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
You will find the timetables for all courses and degree programmes of Leiden University in the tool MyTimetable (login). Any teaching activities that you have successfully registered for in MyStudyMap will automatically be displayed in MyTimeTable. Any timetables that you add manually, will be saved and automatically displayed the next time you sign in.
MyTimetable allows you to integrate your timetable with your calendar apps such as Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and other calendar apps on your smartphone. Any timetable changes will be automatically synced with your calendar. If you wish, you can also receive an email notification of the change. You can turn notifications on in ‘Settings’ (after login).
For more information, watch the video or go the 'help-page' in MyTimetable. Please note: Joint Degree students Leiden/Delft have to merge their two different timetables into one. This video explains how to do this.
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
Every student of all years must enroll via MyStudyMap.
In this short video, you will see step by step how to enroll in courses in MyStudyMap. Note that your enrollment is only completed when you submit your course planning in the 'Ready for enrollment' tab by clicking 'submit'.
There are two registration periods per year: registration for the fall semester opens in July and registration for the spring semester opens in December. Please see this page for more information.
Please note that it is compulsory to register for every exam and retake. Not being registered for a course means that you are not allowed to participate in the final exam. Keep in mind that there are enrollment deadlines, see this page for more information.
Extensive FAQ on MyStudymap can be found here.
Contact
Coordinator(s): Antonella Maiello and Shivant Jhagroe
Antonella Maiello 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.