KE6041 - Geographies of Home, Belonging and the Intimate

You will learn through a combination of lectures, seminars and a local field study visit. The lectures will cover theories and concepts, case studies, and module staff’s own research. Where appropriate, guest lecturers will be invited to provide insights into the geographies of home, belonging and the intimate. Seminars are designed to allow you to explore issues raised in lectures, readings and other materials in greater depth. A local field study visit will then allow you to engage in the application of your learning to the real world. Your directed and independent study will be facilitated through your engagement with a range of supporting learning materials, guided by the e-reading list. This will enable you to consolidate your knowledge and understanding. All your learning will be supported through resources made available on the module ELP.

Academic support for your learning will take place both within the formal teaching environment and outside of it. Within the scheduled teaching tutor and peer feedback will occur during discussions in the interactive lectures and seminars. This exposure to discussion and debates around the key concepts will develop and test your understanding. This understanding will then be applied to the assessment.

The ELP provides you with immediate access to learning materials, links and signposts to additional materials and opportunities for you to post questions to your tutors and peers.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:
• MLO1: You will demonstrate a critical understanding of home as a contested site of belonging and intimacy.
• MLO2: You will critically examine the ways in which home as a political and embodied space is being experienced, governed and transformed.
• MLO3: You will critically apply feminist, anti-racist and decolonial theories of home to demonstrate how home, belonging and the intimate are shaped by different and unequal relations of power.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
• MLO4: You will critically apply relevant theories and concepts to real world issues.

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
• MLO5: You will effectively analyse differential lived experiences of home.

Formative feedback: lectures, interactive seminars and where appropriate guest lectures will provide opportunities to test your learning. Through debate and discussion there will be opportunities for formative feedback from peers and tutors allowing you to reflect on your knowledge and understanding prior to the summative assessment.

Summative assessment: This module has two assessments.

The first assessment (accounting for 40% of the module mark) is writing a 1000-word blog post; students will be required to pick a topic we have covered in class and write a blog post that applies a concept to study a particular case study or example (MLOs 4-5).

The second assessment (accounting for 60% of the module mark) is a 3000-word essay engaging with module theories and concepts (MLOs 1-3).

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'Home' is a significant geographical and social concept that encompasses different scales - from lived experiences of everyday, domestic life alongside a wider, and often contested, sense of being and belonging in the world. This module enables you to think critically about home as a political and embodied space and site of contestation shaped by different and unequal relations of power. Drawing upon a range of empirical examples from academic staff´s research, the module explores home, belonging and the intimate in relation to migration and citizenship, race and coloniality, and gender and sexuality. Together we will explore questions such as What wider societal and political practices, systems and frameworks play into who can feel at home where and who experiences home as belonging and safe vs violent and alienating? How can we understand trans-national and global ways of home-making and belonging and what benefits are there to conceptualising home and belonging beyond the domestic and nation-state frameworks? In this module you will reflect on the theoretical and empirical importance of geographies of home, belonging and the intimate and examine them in relation to current issues. These topics and themes will be covered through lectures, seminars and a local field study visit, facilitating the application of theoretical and contextual understanding. The module is assessed through the writing of a 1000-word blog post and a 3000-word essay engaging with module theories and concepts. The learning and assessment strategies will assist you in developing skills of critically applying relevant theories and concepts to real world issues and effectively analysing differential lived experiences of home, belonging and the intimate.