance within geographic debates
- Students will learn how to critically problematise the use of the RTTC framework by identifying gaps and missed opportunities from global and local perspectives
- Students will understand how the RTTC can be applied to different socio-spatial contexts and struggles by exploring a diversity of urban case studies from across the world
- Students will be exposed not only to well-known and less-known scholarly theorisations but also to ethnographic, visual art and activist praxes, learning how ‘the urban’ is produced from below by a multitude of different stakeholders
Teaching pattern
10 hours lectures, 10 hours seminars