GEOGRAPHY

Knowledge and understanding:

Basic knowledge of the cultural, economic, and geopolitical frameworks.

Basic knowledge of the great lines of diffusion of the economic crisis.
Basic knowledge of the main methods of investigation and theories on the human settlement and the socio-environmental conflicts.

Applying knowledge and understanding:

Basic knowledge of African geopolitical frameworks

Using basic tools of the geographical analysis, applying to studies on the great cultural areas.

Connecting theoretical knowledge and the practical study of the territories.

Making judgement:

Identifying the main social phenomena with cartographic and iconografic tools.

Applying theories to practical problems and issues in the regional territory.

Communication skills:

Describing processes and phenomena.

Giving examples and reasoning on theories and cases of study.

Learning skills:

In-depth understanding of the main issues trought searching for scientific sources and databases (e.g., JStor, Eric, WoS, ect. …)

Basic knowledges in the human sciences.

The course is aimed to present the main issues related to large global transformations of the last decades. A brief overview of the global ecological crisis and several geopolitical and environmental problems facing Human Communities will be presented. It also will contribute to the formation of skills related to the analysis of geographical processes.

The course will provide also a fundamental knowledge of Africa in a decolonial perspective.

Then, the course will address the analysis of the current socio-ecological debate, focusing the environmental transformations of economic globalization and the social conflicts related to the human living conditions. It will pay particular attention to the problems posed by the new social conflicts related to the construction of living spaces.

1. Del Casino V., 2009. Social Geography: a critical introduction. Malden (USA)-Oxford (Uk): Wiley-Blackwell (pp. 336).

2. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, 2017. Spostare il centro del mondo. La lotta per le libertà culturali. Milano: Meltemi (pp. 212).

3. S. Torre, 2017. Contro la frammentazione. Movimenti sociali e spazio della politica. Verona: Ombre Corte (pp.96).

Students should be able to use the two Atlases:

1. Environmental Justice Atlas: www.ejatlas.org
2. AFRICA Atlas of Our Changing Environment: http://staging.unep.org/dewa/Africa/AfricaAtlas/