View Specification DocumentPopulation Geographies A:Past and Present GEOG4113
- Academic Session: 2026-27
- School: School of Geographical and Earth Sciences
- Credits: 10
- Level: Level 4 (SCQF level 10)
- Typically Offered: Either Semester 1 or Semester 2 (Alternate Years)
- Available to Visiting Students: Yes
- Collaborative Online International Learning: No
- Curriculum For Life: No
Short Description
Population Geographies 1: Past and Present is a 10-credit Honours Geography option course designed to introduce students to the academic study of Population Geography, a long-recognised sub-discipline of Geography concerned with the geographical dimensions of human populations. This course will provide an in-depth investigation of current issues, allowing students to think critically for themselves about the ideas and counter-ideas, literatures and scholars, and worldly examples and applications of population geography, older and more recent.
Timetable
3 hours per week over 5 weeks
Requirements of Entry
Students should have completed Level 2 Geography at minimum of grade D3
Excluded Courses
None.
Co-requisites
None.
Assessment
Group Presentation - 15%
Course essay - 2500 words (85%)
Main Assessment In: April/May
Course Aims
■ To introduce students to the academic field of Population Geography, tracing its origins, traditional concerns, critical self-reflections and partial reconstruction in recent years.
■ To explore different ways of conceptualising the subject-matter of Population Geography: at its most general, meaning how the phenomena/constructs of 'population', 'space' and 'place' can be understood, particularly in combination.
■ To explain the different ways in which human populations can be conceptualised, 'measured', represented and debated - and the place/role of Population Geography in these respects.
■ To critically assess the traditional concerns (theories, methods and objects) of Population Geography, and to investigate how more recent versions of the sub-discipline have sought to rework such concerns.
■ To discuss arguments about 'the body count' - which bodies matter, where, when and why, and to who? - as central to the reworking of contemporary Population Geography.
■ To explore arguments about 'life stories' - how can individuals and populations bear witness to their own living and dying, sickness and health, loving and grieving - and the complex entanglements of such life stories with space and place.
Intended Learning Outcomes of Course
By the end of this course students will be able to:
■ Describe the subfield of Population Geography, older and more recent.
■ Discuss the connections between 'population', 'space' and 'place'.
■ Explain different conceptions of human population, its 'measurement and representation.
■ Compare and contrast more traditional and more contemporary (more 'critical') versions of Population Geography, particularly in terms of differing theories, methods and objects of study.
■ Discuss the issues at stake when debating 'the body count'.
■ Discuss the issues at stake in creating and witnessing 'life stories'
■ Think, read and write critically as apprentice human geographers interested in matters of population.