Course Syllabus GGR112 - Department of Geography

GGR 112 H1F
Geographies of Globalization & Development
Department of Geography & Planning
University of Toronto
First Summer Session (11 May – 19 June 2015)
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2 – 4 pm in SS 2117
INSTRUCTOR
Teaching Assistants*
Lia Frederiksen
Caitlin Henry: caitlin.henry@utoronto.ca
Office: SS 5060
Lazar Konforti: lazar.konforti@mail.utoronto.ca
lia.frederiksen@mail.utoronto.ca
Elsie Lewison: elsie.lewison@mail.utoronto.ca
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 4.30-5.30 pm.
* Please direct all administrative emails about the course to the instructor.
COURSE GOALS
Throughout this course, we apply a geographical approach to international
development, economic globalization, and transnational relations of inequality. We focus
on important ideologies, theories, and practices of development and globalization to
explore how and why people’s lives are linked across places and histories. We proceed
from the understanding that all accounts of globalization and development result from
particular assumptions and beliefs about what the meaning of progress or economic
growth. We extend this understanding with the knowledge that designating places as
“developing” or equating globalization with “levelling” inequalities are geographical
concepts that do political work and have real, material effects in the world.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of the course, we will have at least a basic understanding of:
•
Ways to critically evaluate and rigorously question, as geographers, the
underlying assumptions and practical implications of international development
and economic globalization.
•
How economic, social, cultural, political, and spatial inequalities are shaped by
attempts to “develop” and “globalize”.
•
Significant geographical scales (regions, states, markets, households, schools)
and actors (workers, citizens, professionals, corporations, activists) in economic
globalization and international development;
•
Improved reading, writing, mapping, and reasoning skills that are useful for
critically examining development and globalization throughout the course, in
future university studies, and far beyond the classroom.
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COURSE REQUIREMENTS
The most important requirement for this course, as with any course that deals with
inequality and geographical difference, is that we approach all readings, lectures, and
especially one another with patient and open minds; a willingness to see from new
perspectives, and to honestly recognize and challenge our own assumptions.
Specifically, some basic ground rules are:
•
Come to every class prepared and ready to engage. Be ready to pose questions,
share your thoughts, and discuss the material as you are able and inclined to.
•
Complete all readings and assignments before lecture. Be ready to devote at
least 4 hours a week to reading, making notes, and reflecting before class in
addition to time for completing assignments & revision. Don’t skip readings,
especially not on days that assignments are due. To submit assignments, plan
your day to ensure you arrive in time to submit your assignment before the
lecture begins (see the policies on submitting assignments below).
•
Bring the relevant course materials to every lecture, preferably in hard copy
(readings, syllabus, assignment guidelines, your notes, etc.).
•
Re-read the course syllabus each week and carefully review the assignment
guidelines while preparing and before submitting an assignment.
•
Please be aware of the needs of others in the classroom – we are sharing this
learning space and can show each other respect by being considerate.
•
Think carefully about which uses of technology directly support you to focus and
engage, and which distract or isolate you and others in the room. Laptops can be
helpful tools for learning; cell phones, cameras, and other devices are not
necessary in the classroom. In this class, we aim toward single-tasking during
class and study time. Resisting the urge to electronically multi-task is crucial for
successful learning outcomes. If you are managing an urgent personal or work
matter, you are welcome to quietly and momentarily leave the classroom to use
your phone.
Accessibility: The University of Toronto is committed to accessibility. If you require
accommodations for a disability, or have any accessibility concerns about the course,
the classroom, or the course materials, please contact Accessibility Services as soon as
possible: disability.services@utoronto.ca or http://studentlife.utoronto.ca/accessibility
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Recording lectures: Only with the prior permission of the course instructor may you
make audio recordings of lectures for your own personal use only. Audio recordings are
to permit lecture content review to enhance your understanding of course material.
Audio recordings are not a substitute for attending class.
No photographs or video recordings are permitted under any circumstances.
Since audio recordings are permitted with the prior permission of the course instructor,
your voice may be recorded by others during class. Please speak with the course
instructor promptly if this is a concern for you.
In accordance with the Ontarians with Disabilities act, students with accommodation
needs will be permitted to make personal audio recordings of lectures.
If you are granted permission by the course instructor to make personal audio
recordings, you must agree to the following: You will not, under any circumstances,
distribute audio recordings in any form (websites, email, file sharing, or any other
means); you may not share audio recordings with other students without the explicit
permission of the course instructor.
Non-compliance with any of the above terms will be subject to disciplinary actions under
the Code of Student Conduct.
Course meetings: This is an accelerated summer course and we are covering a full
term of material in six weeks. An intensive course can be an exciting and intellectually
stimulating opportunity to immerse yourself in a subject differently than during a regular
full term. This course is designed to take advantage of this opportunity. If you are aware
of anything that will prevent you from attending all lectures and fully completing all of the
course requirements on time, it may be better to take the course when it is offered at a
later term. If difficulties arise during the course, please speak with your College
Registrar as soon as possible.
Absence from lecture: The course is designed assuming that all students attend all
lectures, but attendance for lectures is not recorded. It is your responsibility to obtain
and retain the course material, including lectures and in-class activities. It is not possible
to complete participation components if you are absent from class. All assignments are
due, hard copy, before the start of class on the deadline. It is ultimately up to you to
determine how to best manage your time.
Absences from exam: The final exam is managed by the Faculty of Arts and Science.
You must file a formal petition with FAS if you miss the final exam for any reason:
http://www.artsandscience.utoronto.ca/ofr/calendar/Rules_&_Regulations.html
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Email policy: Please conduct as much course business as possible in-person before or
after class and during office hours. Please direct all administrative emails about the
course to the course instructor. You are encouraged to be in contact with each other.
Carefully consult the resources you have (syllabus, course website, handouts,
assignment guidelines, and each other). All of the information you need for the course is
provided in class and on the course website. We ask you to limit email exchanges to
very short questions for which you cannot otherwise find answers. To ensure a
response, you MUST put GGR 112 in the subject line of all emails.
Email from the Instructor and TAs: Periodically the instructor and TAs will send
important announcements via email; therefore all students must set up and regularly
check a UofT email account.
Course website: The course website is Blackboard. All course materials will be posted
on this site. Lecture slides will be posted after class. Please also check the site regularly
for announcements from the instructor and TAs.
Submitting Assignments: All assignments must be submitted in hard copy before the
start of the lecture at 2.10 pm on the due date. Any assignments brought to class after
the lecture begins can be submitted at the end of class and will be assessed a late
penalty. Exceptions to the late penalties will only be made in the case of documented
illness or personal emergency, as described below. Plan your day to arrive at the
classroom with your hard copy assignment well in advance of the lecture.
Late assignments: can be submitted to the Geography Department’s drop box on the
5th Floor of Sid Smith, Room 5047. Note that assignments will only be date stamped at
the end of the day on days that the main office is open (hours during the summer vary).
Assignments submitted to the “after hours” drop box will not be date stamped until the
next day the office is open. This means that any assignments submitted to the
department’s drop box on or after the due date (or “after hours” the day before the
assignment is due) will be stamped late. Take this into account to avoid further
penalties. No assignments will be accepted via email, fax, or under office doors.
Penalties for late assignments: A penalty of 10% per day with no work accepted four
days after a deadline. Weekends (Saturday and Sunday) count as one day for this
purpose. Note that the penalty applies after the lecture begins on the due date. Plan
your schedule accordingly to avoid any late penalties.
Missed Assignment Deadlines: Extensions will be granted sparingly, and only in the
case of documented illness or personal emergencies. For medical reasons, you will
need an official medical note that clearly excuses you for work or school on the day the
assignment is due: http://www.illnessverification.utoronto.ca/. In the case of a personal
emergency, contact your College Registrar as soon as possible.
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Academic Integrity: You must comply with the university’s policies on plagiarism and
academic honesty. Please don’t plagiarise. As a student at the UofT, it is your
responsibility to understand and follow these policies: http://life.utoronto.ca/getsmarter/academic-honesty/
Academic Resources and Skills: Developing good citation practices and strong
writing is a process that can be supported with a variety of resources available at the
university. You should consult these resources, like writing centres and skills
workshops, frequently as a student at the university and we recommend these
resources especially Robarts Library reference librarians. You can book a one-on-one
consultation, walk-in, or online chat with a reference librarian for assistance locating
scholarly sources and assessing the reliability of other types of sources:
http://onesearch.library.utoronto.ca/contact-us/
Copies of assignments: It is your responsibility to maintain digital copies of your
written assignments and a hard copy of marked assignments until the final course
marks are recorded.
Course Readings: You are expected to complete all of the assigned readings before
each lecture. Some of the readings are more straightforward and others are more
challenging. Be sure to read carefully, even shorter pieces. You will benefit from working
to complete readings, even if you do not have a firm grasp of all of the points before
lecture. Lectures will not summarize readings, but will expand on important arguments
and examples. We are happy to discuss reading strategies and study skills with you
throughout the course in office hours.
Teaching Assistants
In this course, we are lucky to have a team of three teaching assistants with diverse and
extensive research, teaching, and work experience in globalization and development.
Caitlin, Elsie, and Lazar will be available to you throughout the course to consult on
assignments and answer questions. Check Blackboard frequently for their office hours,
and feel free to visit them in person for answers to questions about your assignments,
research, writing, and reading in this course. You are welcome to visit anyone’s office
hours, but it is ultimately your TA who will mark your work in the class.
Your TA for the course is assigned to you by the first letter of your surname:
A through G:
H through P:
Q through Z:
Elsie is your TA
Caitlin is your TA
Lazar is your TA
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ASSIGNMENTS & EXAM
ALL assignments are due in hard copy by the start of lecture period at 2.10 pm on
the due date. Any assignments submitted after the start of lecture will be subject to late
penalties.
Focus Country: You will choose a focus country from a list provided on the course
website, and you will identify a specific development or globalization “intervention” (a
past or present project, event, process, policy, dispute, campaign or social movement)
in your focus country. This county and the intervention will form the basis of your course
paper, and your specialization in this focus country will help you to interpret and
understand course concepts in a grounded way.
Focus Country Intervention Paper (40%): A 3-5 page paper in which you explore a
specific globalization or development intervention in your focus country. The paper is
not a report “about” the county or the intervention. Rather, you will integrate course
materials into an assessment of the intervention to examine its root causes, underlying
assumptions, and practical implications. The purpose of the paper is to identify how
distinct perspectives on development and/or globalization operate in order to evaluate
the real, lived effects of an attempt to change the economy, politics, culture, or social life
in your focus country. The paper is due Thursday 18 June at the start of lecture.
Assignment guidelines will be posed on Blackboard.
Mapping Global Governance, Trade, and Development Exercise (20%): Details will
be distributed in class and posted on Blackboard. You will receive an outline map and
list of required elements & features, and write a brief analysis paragraph of the map, all
of which you will complete by the beginning of lecture on Thursday 21 May.
Preparation, Participation, and Engagement (10%): Throughout the course, you will
complete a variety of in-class exercises of the following types: reading responses,
reactions to lectures or films, writing exercises, reading quizzes, small group
discussions, and activities to prepare for the course assignments. Please note that you
will only be able to complete these activities if you are in class. The assessment will be
based on a combination of the quantity of in-class activities you complete and the
quality of these engagements.
Final Exam (30%): Covers all reading and lecture material for the course. An exam
review guide will be provided to you on the course website. The final exam will be the
week of 22-26 June (date, time, location TBA).
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REQUIRED READINGS & COURSE SCHEDULE
All required readings, unless otherwise noted, are available as PDFs on the course
website; most are provided through the University of Toronto Libraries.
Week 1
12 May
Introduction
Read the course syllabus in full and explore the course website content.
14 May
Globalization
Wayne Ellwood (2006) “Globalization then and now” in The No-Nonsense Guide to
Globalization (2nd edition), p. 14-28.
Week 2
19 May
International Development
Victoria Lawson (2007) “Development as Intervention: from modernisation to neoliberalisation” in Making Development Geography, p. 68-100.
21 May
Regions
Devin Browne & Jill Replogle (2012) “NAFTA: Birth of a Free Trade World” from
Fronteras Desk. [Read the short text AND listen to the audio clip linked on Blackboard].
James K. Galbraith (2014) “Inequality after NAFTA: Notes on the Evidence” in
International Journal of Political Economy 43(2): 61-81.
Week 3
26 May
States
Saskia Sassen (1996) “The State and the New Geography of Power” in Losing Control?
Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization, p. 1-17.
“The WTO and Indigenous Peoples: Resisting Globalization, Asserting SelfDetermination” Declaration (2013) from the Indigenous Environmental Network website.
[6 pages].
28 May
Markets
Glyn Williams, Paula Meth, and Katie Willis (2009) “Market-Led Development” in
Geographies of Developing Areas, p. 305-333.
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Week 4
2 June
Households
Glyn Williams, Paula Meth, and Katie Wills (2009) “Ways of Living” in Geographies of
Developing Areas, p. 241-271.
4 June
Waste
Susan Strasser (1999) “Toward a History of Trashmaking” in Waste and Want: a social
history of trash, p. 3-19
Al-Jazeera English (2013) “A world of waste” from South 2 North. [read the short text
AND watch the video clip, linked on Blackboard].
Week 5
9 June
Corporations
Warwick Murray and John Overton (2015), “Globalizing Economic Geographies” in
Geographies of Globalisation, p. 105-157.
11 June
Education
Nicola Ansell (2008) “Substituting for Families? Schools and Social Reproduction in
AIDS-affected Lesotho” in Antipode 40(5): 802-824.
Winona LaDuke (2004) “The Political Economy of Wild Rice, Indigenous Heritage, and
University Research” text of speech at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in published
in Multinational Monitor [4 pages].
Week 6
16 June
Commons
Donald M. Nonini “The Global Idea of the Commons”, Social Analysis 50(3): 164-177.
Arundhati Roy “Confronting Empire” text of speech from the 2003 World Social Forum,
published at Outlook India [4 pages].
18 June
Review & Reassessment
Read the exam review guide and prepare questions in advance of class
**Final Exam: Week of 22-26 June (TBA)**
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