GEOG30900

Learning Outcomes:

By attending the fieldtrip and completing the assessed coursework, students will have the specific ability to:

1. Identify and implement the principles of research design and field-based geographical research methods.
2. Critically reflect on the application of fieldwork as a geographical research methodology through the case study of Berlin.
3. Demonstrate familiarity and critical awareness of some contemporary spatial-social issues relating to the geography of Berlin.

More broadly, students will also be able to display an advanced grasp of a range of subject-specific intellectual and practical skills, including the ability to:

1. Review work in a defined area of knowledge and synthesise information from a range of different sources.
2. Gather primary data through methods such as questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, field investigation, archival research and participant observation.
3. Analyse qualitative data generated by research methods or obtained through published sources.
4. Structure conceptual and empirical material into a reasoned argument.

Indicative Module Content:

Over the course of this module, you will work within groups to design and undertake a research project centred around the analysis of data collected on the overseas fieldtrip. You will have the opportunity to sign yourself up to a group project in the thematic area you are most interested in, although final group allocations will depend on the total numbers of students interested in each area.
During the start of the 7-week teaching term leading up to the fieldtip, we will undertake lecture-based learning giving context to the geographies of Berlin with a focus on contemporary spatial-social issues. The following weeks will be divided between lecture-based training on key concepts and methodologies central to geographic field research, and research planning workshops for groups to develop the research design of their projects. At the end of this time, each research group will present their research plans to the rest of the class.
The fieldtrip itself will then last 4 days, starting at 1.30pm on Sunday 10 March 2024 and ending at 1.30pm on Wednesday 13 March 2024. The fieldtrip will be a mixture of fieldwork activities with the whole class and data collection within your smaller research groups, during which you will complete a fieldnote book.
Upon return to Ireland, we will meet again to debrief on the fieldtrip. You will be expected to analyse and write up your collected field data, closing the loop of the production of embodied knowledge from the field.

Student Effort Hours:

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:

Lectures will be delivered in-person during timetabled slots. All lectures will include time for class and/or small group discussions and Q+As, where students will be able to engage in class discussions to further their understanding of the theories and issues being explored. Students are expected to attend all lectures and engage with all lecture materials put online.

Early in the course, you will sign up to research teams. These will be the groups that you will work with in preparation for and during the fieldtrip. In these groups you will:

• work together to prepare how you tackle your chosen research project in Berlin;
• create and present as a group a presentation of your research project;
• work together each day in Berlin to complete your research;

However, the fieldnote book and final report are individual pieces of work. In other words, you will use the data collected by your group for your individual assessments.

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.

Module Requisites and Incompatibles

Not applicable to this module.
 

Assessment Strategy

 

Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 

Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Feedback will be offered individually to students on the qualitative exercise and the field journals, as there are to be undertaken individually. However, on the final project groups can be formed (though they are not required). If projects are submitted as a group, feedback will be offered to the group and then individual letter grades will be assigned. Each person in the group will get the same letter grade as other group members.

Key Text:
Till, K. (2005). The New Berlin: Memory, Politics, Place. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Other readings on Berlin:
Allen, J (2006). 'Ambient Power: Berlin's Potsdamer Platz and the Seductive Logic of Public Spaces', Urban Studies 43 (2), 441-455
Andersson, J. (2022). Berlin's queer archipelago: Landscape, sexuality, and nightlife. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, DOI: 10.1111/tran.12585
Cochrane, A. (2006). 'Making Up Meaning in a Capital City: Power, Memory and Monuments in Berlin', European Urban and Regional Studies, 13 (1), 5-24.
Cochrane, A. and Passmore, A. (2001). 'Building a national capital in an age of globalization: the case of Berlin', Area 33 (3), 341-352.
Dekel, I. (2009). 'Ways of looking: observation and transformation at the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin', Memory Studies, 2 (1), 71-86.
Knischewski, G. and Spittler, U. (2006). 'Remembering the Berlin Wall: the wall memorial ensemble Bernauer Strasse', German Life and Letters, 59 (2), 280-293.
Ladd, B. (1997). The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Langley, P., Lewis, S., McFarlane, C., Painter, J., & Vradis, A. (2020). Crowdfunding cities: Social entrepreneurship, speculation and solidarity in Berlin. Geoforum, 115, 11-20.
Staiger, U. (2009). 'Cities, citizenship, contested cultures: Berlin's Palace of the Republic and the politics of the public sphere', Cultural Geographies, 16, 309-327.
Stangl, P. (2008). 'The vernacular and the monumental: memory and landscape in post-war Berlin', GeoJournal, 78, 245-253.

Readings on Sense of Place:
Basso, Keith (1996) Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache. Sante Fe: University of New Mexico Press.
Cresswell, Tim (2013) Place: A Short Introduction, London: Wiley.
Frumkin, H. (2003) Healthy Places: Exploring the Evidence, American Journal of Public Health, Vol 93, No. 9
Massey, D. (2005) For Space, London: SAGE.
Relph (1979) Place and Placelessness, Pion Ltd. (2nd edition also available)
Seamon, D. & Sowers, J. (2008) ‘Place and Placelessness, Edward Relph’, In P. Hubbard, R. Kitchen, & G. Valentine (eds.), Key Texts in Human Geography, Sage, London, pp.43-51 (available at http://www.arch.ksu.edu/seamon/place_&_placelessness_classic_texts.pdf).
Tuan, Y-F. (1974) Topophilia: A study of environmental perception, attitudes,
and values, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall, Inc., NJ.
Wylie, J. (2002). An essay on ascending Glastonbury Tor. Geoforum 33(4): 441-454.

Readings on Research Design and Methods:
Cloke, P, Painter J, Crang P, Philo C, Goodwin, M, Cook, I 2004 Practising human geography London, Sage. [See especially the final chapter of Part I: Observing, Participating and Ethnographies' in Crang, M. and Cook, I. (1995) 'Doing ethnographies.' SAGE, London.]
Cresswell, T. (2006) On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World, Routledge, London. (Chapter 9 – The Production of Mobilities at Schiphol Airport Amsterdam)
Katz, C. (1992) 'All the world is staged: intellectuals and the process of ethnography', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 10: 495-510.
Parr, H. (2000) Interpreting the 'hidden social geographies' of mental health: ethnographies of inclusion and exclusion in semi-institutional places, Health and Place 6: 225-237. (Good example of an empirical ethnographic study).
Phillips R. and Johns, J. (2012). Fieldwork for Human Geography. London: Sage.
Ward, K. (2014). Researching the City. London: Sage.

Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.