UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO - DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY
GGR 1105
Geographical Thought and the Spatial Turn
Fall 2009
Instructors:
Dr. Emily Gilbert
Dr. Deborah Cowen
University College, B301
Sidney Smith, 5033
(416) 978-0751
(416) 946-0567
emily.gilbert@utoronto.ca
deb.cowen@utoronto.ca
Office Hours: By appointment
Course Time: Thursday 3-5pm
Location:
PGB 101
Course Description
The ‘spatial turn’ refers to the resurgence of geographical thought that has taken place
across the social sciences and humanities over the past three decades. Ostensibly the
spatial turn is a response to transformations within the academic discipline of
Geography, specifically the rise of theoretically charged spatial thought, as well as
transformations in lived geographies through processes such as globalization and
urbanization. This course explores the turn itself – its meaning and impacts – but more
importantly it examines a set of substantive geographic concepts which have propelled
the spatial turn. The course takes a keywords approach to explore what is at stake in
thinking spatially across a diverse range of social, economic, political, cultural and
natural domains. We will examine both the practice of professional geographers (in the
academy and beyond) as well as spatial practice and knowledge that exceeds these
bounds. This course places a heavy emphasis on the learning and writing process through
seminar discussions, group work, and peer review.
Evaluation
Class participation
Seminar presentation
Peer review
Final submission of concept paper
15%
25%
20%
40%
Readings
Readings are available on the Blackboard course website.
Class Participation: This course is seminar based. You are asked to do the required readings
before class each week and to actively engage in discussion. In recognizing that public speaking
can be challenging for many people, we will work hard as a group to foster a supportive space in
the classroom. Participation will be not be graded simply according to the amount you speak in
class, but according to the thoughtfulness of your contributions, the constructiveness of your
engagement with your peers and the course material, and your general contributions to making
the course a productive learning experience. Group work will also contribute towards the
assessment of participation.
Seminar Presentation: Working in groups, you will be responsible for presenting the assigned
readings and leading a session of the course. You should not simply summarize the contents of
the reading. Rather, you should highlight key themes, consider the connections to other readings
we have looked at in the course, and raise critical questions for discussion. As part of your
seminar you might produce a short handout for the class. Members of each seminar group are
welcome to meet with the instructor(s) at least one week prior to their seminar to discuss the
form and content of the presentation. The group you join for the seminar presentation will also
serve as your ‘working group’. We will break out into working groups regularly throughout the
term to discuss the course material and report back to the larger group. Your working group will
provide an opportunity for more intimate exchange and reflection. Each group will be provided
with a notebook and we ask that one member of the group takes notes on the discussion each
time you meet.
Concept Paper:
The major individual assignment for the course will be a 2,000 word paper on a concept relevant
to the study of geography. You may select from one of the concepts provided in class (but not the
concept that you address in your group seminar), or another concept of your own choosing which
has been cleared with the course instructors. Your paper need not be comprehensive but it should
demonstrate a broad familiarity with relevant literature on the concept and your independent
research skills. You are encouraged to engage with your concept in creative ways, perhaps by
focusing on a particular manifestation of a concept or a debate in the literature. The first iteration
of your concept paper is due on Thursday 5 November, 2009 before 3pm. Your paper will be
posted on Blackboard and available to all members of the class. The first iteration of your
concept paper will not be formally graded, but marks will be deducted from your final grade if
this paper is late, or is not submitted.
Peer Review:
You will be responsible for peer reviewing the concept papers of two of your peers (to be
decided by lottery in class). You will be asked to provide a thoughtful and constructive review of
your classmates’ work that addresses, as applicable, the paper’s theoretical, methodological and
substantive claims. Peer reviews will be graded according to the quality of the feedback
provided. The peer reviews should each be between 250 and 500 words, and are due on
Wednesday 18 November, 2009 before 3pm. Each concept paper will also be reviewed by one of
the course instructors. All the peer reviews will be posted on Blackboard and available to all
members of the class.
Final Submission of Concept Paper:
A final version of your concept paper is due on Thursday 10 December, 2009. With your revised
concept paper you should also include a letter that describes how you have or have not addressed
the feedback provided in the review process, and your reasons for doing so/not doing so. The
final version of your concept paper will be marked by one course instructor (not the one who
contributed the peer review). All the final concept papers will be posted on Blackboard and
available to all members of the class.
T O P I C S
A N D
R E A D I N G S
1. COURSE INTRODUCTION
2. THE SPATIAL TURN
 David Harvey (2004) “Space as a key word” in Spaces of Global Capitalism:
Towards a Theory of Uneven Geographical Development; London: Verso: 117-148.
 Nigel Thrift (2006) “Space” Theory, Culture & Society 23(2-3): 139-155.
 Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (1992) “Beyond ‘culture’: space, identity and the
politics of difference” Cultural Anthropology 7(1): 6-23.
3. PLACE
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Doreen Massey (1994) “A global sense of place” in Space, Place and Gender;
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Edward Relph (1997) “Sense of Place” in Susan Hanson, ed. Ten Geographic Ideas
that Changed the World; New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
bell hooks (1990) “Homeplace: a site of resistance” in Yearning: Race, Gender, and
Cultural Politics; Toronto: Between the Lines.
4. NATURE
 Neil Smith (1984) “The ideology of nature” in Uneven Development; Oxford: Basil
Blackwell.
 Donna Haraway (1993) “A manifesto for cyborgs: science, technology, and socialist
feminism in the 1980s” in Linda J Nicholson, ed. Feminism/Postmodernism; New
York: Routledge: 190–233.
 Sarah Whatmore (2002) “Embodying the wild: tales of becoming elephant” in Hybrid
Geographies: Natures Cultures Spaces; London: Sage Publications: 35–57.
5. IDENTITY
 Pierre Bourdieu (1987) “What makes a social class? On the theoretical and practical
existence of groups” Berkeley Journal of Sociology 32: 1-18.
 Kobayashi, Audrey and Linda Peake (1994) “Unnatural discourse: ‘race’ and gender
in Geography” Gender, Place and Culture 1(2): 225-243.
 Natalis Oswin (2008) “Critical geographies of the uses of sexuality: deconstructing
queer space” Progress in Human Geography 32(1): 89-103.
 Lynn A Staeheli and Caroline R Nagel (2008) “Rethinking security: perspectives from
Arab-American and British Arab activists” Antipode 40(5): 780-801.
(OPTIONAL WEEKS BELOW – WE WILL CHOSE 6)
LANDSCAPE
 Carl Sauer (1925) “The morphology of landscape” in J. Leighley, ed. Land and Life:
Selections from the Writings of Carl Ortwin Sauer; Berkeley: University of California
Press: 315–350.
 Don Mitchell (1994) “Landscape and surplus value: the making of the ordinary in
Brentwood, CA” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 12: 7–30.
 Gillian Rose (1993) “Looking at landscape: the uneasy pleasures of power” in
Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge; Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press: 86–112.
 Paul Kinsman (1995) “Landscape, race and national identity: The photography of
Ingrid Pollard” Area 27(4): 300–310.
MAPPING
 JB Harley (2001) “Maps, knowledge and power” in Denis Cosgrove and Stephen
Daniels, ed. The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation,
Design and Use of Past Environments; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 277312.
 Maribel Casas-Cortes and Sebastian Cobarrubias (2008) “Drawing escape tunnels
through borders” in Lize Mogel and Alexis Bhagat, ed. An Atlas of Radical
Cartography; Journal Press.
 John Krygier and Denis Wood (2009) “Ceci n’est past le monde (this is not the world)
in Martin Dodge, Rob Kitchin, and Chris Perkins, ed Rethinking Maps; London:
Routledge: 189-219.
 Nadine Schuurman (2009) “The Brave New World: geography, GIS, and the
emergence of ubiquitous mapping and data” Environment and Planning D: Society
and Space 27: 571-580.
MOBILITY
 Peter Adey and David Bissell (Forthcoming) “Mobilities, meetings and futures: an
interview with John Urry” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space August.
 Jennife Hyndman and Allison Mountz (2007) “Refuge or refusal: the geography of
exclusion” in Derek Gregory and Allan Pred, ed. Violent Geographies: Spaces of
Terror and Political Violence; New York: Routledge: 77–92.
 Philip E Steinberg (2009) “Sovereignty, territory, and the mapping of mobility: a view
from the outside” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 99(3): 467-495
 Katharyne Mitchell (1997) “Different diasporas and the hype of hybridity”
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 15(5): 533-553.
COMMUNITY
 Nikolas Rose (1999) “Community” in Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political
Thought; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 167–196.
 Benedict Anderson (1991) short selection from Imagined Communities: Reflections
on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism; London: Verso.
 Iris Marion Young (1990) “The ideal of community and the politics of difference” in
Linda Nicholson Feminism/Postmodernism; New York: Routledge.
 Herbert, Steven (2005) “The trapdoor of community” Annals of the Association of
American Geographers 95(4): 850-865.
THE POST-HUMAN
 Nigel Thrift (2005) “From born to made: technology, biology and space”
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 30(4): 463-476.
 Kay Anderson (2000) “‘The beast within’: race, humanity, and animality”
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 18: 301-320.
 Bruce Braun (2006) “Modalities of posthumanism” Environment and Planning A 36:
1352–1355
DEVELOPMENT
 Arturo Escobar (1995) “The problematization of poverty: the tales of three worlds and
development” in Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third
World; Princeton: Princeton University Press.
 JK Gibson-Graham (2005) “Surplus possibilities: postdevelopment and community
economies” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 26 (1): 4–26.
 David Walker, John Paul Jones III, Susan M Robers and Oliver R Fröhling (2007)
“When participation meets empowerment: the WWF and the politics of invitation in
the Chimalapas, Mexico” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 97(2):
423-444.
POST/COLONIALISM
 Derek Gregory (2004) The Colonial Present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq; Malden,
MA, Blackwell Publishers. pp. 1-72.
 Franz Fanon (1965) The Wretched of the Earth; Grove Press. pp 1-62.
 Ella Shohat (1992) “Notes on the ‘Post-Colonial’” Social Text, 31/32: 99-113.
BODY
 Claire Rasmussen and Michael Brown (2005) “The body politic as spatial metaphor.”
Citizenship Studies 9: 469-484.
 Kristin Simonsen (2005) “Bodies, Sensations, Space and Time: The Contribution
from Henri Lefebvre.” Geografiska Annaler 87(1): 1 – 14.
 Judith Butler (1999) “Subjects of sex/gender/desire” in Gender Trouble: Feminism
and the Subversion of Identity; New York: Routledge: 1-34.
SCALE
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Eric Swyngedouw (1997) “Neither global nor local: ‘glocalization’ and the politics
of scale” in Kevin R Cox, ed. Spaces of Globalization: Reasserting the Power of the
Local; New York: The Guilford Press: 137-166.
Marston, Sallie A., John Paul Jones III, and Keith Woodward (2005) “Human
geography without scale” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 30(4):
416–432. [Plus responses by Hoefle and Collinge in the same journal, vol. 31, 2
(2006): 238-251.]
Engin Isin (2007) “City/state: critique of scalar thought” Citizenship Studies 11(2):
211–228.
CITIZENSHIP
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Joe Painter and Chris Philo (1995) “Spaces of citizenship: an introduction” Political
Geography 14(2): 107-120.
Suzan Ilcan and Tanya Basok (2004) “Community government: voluntary agencies,
social justice, and the responsibilization of citizens” Citizenship Studies 8(2): 129 –
144.
Chantal Mouffe (1992) “Feminism, citizenship and radical democratic politics” in
Judith Butler and Joan Scott, ed. Feminists Theorize the Political; New York and
London: Routledge: 369-384.
SET LAST CLASS
12. KNOWLEDGE
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Edward Said (1994) Representations of the Intellectual. New York: Pantheon.
(Chapters 4 and 5)
Kevin Ward (2005) “Geography and public policy: A recent history of ‘policy
relevance’” Progress in Human Geography 29(3): 310-19.
Harald Bauder (2006) “Learning to become a professional geographer: reproduction
and transformation in academia.” Antipode 38(4): 671-79.