GEG-20046 - Module Specification
School of Life Sciences
Faculty of Natural Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2025/26

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2025/26

We are facing a significant numbers of societal challenges at the moment, from climate emergency, cost of living crisis and social inequality, to culture wars and civil rights. Geographers and environmentalists are well placed to contribute positively to these challenges. This module will help you understand the critical and important contribution that we can all make towards a better world. This includes considering how different modes of activism and the distribution of social responsibilities are relevant to societal challenges. These include: social movements, protests, volunteering, petitioning, ethical consumption and alternative economics. The module offers you the opportunity to reflect on how we are all involved in these challenges and how this responsibility can be acted upon.

To examine how understandings of global societal challenges - such as climate emergency, poverty and inequalities, civil rights, - are co-produced between different stakeholders. These include governments, businesses NGOS, campaigners, volunteers, community members.
To apply geographical and environmental perspectives to understanding societal challenges.
To examine different modes of activism and how these can be applied to a specific societal challenge.
To explore how responsibility for these problems is assumed and shared. Including how students themselves have the capacity to bring about change in their everyday and work lives.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Discuss different modes of activism (from protest and social movements through to ethical consumption and volunteering) and how these are enacted by different social actors: 1,2
Interpret key theoretical concepts in social and economic geography, and apply these to real-world case studies of activist intervention.: 2
Explain ethical dimensions of activism, including questions of voice, representation, power and privilege in efforts to create more equitable and sustainable worlds.: 2
Reflect on individual capacity to bring about change in relation to an identified societal challenge: 1
Evaluate different perspectives on a specific social or environmental issue and describe how these inform different modes of activism.: 1

Study hours

2 hour Introduction lecture
24 hours interactive lecture + seminar discussion.
10 hours structured engagement with online resources (podcasts)
2 one hour revision sessions
42 hours revising relevant lecture material for assignments
70 hours independent research aimed at assignment completion

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment