Caroline Faria

Examines the cultural, economic, political and geopolitical aspects of globalization in the U.S. and the rest of the world. We begin by understanding the rise of capitalism and its evolution into a modern world system and then look into its contemporary reincarnation as globalization. We examine theories and policies of globalization and look into specific issues like, outsourcing of jobs, sweat shops, spread of Wal-Mart, rising income inequality in the US and abroad, conflict and war.

Course will be taught by Dr. Caroline Faria

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/geography/faculty/cf24879

Examines the cultural, economic, political and geopolitical aspects of globalization in the U.S. and the rest of the world. We begin by understanding the rise of capitalism and its evolution into a modern world system and then look into its contemporary reincarnation as globalization. We examine theories and policies of globalization and look into specific issues like, outsourcing of jobs, sweat shops, spread of Wal-Mart, rising income inequality in the US and abroad, conflict and war.

Course will be taught by Dr. Caroline Faria

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/geography/faculty/cf24879

Please check back for updates.

Interdisciplinary topics relating to Women's and Gender Studies.  Seats restricted to WGS MA and Portfolio students during early registration.  Check cross-listings for home departments and originating field of study.

Please check back for updates.

Interdisciplinary topics relating to Women's and Gender Studies.  Seats restricted to WGS MA and Portfolio students during early registration.  Check cross-listings for home departments and originating field of study.

Course Description

What is globalization and what can Levis, Lux soap and lipstick tell us about it?

What are the colonial roots of our contemporary global economic order?

What happens when labor, land and love are your nation’s comparative advantage?

How did HIV/AIDS and H1N1 become global epidemics? Is Ebola next?

Where does your old cell phone end up when you throw it away?

Do patents promote or prevent access to medicines?

Can TOMS really save the world?

Welcome to GEO 350K: Geographies of Globalization! Globalization is one of the defining phenomena of our time. While some argue that it has produced a flat and borderless world, others push for grounded understandings that attend to the entanglements of global trade with a host of socio-cultural, economic and political processes. These are all power-laden, shaped by historically produced and entrenched inequities of gender, race, sexuality, and class. This course examines these kinds of geographies of globalization, taking a “global intimate” perspective that connects the macro geopolitical, geoeconomic, and historical to the contemporary and everyday realities of those living with, negotiating, resisting and driving globalization.

Examines the cultural, economic, political and geopolitical aspects of globalization in the U.S. and the rest of the world. We begin by understanding the rise of capitalism and its evolution into a modern world system and then look into its contemporary reincarnation as globalization. We examine theories and policies of globalization and look into specific issues like, outsourcing of jobs, sweat shops, spread of Wal-Mart, rising income inequality in the US and abroad, conflict and war.

Course will be taught by Dr. Caroline Faria

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/geography/faculty/cf24879

Prerequisite: Varies with the topic and is given in the Course Schedule.

May be counted toward the global cultures flag requirement.

Course number may be repeated for credit when the topics vary.

How are popular representations of Africa reflected in development policy?

What are the historical and globalized roots of ‘underdevelopment’ in Africa?

What were the outcomes of big dam and fishing projects in Ghana and Tanzania?

Is global warming the cause of the conflict in Darfur, Sudan?

What are the ethics around diamond mining in Sierra Leone and oil drilling in Nigeria?

How have women combined feminist and environmentalist efforts in Kenya?

How has the ‘War on Terror’ reshaped African geopolitics?

How are African innovators rethinking development on their continent?

Welcome to 356T: Geographies of International Development in Africa! This course critically examines the major approaches to development on the African continent with a focus on a range of African resources. We will review how these approaches are connected to and underpinned by historically persistent representations, policies and political inequalities and the ways in which they have changed over time. Using a case study approach we will consider one major resource each week, from water to wildlife, forests to farms, airways to rangelands, and including a consideration of African bodies themselves as resources and sites of development. Through these examples we will explore, discuss and debate the ideological foundations of varied development approaches and their political, social and economic outcomes for African people and places. In doing so we will also examine the ways in which African people and places are linked to broader international process. Finally we will pay attention each week to the ways in which dominant development practices have been taken up, resisted and reworked by Africans in varied ways.

Intellectual Goals

At the end of the course students will be able to:

• To critically examine changing ideas of development in Africa in the context of a range of resources
• To historicize the construction of varied contemporary environments in Africa and related ecological and development issues
• To examine the links between representations of Africa and African bodies and historical and contemporary forms of extraction, exploitation, and development
• To consider the ecological, social and political outcomes of oil and mineral resource extraction, water, forest and rangeland management projects, conservation efforts and agricultural development in Africa
• To explore how ecological challenges are being addressed across a range of scales; from the global to the local

Learning Goals

By the end of the course students will be able to:

• Describe and critique the dominant approaches to development in Africa
• Connect key problems around ecology and development in Africa to histories, ideologies, policies, and resistances within and beyond the continent
• Participate in key debates about the role of the environment in African ‘development’ and ‘underdevelopment’

Write-to-learn Goals

• Critically evaluate geographical arguments presented in a range of media (visual, oral and textual) through the use of writing exercises.
• Learn, understand and communicate key geographical concepts by writing for a range of audiences, including peers, the geographical scholarly community, and the public.
• Practice writing in a range of formats: abstracts, thesis statements and full research papers written for a geographical academic audience, write-to-learn reflective pieces, short films/presentations. 
• Collect, critically evaluate and utilize geographical academic research in order to make a strong argument/ answer a carefully crafted research question.
• Strengthen skills of peer-review in a variety of forms

Global Cultures Course Flag:

This course carries the Global Cultures flag. Global Cultures courses are designed to increase your familiarity with cultural groups outside the United States. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from assignments covering the practices, beliefs, and histories of at least one non-U.S. cultural group, past or present.

How is space and place gendered?

How do markers of race, class and gender intersect in our bodies and lives?

How are war, work, nature and nationalism shaped by norms of masculinity and femininity?

How do patriarchy, capitalism, and racism structure our social world?

What can a feminist ethic bring to research methodology?

How has feminist theory troubled and reworked the discipline of Geography?

In the last four decades Feminist thought has significantly transformed the discipline of geography and our broader understanding of space and place. In this class we will review key feminist geography writings produced over this time and the key shifts in feminist geographic thought. In particular, we will focus on transformations in work on knowledge and knowledge production; economic processes including labor, reproductive and productive work, migration, development and globalization; and political processes such as those of colonialism and nationalism, geopolitics and transnationalism. In doing so we will draw on and explore a range of strands of feminist theory including; Marxist, postcolonial, post structural, intersectional and transnational feminisms.

Course Description

What is globalization and what can Levis, Lux soap and lipstick tell us about it?

What are the colonial roots of our contemporary global economic order?

What happens when labor, land and love are your nation’s comparative advantage?

How did HIV/AIDS and H1N1 become global epidemics? Is Ebola next?

Where does your old cell phone end up when you throw it away?

Do patents promote or prevent access to medicines?

Can TOMS really save the world?

Welcome to GEO 350K: Geographies of Globalization! Globalization is one of the defining phenomena of our time. While some argue that it has produced a flat and borderless world, others have pushed instead for grounded understandings that attend to the entanglements of global trade with a host of socio-cultural, economic and political processes. These are all power-laden, shaped by historically produced and entrenched inequities of gender, race, and class. This course examines these kinds of geographies of globalization, taking a “global intimate” perspective that connects the macro geopolitical, geoeconomic, and historical to the contemporary and everyday realities of those living with, negotiating, resisting and driving globalization.