Urban Environments in the Global South

Description

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.

Assessment

  • Essay: 4000 words (100%)

Key skills

The key skills are engagement with literature at the research frontier, understanding ermerging themes in urban political ecology and social-natural dynamics of cities in the global South.