Aims

This module engages the movement of different people from different places in the world: from refugees violently dispersed by conflict and climate change to those seeking care for loved ones, asylum seekers trapped in bureaucratic violence to global health migrants trying to secure a better future for their families. We examine the processes, encounters, and poetics of contemporary migration and displacement.

The aims of the course are to:

- Introduce key concepts and debates surrounding the geographical study of contemporary migration and displacement.

- Provide grounded understanding of the processes, encounters and poetics shaping global and local migrations.

- Understand how lived experiences of dispersal shape different transnational forms of identity, cultural practice, and political solidarity.

- Apply qualitative research skills.

- Provide knowledge and skills that can support advocacy work.

Outline Of Syllabus

Our work is divided into different thematic sections. The first theme unpacks the force of enclosure, which is increasing constricting and limiting the lives and options of refugees displaced by violence. We look at bordering practices and carceral architectures, including the ways in which people experience, negotiate and resist state violence and new technologies of control and surveillance. The second theme examines varied routes of migration, global to local responses to displacement, sanctuary cities, and new social relations produced in and through mobility and resettlement.

We also recognise that migration is never simply a site of violence and destitution. Far from it. Working with the realisation that our collective geography is shaped so much more by relations and exchange than fixity, the third theme examines how peoples’ movement has long produced a rich range of trans-bordering attachments, belongings and interconnecting cultural forms. We are interested in how people forge and maintain connections and create complex socio-cultural identities and practices and political solidarities.

In this module, you will learn from lectures, course readings, and popular non-textual forms such as films, graphic novels, podcasts, and music. Lastly, this course is dedicated to a deepening the relationship between Newcastle University and local refugee and migrant advocacy organisations and individuals in Newcastle Upon Tyne.

Potential lectures and topics of the course may include:

Borders and bordering
Detention, outsourcing and the end of the asylum in the UK
The Politics of Living
Labour migration
Medical migrants and new futures of care
Multiculturalism and relations beyond settler colonialism
Climate-migration activism
Sanctuary
Musical entanglements

Module Format
The module is structured by two weekly components. The first is a lecture series in which you will be introduced to key issues, readings, and concepts relevant to the study of migration and displacement. The second section of the module offers more ‘hands-on’ learning through in-class weekly workshops and seminars. These sessions will cover a range of activities. Weekly seminars will also include engagement and discussion on a curated film series and readings. We include a rich range of readings and listening in this module, which reach from academic articles to podcasts, graphic novels to poetry. Weekly seminars will include small-group discussion.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The module is structured in thematic blocks, each addressing a key dynamic and trend of migration and displacement. Introducing key concepts and issues, the module’s lecture series is delivered in concert with weekly seminars which include workshops, curated film screenings, and visits from the local migrant and refugee community. These elements will collectively enable students to engage with the themes and issues of the module in an intensive way with first-hand guidance from staff. We encourage and work with students to develop their reading, writing and communication skills in a constructive and supportive environment. Lectures, readings, visits, advocacy, and workshops all inform student’s assessment work.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Course work will form 100% of course assessment. The module is assessed by two assignments. The first assessment is formative in which students will submit 3 entries from a weekly Notice and Wonder journal. This is an opportunity for constructive feedback that you take into your final assignment. Each journal entry should be no more than 300 words each and they can include drawings, note form, mind maps, etc. For the second assignment, students will submit eight journal entries (300 words each) and a 1600-word essay on an issue selected from one journal entry. These assessments offer opportunity for students to explore topics introduced in lectures and seminars and to follow their own interests and curiosities on issues relating to migration, displacement, cultural encounter and solidarity.