Hello! I’m teaching Geography 225: Space, Place, and Difference in Spring 2021. This course is cross-listed with Women’s and Gender Studies. A brief description of the course is provided below. Email your questions and queries to pallavigupta@unc.edu

 

 

GEOG/WGST 225: Space, Place, and Difference

Spring 2021 | Online Course | Instructor: Pallavi Gupta

Email: pallavigupta@unc.edu

Monday |Wednesday| Friday| 12:20 to 1:10 pm (EST)

Field Work Pallavi Gupta

© Pallavi Gupta Fieldwork in a railway station

 

Do all of us experience space evenly? How do the categories of race, caste, class, gender, operate in everyday life, and across different spaces? How do social relations manifest in space? This class will address these questions. We will begin by understanding basic concepts like space, place, race, caste, and gender, and then focus on how spaces are social and political. The class will draw on seven themes that will speak to one another: gender, race, caste, class, disabilities, sexualities, and religion. In doing so, we will focus on the different experiences of people across geographies, both in the USA and in other parts of the world. Drawing on specific examples of places such as the railway station, and spaces such as the feminist movement, we will understand how differences manifest in space. The spaces and places will be seen in relation to the past and the present.

Using synchronous and asynchronous teaching techniques and a range of pedagogical tools, we will aim to:

  • Gain perspective on key concepts and theories in human geography related to space, and place.
  • Develop an understanding of how difference manifests in space and place from a historical, material, and geographic perspective.
  • Introduce students to the space of urban public infrastructure, and how racialized and other forms of differences operate within this space.

Pallavi Gupta is a feminist geographer and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography at UNC, Chapel Hill. My Ph.D. research focuses on the space of the station and you can have a glimpse of my field site in the photograph attached above. I study the experience of cleaning workers in railway stations in India and the politics of cleanliness in relation to caste, gender, labor, waste, and space.

Please send your questions about the course: pallavigupta@unc.edu