Admission requirements
Sustainability, Power and Place is an elective course which is part of the master Governance of Sustainability specialization courses
Other students who are interested in following this course, should contact their own study advisor or the Board of Examiners of their programme for permission.
The course is open to other MSc students, however MSc Governance of Sustainability student will have priority over other student to participate in this course.
Non-GoS Master students who would like to join are expected to be somewhat familiar with sustainability topics and governance questions.
Description
‘Sustainability’ is often used as a buzzword that overlooks or even reproduces unequal power structures. These power structures are expressed through spatial dynamics and specific locations. The course Sustainability, power and place focuses on sustainability-related power issues in terms of uneven spatial developments and associated struggles, such as local protests and NIMBY-ism, green gentrification, resource extraction and waste export. This course provides students with analytical tools to critically explain uneven socio-spatial relations in various sustainability domains, including food, waste, energy and water.
Furthermore, we explore different theoretical perspectives to understand complex socio-ecological problems and how to tackle them through place-making and scalar governance strategies. Here, the course zooms in on relations between spatial-physical processes and institutional scales (with political and administrative boundaries). Students will work on specific sustainability cases to analyse, reflect on and creatively discuss environmentally just spatial strategies.
Course objectives
After this course students will be able to:
Explain and compare how different conceptual approaches frame socio-ecological problems in terms of power and space;
Explain how socio-spatial developments and struggles relate to institutional scales and sustainability governance;
Analyse specific sustainability challenges in terms of socio-spatial developments and inequalities;
Use and produce counter-maps as a visual tool to understand and represent context-specific, socioenvironmental problems;
Design and discuss environmentally just strategies to address socio-spatial inequalities, adopting scalar and place-based approaches;
Discuss socioenvironmental just strategies to address socio-spatial inequalities, adopting scalar and place-based approaches;
Report comprehensively, convincingly and critically;
Demonstrate skills working collaboratively with peers and planning.
Timetable
In MyTimetable, you can find all course and programme schedules, allowing you to create your personal timetable. Activities for which you have enrolled via MyStudyMap will automatically appear in your timetable.
Additionally, you can easily link MyTimetable to a calendar app on your phone, and schedule changes will be automatically updated in your calendar. You can also choose to receive email notifications about schedule changes. You can enable notifications in Settings after logging in.
Questions? Watch the video, read the instructions, or contact the ISSC helpdesk.
Note: Joint Degree students from Leiden/Delft need to combine information from both the Leiden and Delft MyTimetables to see a complete schedule. This video explains how to do it.
Mode of instruction
The lectures and tutorials will mostly be interactive, linking conceptual insights to hands-on exercises and group discussions.
Contact hours: 26 h (12 hours tutorials, 12 hours lectures, 2 hours final symposium)
Self-study: 62 h
Group work (including field-work): 80 h
Assessment method
The course will be graded based on three assignments:
A research paper written in pairs (50%). It tests critical reflection on the conceptualisations of place and power offered in the lectures.
Two group work assignments (50%). This consists of a visual map-making process (30%), in which students creatively represent a socio-spatial challenge as a communicative tool stimulating change. In addition, groups create a podcast episode (20%), telling the socio-spatial story of their map.
The final grade is a weighted average of the three assignments. To pass the course a minimum grade of 5.5 should be achieved for each item.
In case of a grade lower than 5.5 for any of the assignments, students have one chance to resubmit the item within 5 weeks after the original deadline.
All the items need to be submitted within the deadline. Items submitted after the deadline will not be graded.
Reading list
See Brightspace.
Registration
As a student, you are responsible for enrolling on time through MyStudyMap.
In this short video, you can see step-by-step how to enrol for courses in MyStudyMap.
Extensive information about the operation of MyStudyMap can be found here.
There are two enrolment periods per year:
Enrolment for the fall opens in July
Enrolment for the spring opens in December
See this page for more information about deadlines and enrolling for courses and exams.
Note:
It is mandatory to enrol for all activities of a course that you are going to follow.
Your enrolment is only complete when you submit your course planning in the ‘Ready for enrolment’ tab by clicking ‘Send’.
Not being enrolled for an exam/resit means that you are not allowed to participate in the exam/resit.
Contact
Coordinator(s): Dr. Antonella Maiello and dr. Shivant Jhagroe
Remarks
Amount of spots for students in this elective
Minimum: 5 students*
Maximum: 30 students
*this minimum has to be reached for this elective course to be able to start.
Software
Starting from the 2024/2025 academic year, the Faculty of Science will use the software distribution platform Academic Software. Through this platform, you can access the software needed for specific courses in your studies. For some software, your laptop must meet certain system requirements, which will be specified with the software. It is important to install the software before the start of the course. More information about the laptop requirements can be found on the student website.