Dr. Kathrin Hörschelmann, Institute of Regional Geography Leipzig (IfL), Research Area “Productions of Space: State and Society”

Course aims and objectives:

This course aims to introduce students to new geographical concepts and approaches to security, focusing especially on theoretical developments in critical geopolitics, political geography and social geography. On the basis of these conceptual approaches and through research-based case studies, the course seeks to develop an integrated and multi-scalar understanding of Human Security with students. Its objectives are to:

- Provide students with the conceptual tools to understand and critically analyse the role of space in political, social and cultural constructions of security

- Enhance students’ understanding of the multi-scalar and entangled architecture of security

- Develop analytical skills for grasping geographies of (in)security as embodied, differentiated and contested

Indicative content:

1) Understanding entangled geographies of “Human Security”

2) Geographical imaginations: deconstructing the spatial logics of security

3) Social geographies of (in)security: precarity, difference and ontological (in)security

4) Embodied geographies of (in)security: gender, age and the ethics of care

5) “Alter-geopolitics” and the geographies of peace

Teaching methodology:

Each session will consist of a 40 minute lecture followed by a 40 minute seminar or practical to discuss and apply the theoretical concepts developed in the lectures to specific topics. The seminars will be reading based, while the practicals will include media and image analysis, poster production, participatory mapping and other creative methodologies.