Module Catalogue 2025/26

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

The Jordan political geography field course aims to introduce students to environmental politics by giving them the opportunity to study these politics first hand in Jordan, a country whose environmental issues, including extreme water scarcity, continue to be overtly shaped by geopolitics. This field course will enable students to understand environmental politics through a focus on both narratives and perspectives at the state level and struggles that occur in everyday spaces. Students will be encouraged to critically understand how environmental issues are political by connecting theoretical concepts from geography to Jordan.

Topics the field course might explore include: how colonialism and particularly British colonial legacies in Jordan shape its environmental policies; how resource scarcity and abundance is narrated in official state discourses; how communities experience environmental change; the politics of nature conservation; and how environmental activism is producing new environmental imaginaries.

These connections will be introduced and developed through a series of lectures in Semester Two, after which students will undertake a residential field course in Jordan, where they will complete a mixture of guided activities and group projects. The guided activities will enable students to engage with environmental politics as it occurs in everyday spaces in Jordan and through state actors, and how communities are impacted by environmental policies. The groupwork activity will enable students to choose a case study of environmental politics in Jordan to focus on and research in-depth as a group, to then produce a fieldwork report on.

Outline Of Syllabus

1.       An introductory lecture (early semester 2) where the nature of the module will be set out as well as an introduction to Jordan encompassing its political and colonial past, present, and future.

2.       Four further lectures which will consist of three lectures introducing key theoretical concepts in relation to environmental politics and relevant to Jordan and one lecture on the process of doing political and environmental research.

3.       A fifth workshop whereby students will deliver summative group presentations on different themes relating to environmental politics in Jordan. This group assessment will focus on developing students’ ability to understand and apply theories and concepts in political geography.

4.       Field course to Jordan consisting of guided activities and student group fieldwork projects.

5.       Submission of individual assessed written student fieldwork reports.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

-To develop an empirically and conceptually rich critical understanding of key concepts in environmental politics (for example environmental colonialism, resource politics, environmental justice) through a combination of theoretical approaches and empirically applied research.
-To design a research project that enables an aspect of environmental politics to be understood and critically analysed.
-To critically consider the use of various methodological approaches and methods for researching environmental politics in the field.
-To consider the power inequalities of environmental politics and how political processes at national, regional, and global scales alter the environment and its everyday use.

Intended Skill Outcomes

It is intended that students on this field course will develop:

-The ability to work individually and with others to explore contemporary environmental political issues.
-The ability to identify the multiple and intersecting issues shaping environmental politics in a country that is experiencing resource scarcity and shaped by regional geopolitical conflict.
-The ability to identify an existing environmental issue in Jordan, connect it to relevant academic literatures, and present on it.
-The ability to synthesise and summarise a research project in written assessed work within a set period.
-The ability to meet deadlines for assignments.
-The ability to understand the challenges of undertaking research (especially in overseas locations) in ethically sensitive and responsible ways.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The first lecture will act as an introduction to the field course and the political context of Jordan. The following three lectures will introduce theories and concepts relevant to environmental politics, environmental justice, resource colonialism and crucially the postcolonial context of Jordan. Possible topics students might explore in their research projects/presentations will be outlined here. During these sessions, students will form groups and identify a broad topic they wish to explore in Jordan. The fifth lecture will address issues relating to undertaking research on politically-sensitive issues – methodological approaches, methods, ethics and other associated practicalities (e.g. working in groups).

The final teaching session before the fieldtrip will be a workshop which will be allocated for the summative student group presentations. Each group will present on an environmental issue in Jordan. This will enable students to be equipped with adequate knowledge about the context of Jordan before travelling.

The organised activities on days 2-4 of the trip will enable students to explore case studies of different environmental issues in Jordan. The three days allocated for these guided activities will enable students to engage with these issues as they occur in rural areas of Jordan and to gain valuable experience of doing fieldwork in desert environments.

The independent research taken on days 5-6 of the trip will require students to utilise a range of research methods that may be used in their final year dissertations (e.g. formulating questions for interviews, undertaking ethnography, writing a field diary and conducting participant observation). In their projects, students will choose a case study of environmental politics in Jordan to focus on and will produce a fieldtrip report. Students might choose a project that involves interviews with policy makers or a community-based organisation. Translation will be possible through local tour guides who can support students, should they choose a community-based project. The assorted activities will provide students with opportunities to explore modes of learning and research geographical issues beyond the university. Both before and after the fieldtrip, students will be encouraged to dedicate time to reading and the development of knowledge and understanding.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Before embarking on the field course in Jordan, all students will be required to give group summative presentations (30%). This will involve them researching an environmental issue in Jordan and providing an in-depth account of the history and present day politics of this issue and connecting it to relevant literature in environmental politics (e.g. transboundary geopolitics, water scarcity, colonialism, environmental justice, ecotourism, nature-society relations). Students will be given a choice of issues to focus on drawn from the themes introduced during the preliminary lectures. This exercise will enable students to ground their knowledge in relevant readings (some of which will be focused on Jordan, others on debates in environmental politics, and political geography more widely) and to begin to develop more advanced knowledge of their chosen topic ahead of the trip. The process of preparing and delivering a presentation will also provide students the opportunity to develop presentation skills. It will also offer the opportunity for students to develop their listening and analytical skills, and wider knowledge of Jordan’s environmental politics, as they engage with the material presented by other groups through question and answer sessions.

The research project completed in Jordan will be the subject of a 2,500 word individually-completed project report (consisting of 70% of the module mark). This will draw on experiences in the ‘field’ and will be contextualised with reference to relevant literatures (an indicative structure for this report will be provided to students). This part of the assessment will reflect on group work completed in Jordan but will be written up individually and submitted a few weeks after the end of the fieldtrip. This assessment will give students the opportunity to reflect on the theoretical and methodological issues involved with undertaking geographical research on environmental political issues.

General Notes

N/A