Module manager: Deirdre Conlon
Email: d.conlon@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2025/26
| GEOG2155 | Towards a Zero Carbon Future |
This module is not approved as a discovery module
Focusing on themes of borders, boundaries, belonging, and identity, this field-based module involves travel and activities centred around Belfast, Northern Ireland. Using Belfast as our anchor, we will explore the region’s significance in understanding intersecting legacies and dynamics of politics, economics, and culture as they shape contemporary society and identities of ‘border’ regions. The module develops students’ research knowledge and skills using practical as well as critical engagement with a range of research methods including, but not limited to, GIS, surveys, countermapping, critical feminist narrative, and visual methods including oral history and archival work. A series of field site orientation and thematic lectures along with methods workshops prepare students for fieldtrip activities, which take place over 5-6 days. The fieldtrip activities include directed work and activities with UoL staff and local experts as well as opportunities for group-based and independent application of self-selected methods to investigate relevant themes in the field.
Module objectives are:
1. To develop an understanding of complex relationships between borders, boundaries, and belonging at different political scales: the neighbourhood, city, regional and across states and territories.
2. To expand students' knowledge of the interconnection between culture, identity, place, and political activity and activism through a current case study.
3. To provide practical experience of research methods, data collection and analysis suited to investigate topics on political, economic and socio-cultural issues using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods.
These objectives are addressed with a focus on visiting Belfast and the Northern Ireland region, which will serve as focal points to explore module themes. The region illuminates key geographical concepts and timely social and spatial issues including legacies and relationships between empire and contemporary socio-cultural, political and economic issues, as well as responses to uneven power relations amongst diverse state and non-state actors (obj, 1 and 2). Pre-fieldtrip sessions provide a foundation for key geographical concepts and tools that enable students to comprehend relevant theoretical ideas as well as methodological tools (and assessed via a pre-trip research proposal and annotated bibliography) (obj. 1 and 2). Knowledge and skills will be put into practice coinciding with fieldtrip activities, and fieldtrip experiences and derived knowledge will inform a post-trip assessed project. (obj. 3).
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following learning outcomes relevant to the subject:
1. Explain how relationships between borders, boundaries, and belonging at different political scales impact the contemporary world, particularly amongst state and non-state actors.
2. Identify and critically review data collected using quantitative methods (i.e. surveys, GIS, open data mapping) and/or qualitative methods (i.e. semi-structured interviews, countermapping, kitchen table, oral history and archival work) used to understand experiences and inequalities.
3. Demonstrate how specific cultural, political and historical factors influence uneven power relations in current contexts through a piece of original research, with data collected during the fieldtrip.
Skills Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following skills learning outcomes:
1. Academic.
a. Expand information searching, academic writing, referencing and time management skills.
b. An ability to critically analyse, explain and debate the impacts of historical, cultural and political events on contemporary case studies regarding borders and sense of belonging.
2. Work ready: communication, research skills, IT skills, use of GIS and other open map data use to create maps, interview skills.
3. Personal
a. Develop an original piece of research
b. Carry out an original piece of research and present it in a creative way.
4. Digital: Information and data literacy.
Details of the syllabus will be provided on the Minerva organisation (or equivalent) for the module
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fieldwork | 6 | 7 | 42 |
| Lecture | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| Practical | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| Seminar | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Private study hours | 144 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 56 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 200 | ||
There are at least four opportunities for formative feedback.
1) Pre-fieldtrip classes include: 3 two-hour workshops where students will review a range of methods including semi-structured interviews, archival, narrative, visual, body-mapping, counter-mapping, and GIS techniques (these and other methods are introduced in GEOG2150 Social and Spatial Data Analysis with GIS and GEOG2000 Research Approaches in Human Geography). In the pre-fieldtrip workshops, students will work in small groups to explore these methods and their applicability to a range of issues and themes relevant to the field site. Students will receive formative guidance at this stage.
2) In pre-fieldtrip workshops, students will also be given an opportunity to receive feedback related to self-selected data collection tool(s) they intend to use to investigate a topic relevant to borders, boundaries, identity, and belonging over the course of the fieldtrip. This will inform the pre-fieldtrip assessment.
3) In the field, staff accompany students for activities, all of which include a 30 min. debrief and reflection, and Q&A/guidance that can inform assessment. Additional guidance will also be provided prior to independent, small group neighbourhood activities (approximately 3-4, 2-hour periods, totalling 6-8 hours) to apply the relevant qualitative and quantitative techniques selected by students, enabling students' opportunities for extended interaction/ dialogue on themes related to borders, boundaries, identity and belonging. The summative research proposal and annotated bibliography is marked pre-trip, so feedback is available to inform student learning in the field, which then feeds forward into the summative post-trip report.
4) Post-field trip drop-in session of 2 hours will be offered to students. This session will guide students with analysis of the data collected in the field and provide an opportunity for any outstanding questions they might have before handing in the final assignment.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Coursework | 30 |
| Coursework | Coursework | 70 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
Check the module area in Minerva for your reading list
Last updated: 31/03/2025
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team