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Globalisation and Diversity: North-South Geographical Dynamics

Code: 106206
Credits: 6
2026/2027
Degree programme Type Course
Contemporary History, Politics and Economics OP 3
Contemporary History, Politics and Economics OP 4

Contact lecturer

Name :
Inmaculada Diaz Soria
Email :
inmaculada.diaz@uab.cat

Group languages

You can consult this information at the end of the document.

Prerequisites

The course has no specific prerequisites.

Objectives

This course explores how spatial hierarchies and representations of the world are produced from a critical geographical perspective in a globalised context. Through the analysis of North-South geographical dynamics, it examines processes of territorialization, political ecologies, and alternative geographical knowledges, with attention to the diversity of scales, landscapes, and subjects in the contemporary world. It adopts a multiscalar and gender-inclusive approach, focusing on feminist geographies, Southern epistemologies, and the ecosocial transition.

Goals:

  • Critically explore spatial hierarchies and a diverse world representations.
  • Analyze territorialization processes and conflicts from critical and feminist perspectives.
  • Examine ecological, political, and cultural dynamics through Southern geographies.
  • Apply multiscalar geographical analytical tools to interpret global justice dynamics.

Learning outcomes

  1. Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
  2. Manage and apply data to solve problems.
  3. Work cooperatively in multidisciplinary and multicultural teams implementing new projects.
  4. Undertake basic image processing, from their acquisition to their use for category-type thematic cartographical use.
  5. Describing the spatial relationships, on different territorial scales, of the physical, economic, social and cultural territorial diversity.
  6. Explaining the structure of today's world from a geographical point of view.
  7. Propose viable projects and actions to boost social, economic and environmental benefits.
  8. Contrasting and comparing several interpretations of geographical maps. And differentiate between different cartographical information systems.
  9. Examine how different social, economic, political and environmental processes create and transform spaces and social relationships.
  10. Explain and summarise knowledge acquired in English language at an advanced level.

Contents

This subject is structured around a challenge: How could we make visible the knowledge of women from the Global South in order to contribute to more just and sustainable urban systems?

Content:

  1. Introduction: Globalisation and Diversity
  2. Global value chains: North-South dynamics
  3. The materiality of the global system: resources, energy and spatial justice
  4. Territorial diversity and ecologies of the South
  5. Globalisation vs. Localisation: inequality and empowerment from a geographical perspective

Gender, intersectional and decolonial perspectives are transversal axis of this subject.

Learning activities and methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning outcomes
Interactive lectures (TE) 30 1.2 5, 6, 8, 9, 10
Classroom activities (PAUL) 10.5 0.42 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10
Tutorials, monitoring and assessment 3 0.12 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10
Personal study and readings 60 2.4 9, 10
Conducting practical tasks 8 0.32 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10

The methodology includes:

  • Participatory master classes
  • Directed readings and critical debates
  • Analysis of cartographic, audiovisual and academic materials with gender perspective
  • Individual and group tutorials
  • Challenge-Based Learning (CBL): preparation of a narrative/cartographic project that responds to the challenge "How could we make visible the knowledge of women from the Global South in order to contribute to more just and sustainable urban systems?"

The challenge (CBL) will structure the entire semester and provide meaning to the contents and activities.

Annotation: within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Assessment

Continuous assessment activities

Title Weight Hours ECTS Learning outcomes
Class activities 20% 10.5 0.42 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10
Team/Autonomous work abilities, peer-assessment & active participation 10% 2.5 0.1 1, 3
Glossary 10% 3 0.12 5, 6, 9, 10
Theoretical exam 30% 1.5 0.06 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10
Challenge-based project 30% 21 0.84 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10

CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT

The continuous evaluation is structured as follows:

  • Theoretical tests (40%) consisting of:
  • A theoretical exam (30%).
  • Elaborating a glossary of essential concepts (10%).
  • Autonomous activities (30%) concentrated on a semester-long group project that structures the content of the subject (CBL).This project will be delivered via Moodle and also presented orally in front of the class.
  • Two classroom activities (10% each, 20% in total). They are not mandatory, but not doing them implies not having this part of the evaluation. Attendance is mandatory to be able to deliver these activities.
  • Teamwork abilities, participation in the peer assessment and active participation in class (10%)

The dates and content of the different evaluation activities will be specified on the first day of class.

On carrying out each evaluation activity, students will be informed (via Moodle) of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.


SINGLE ASSESSMENT

To be eligible for the single assessment, the application must be made within the established deadlines. The information can be found on the faculty's website and will be explained on the first day of class.

The single assessment provides for a single delivery date for all assessment evidences.

Students in single assessment must carry out similar evaluation activities, although they will be conducted individually:

  • Theoretical tests (40%) consisting of:
  • A theoretical exam (30%).
  • Elaborating a glossary of essential concepts (10%).
  • Autonomous activities (30%) concentrated on a semester-long project that structures the content of the subject (CBL).This project will be delivered via Moodle and also presented in a video.
  • Two classroom activities (10% each, 20% in total). These activities are mandatory to single evaluation students so they can have access to the recovery process. Attendance is mandatory to be able to deliver these activities.
  • Autonomous work abilities under supervision, implementation of the received feedback and the participation in, at least, two tutorials during the semester that must happen before 15 December (10%)


RECOVERY GUIDELINES

  • To participate in the recovery, the students must have been previously evaluated in a set of activities whose weight equal to a minimum of 2/3 parts of the total grade (CONTINUOUS EVALUATION) or delivered all the evaluation activities (SINGLE EVALUATION).
  • To participate in the recovery process, the student must have obtained a minimum grade of 3.5 in the average of the subject.
  • The oral presentation and tasks related to daily teaching activity are excluded from the recovery process.
  • The same recovery system will be applied for single assessment as for continuous assessment.


OTHER INFORMATION

NOT EVALUABLE: Students will obtain a Not assessed/Not submitted course grade unless they have submitted more than 30% of the assessment items.

ERASMUS: Erasmus students who request to advance an exam must submit to the teacher a written document from their home university that justifies their application.

COPY AND PLAGIARISM: In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.

USE OF AI:

Due to the impossibility of forbidding the use of AI technologies, this subject allows it exclusively for bibliographic or content-based searches, text correction or translations. It is explicitly requested to avoid its use especially in the creative phase of projects (brainstorming, decision making, etc.) in order to exercise the students' creative capacities, autonomy and critical thinking, as well as strengthen their confidence in their own capacities.

In case the student uses it -for any of the admitted purposes- they must clearly (i) identify which parts have been generated using AI technology; (ii) specify the tools used; and (iii) include a critical reflection on how these have influenced the process and final outcome of the activity.

Lack of transparency regarding the use of AI in the assessed activity will be considered academic dishonesty; the corresponding grade may be lowered, or the work may even be awarded a zero. In cases of greater infringement, more serious action may be taken.

Bibliography

Agha, Zena; Esson, James; Griffiths, Mark; Joronen, Mikko (2024). Gaza: A decolonial geography. Transactions, 49(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12675

Daigle, Michelle; Ramírez, Margaret Marietta; Werner, Marion; McKittrick, Katherine; Peck, Jamie; Gidwani, Vinay; Kent, Andy; Chatterton, Paul; Larner, Wendy; Chari, Sharad; Jazeel, Tariq; Theodore, Nik; Pickerill, Jenny; Wright, Melissa W.; Heynen, Nik; Antipode Editorial Collective. (2019). Decolonial Geographies. In Keywords in Radical Geography: Antipode at 50 (pp. 78–84). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119558071.ch14

Datta, Anindita, Hopkins, Peter; Johnston, Lynda; Olson, Elizabeth; Silva, Joseli Maria (2020). Routledge handbook of gender and feminist geographies. Routledge, Taylor and Francis.

Dyck, Isabel (2005). Feminist geography, the “everyday”, and local-global relations: hidden spaces of place-making. The Canadian Geographer, 49(3), 233–243. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0008-3658.2005.00092.x

Fraser, Nancy (2008). La justicia social en la era de la política de identidad. Revista de Trabajo, 4(6), 83-99. https://www.jep.gov.co/Sala-de-Prensa/Documents/Fraser_justicia%20social.pdf

Herrero López, Yayo (2021). Los cinco elementos. Una cartografía de la transición ecosocial. Icaria.

Massey, Doreen (2007). For Space. SAGE.

Massey, Doreen (2004). Lugar, identidad y geografías de la responsabilidad en un mundo en proceso de globalización. Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Geografia, 57, 77-84. https://publicacions.iec.cat/repository/pdf/00000019/00000025.pdf

Mies, Maria; Shiva, Vandana (1993). Ecofeminism. Zed Books.

Merlinsky, Gabriela (2017). Ecología política del agua y territorialización de las luchas sociales. La experiencia del foro hídrico de Lomas de Zamora. Anthropologica, 35(38), 119-143. https://doi.org/10.18800/anthropologica.201701.005

Norberg-Hodge, Helena; Iglesias Saugar, Jesús (2020). El Futuro es local : pasos hacia una economía de la felicidad (1ª edición en castellano). Pol·len Edicions.

Ojeda, Diana (2022). El punto ciego de la propiedad: Género, tierra y despojo en América Latina / Property’s blind spot: Gender, land and dispossession in Latin America. Revista Trace, 81, 106-131. https://doi.org/10.22134/trace.81.2022.812

Price, Marie; Lewis, Martin; Wyckoff, William; Rowntree, Lester (2020). Globalisation and Diversity: Geography of a Changing World. Pearson. 6th edition.

Santos, Milton (2000). Por una geografía nueva. Ariel.

Stoltman, Joseph P. (ed.) (2011). 21st Century Geography (1st ed.). SAGE Publications, Incorporated.

Svampa, M. (2019). Las fronteras del neoextractivismo en América Latina. Conflictos socioambientales, giro ecoterritorial y nuevas dependencias. UNLP-FaHCE. https://www.memoria.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/libros/pm.5179/pm.5179.pdf.

Zaragocin, Sofia (2019). Gendered Geographies of Elimination: Decolonial Feminist Geographies in Latin American Settler Contexts. Antipode, 51(1), 373–392. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12454

Software

Word, excel, powerpoint.

ArcGIS, Instamaps.

Story Maps software.

Course groups and languages

The information provided is provisional until November 30. After this date, you will be able to consult the language of each group through this link. To access the information, you will need to enter the course CODE

Type of teaching Group Language Semester Shift
(TE) Theory 51 English first semester afternoon
(PAUL) Classroom practices 51 English first semester afternoon