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Political Geography 34 (2013) 24e34

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Political Geography

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/polgeo

Interventions in teaching political geography: Reflections on practice

Alison J. Williams a, Alex Jeffrey b, Fiona McConnell c, Nick Megoran a,*, Kye Askins d, Nick Gill e,Catherine Nash f, Raksha Pande g

a School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, United KingdombDepartment of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing Place, Cambridge CB2 3EN, United KingdomcUniversity of Cambridge, Trinity College, Cambridge CB2 1TQ, United KingdomdGeography and Environment, Northumbria University, Ellison Place, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, United KingdomeGeography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4RJ, United Kingdomf School of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, United KingdomgDepartment of Geography, Durham University, Science Laboratories, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom

Keywords:Undergraduate teachingPedagogyPolitical geographyUK

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ44 7905 731768.E-mail addresses: alison.williams1@ncl.ac.uk (A

geog.cam.ac.uk (A. Jeffrey), Frm24@cam.ac.uk (F.ncl.ac.uk, nickmegoran@hotmail.com (N. Megoran), k(K. Askins), N.M.Gill@exeter.ac.uk (N. Gill), c.nraksha.pande@durham.ac.uk (R. Pande).

0962-6298/$ e see front matter � 2013 Elsevier Ltd.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2013.03.002

of contemporary undergraduate political geography courses.Leading textbooks, such as Jones, Jones and Woods (2004) and

terial. Recent editions of Taylor and Flint’s textbook have beenimproved by the addition of suggested ‘activities’ at the end of each

Introduction

Nick Megoran, Fiona McConnell, Alex Jeffrey, and Alison J.Williams

In 2011 Rex Walford, who played such an important role inencouraging generations of geographers to reflect on how and whythey taught the subject, died in a tragic boating accident. Hisobituarist, MikeMorrish, recorded that he had said after a lifetime’sdedication to geographical teaching:

‘I remain convinced of geography’s potency to teach both astewardship of the physical world and an understanding of theneed for harmony in the humanworld and of its great value in aproperly humane education’

(Morrish, 2011: 107).

Walford’s influencewas in large part due to the care that he tookto provide clear, practical ways to teach new geographical ideas inthe classroom e for example, through games and simulation(Taylor and Walford, 1972; Walford, 1969). Yet there is a dearth ofpublishedmaterial on creativeways of teaching the specific content

.J. Williams), alex.jeffrey@McConnell), Nick.megoran@ye.askins@northumbria.ac.ukash@qmul.ac.uk (C. Nash),

All rights reserved.

Painter and Jeffrey (2009), are valuable in sharing with colleaguesthe structure and content of taught courses. This is extremely usefulwhen it comes to design new courses and to set readings. However,they lack practical suggestions for the innovative delivery of ma-

chapter (Flint & Taylor, 2011; cf. Taylor & Flint, 2000). Althoughpotentially useful for instructors, they are primarily intended forthe individual student reader.

In emphasizing the practicalities of teaching, this collectionbuilds on and extends ‘Interventions in teaching political geogra-phy in the USA’ published by Raento et al. in this journal in 2010.Originally conceived as a tribute to the inspirational teaching ofJulianMinghi, it provides awelcome and engaging set of reflectionson teaching the sub-discipline today. We extend their discussionhere by focussing on two areas that are underemphasized in theirpaper: practicalities and politics. In particular, we concentrate onfilling a gap opened in Raento et al.’s (2010) intervention: what wecan practically do in the classroom as we teach political geography.Their focus is more course-based than activity-based and is largelyself-reflective, considering how the content of political geographylecture series’ have changed over time. Thus, for example, in theircontributions Cox suggests that teaching should be ‘critical’ and be‘built around a consistent set of ideas’ (Raento et al., 2010: 193), andFlint advocates the adoption of a framework for teaching such as‘Grounded Geographical Knowledge System.’ There are only briefreferences to what is actually done, with Minghi mentioning ‘role-play’ and ‘fieldwork’, Davidson discussing ‘exercises. to deal witha variety of simulated problems’ (Raento et al., 2010: 194), and Flintmobilizing a ‘feminist geopolitical perspective’ to ‘interpret thepolitics of humanitarian aid’ (Raento et al., 2010: 195) for example.These are tantalizing because they are short on detail, and do notallow interested readers to easily replicate these activities in theirown classrooms. The exception is Herb’s fascinating and helpfuloutline of a student exercise on redrawing the boundaries of Iraq(Raento et al., 2010: 196e199).

Table 1Geopolitics of ethnic identities module content 2010/11.

Tuesdays 1e3 Week no. Thursdays 11e1

Introduction to the module 1 Participatory exercises:What do we think?What are our expectations?

Global perspectives I: Imperialismand diaspora

2 Reading-based seminardiscussion

Global perspectives II: geopoliticsof ‘terror’ & the ethnicisationof religion

3 Guest speaker: West EndRefugee Service

Postcolonial theory and agonisticpluralism

4 Video ‘Mixed Race Britain’and small group debate

National perspectives I: policybackground

5Handin draftdiary

Setting the secondassignment

National perspectives II: power,place and ethnic identities

6 Citizenship workshop

Constructions of whiteness 7 Participatory exercises:Who are we.?

Local perspectives I: micropublicsand everyday ethnic relations

8 Visit to local communityorganisation ACANE

Local perspectives II: acrossethnic/gender/class identities

9 Video ‘100% English’and small group discussion

Dominant and contesting mediadiscourses

10 ‘representations’ workshop

Local case studies: researchfindings; community films

11 Guest speaker: NewcastleIrish Centre

‘Ethnicity lunch’ e bring a dishto share .

12 Module review: Q&A

A.J. Williams et al. / Political Geography 34 (2013) 24e34 25

The purpose of this intervention is to follow the direction thatHerb points us in by outlining a series of innovative practicalteaching activities currently being used by political geographersteaching in the UK, with a view to making them replicable inwhatever adapted form the reader chooses. Kye Askins describes amodule in which students set their assignment, coming toconsensus throughparticipatorydebate, toencourage students froma non-diverse background to confront issues of diversity and dif-ference. Nick Gill uses debates as a way to encourage students to-wards thinking critically and argumentatively. Catherine Nashexplains how a field trip to Belfast is used to help students engagewith the emerging geographies of peace debates. Lastly, RakshaPande, Alex Jeffrey and Nick Megoran illustrate an exercise thatobliges students to connect their studies to current affairs bywritinga letter for publication to a newspaper. We believe that these con-tributions will be of high practical value to political geographers.

At the same time, we recognize that teaching is shaped by thepolitical and social context within which it takes place. Changes tothe global, national and local politics can stimulate new pedagogicapproaches and reflections and, as the contributors here outlinethrough their focus on individual agency and the possibility to enactchange in theworld, there is a considerable transformative potentialin teaching political geography. It is suchpossibilities that return ourthoughts to the forms of stewardship and harmony expressed byWalford in our opening excerpt. Consequently the following in-terventions should be read as provocations to action, to continueand extenddebates concerning the practice of political geography inthe classroom, seminar room, lecture theatre and beyond.

You decide: politics, pedagogy and agonistic pluralism

Kye Askins

As a lecturer, I have long been concerned with both capital ‘P’and little ‘p’ politics. I am interested in the ways in which agree-mentmay ormay not be reached among diverse groups and diverseinterests, and how experiences of trying to reach consensus candeepen our understandings of what living togethermay be ormeanin practice. I support increasing calls for geographers tomake socialjustice explicit in the classroom, which must be linked to goodpedagogical practice if such efforts are to resonate beyond teachingspaces (kinpaisby-hill, 2011). My own epistemological approachesto learning attempt to recognize the capacities of students anddisrupt traditional power relations in the classroom (Askins, 2008).This is in line with a participatory pedagogy that has much incommon with ‘border geographies’: encouraging students to taketheir own and each other’s knowledge seriously, and to learn fromone another as well as recognize and work with different opinionsand knowledges (Cook, Angus, & Evans, 2001).

Here, I briefly describe an optional final year undergraduatemodule, ‘The Geopolitics of Ethnic Identities’, which I have beenteaching annually since 2005, in which students (35e50 in anygiven year) set their own assessment. They must reach consensus asa group as to one form of assignment, and whether it is to be anindividual or group-based assessment. Depending on choice, thereare further negotiations to define specifics. This assessment strat-egy has two key aims. First, pedagogically, it seeks to engage stu-dents in ways that engender deeper learning and enable the ‘activelearner’ (Brown, Race, & Rust, 2000). Second, and with specificrelation to the subject matter, it seeks to raise issues of democracyand diversity in practice.

To offer some context, the student cohort on NorthumbriaUniversity’s geography degree programme is non-diverse in termsof ethnicity and age, typically white British and under 22 years old.Students are largely drawn from the north east of England, where

we are situated. This is the least ethnically diverse region in En-gland, with less than 5% of its population from black and minorityethnic groups (Office for National Statistics, 2012). Most have littleexperience of living in a diverse ethnic society. The module dealswith issues of power and social inequalities embedded in racismand racialization across a range of scales (see Table 1), which stu-dents coming from these specific backgrounds and geographiesoften have difficulty connecting with.

Nevertheless, they do have diverse learning styles, and by finalyear are well aware of which types of assessment suit them best. Itis crucial to consider assessment as central to learning, in line withBiggs’ (2003) concept of ‘alignment’, to ensure that assessmentdrives learning and enables a deeper engagement with the subject.The objective in this module is to develop an assignment in whichstudents engage with issues of diversity, difference, and howcertain positions and identities may be mademore or less central inprocesses of decision-making. In directly discussing a range ofpossibilities regarding the assignment, the students draw upondifferent personal positions, enacting these through peer socialrelationships, most often embedded in gender identities.

This is important because the module considers a range oftheoretical perspectives regarding anti-racism, identity politics andmulticulturalism. Central within these is agonistic pluralism, acritical approach regarding geopolitics and the negotiation ofethnic and cultural differences in society. Agonism rejects attemptsto negate what it considers the inherently conflictual nature ofdemocratic society, foregrounding instead the ineradicability ofadversarial belief systems and the impossibility of ‘shared values’around social problems. Mouffe (2000: 93) explains that, withindominant forms of liberal democracy practiced in the west, ‘what ismisguided is the search for a final rational resolution’, because itdenies the fundamental tension between the logic of liberalism andthe logic of democracy. As such, resolution refuses the possibility ofa value-pluralistic society and pluralism is instead restricted to theprivate sphere. In contrast, agonistic politics call for a process ofconstant negotiation, and a project open to opposition. This

A.J. Williams et al. / Political Geography 34 (2013) 24e3426

emphasizes participatory and on-going engagement betweenempowered citizens, which examines confrontation and difference.Vitally, such an approach eschews any attempt to ‘achieve’ onecommon set of shared values, a process that ultimately resorts todominant values as ‘right’.

However, agonism recognizes that certain limits will alwaysremain necessary for legitimate confrontation in the public sphere.The key is that it is the political nature of such limits that must berecognized, rather than these limits being presented as re-quirements of morality or rationality, or as an inherent quality ofsome fixed or normative identity position. Students generallystruggle with such a perspective, conceptualizing non-resolution astotal pluralism. They tend to conflate the need for consensusdecision-making (in political democracy) with actual agreement(regarding personal values). Having to reach consensus on an issuethat has direct consequences for them (their final degree classifi-cation) goes some way towards making the difficulties of negoti-ating difference personal and immediate.

The assignment is set in a two hour facilitated session in weekfive of twelve teaching weeks. This is so that students have someunderstanding of key module content and theory to base theirdecision on, utilizing participatory appraisal techniques. This in-volves preparatory work: students must bring their ‘top 10’ from 51assessment techniques (Knight & Yorke, 2004; see Fig. 1) to thesession, provided in a hand-out the week before that also includesthe learning outcomes (which they already have listed in a modulehandbook). The session incorporates a variety of techniques andexercises, including:

� ‘beancounting’ to assess the six most popular or commonassignment types from diverse choices of ‘top 10’;

� ‘matrix diagramming’ in small groups to verify the four mostappropriate to the module learning outcomes (see Fig. 2);

� ‘forcefield analysis’ discussing the positives and negatives(pedagogical and personal) regarding these four, also in smallgroups; and

� a ‘proportional representation’ vote to reach final decision. (SeeFigs. 3 and 4.)

Throughout, groups are mixed up and students negotiate with arange of their peers, some they know well, some less so. Amongthese peers, there is agreement and non-agreement on differentissues, and agreement often does not match friendship groups.Ultimately, there are always ‘winners’ and ‘losers’.

My own participant observation and student Reflective Diaryentries are enlightening, and I draw on them here to evidence someof the impacts of this assignment setting on learning. Significantly, itis an emotional experience for many: anger, happiness, relief,concern, disappointment, and anxiety are all mentioned in the Di-aries (and I offer on-going support andadvice to all students throughthe rest of the module, face-to-face and via email). Students expe-rience ‘reasoning’ in debate as connected to embodied responses.They literally feel the politics at play, and many discuss how this af-fects their understanding of negotiating difference, explicitly con-necting this to rethinkingwhat itmeans to have to reach consensus:

‘The way the assignment was picked was very interesting. Itmade us think individually and considered all our strengths andweaknesses. I felt really uncomfortable at times e it got a bitpersonal. But I think it was a good group exercise, taught us tomake decisions as well as consider each other in a group’

(Student Reflective Diary, 2009).

‘Setting the assignment [.] forced us to work things outbetween ourselves AND made us more aware of, and perhaps

sympathetic to, others’ circumstances. There was such a male/female split, I was surprised, and it made me realise how di-visions between different groups are quite easy to slip into e

and wonder how that works on ethnic lines’

(Student Reflective Diary, 2008).

Certainly, most reflect on whose voices ‘were loudest’, oftenrecognizing subtle shifts in dominance as participatory exercisesdestabilize such power imbalances. This is not to suggest that allbecome equal, or that voice disappears altogether. Rather that thereare new circulations of power enacted. Interestingly, the lobbyingstarts well before this session, with students attempting to influ-ence one another’s choices, thus making a critical geopolitics of theeveryday very real:

‘Everyone was talking about it from the start of the module, andsome people were clearly trying to persuade others to choosewhat they wanted. When we started [the session] it seemedmost people wanted what a certain popular group had beenpushing, but by the end we chose a totally different option! Weall got to have our say in smaller groups and other peopleseemed to speak up more’

(Student Reflective Diary, 2011).

‘Before we set the assignment, me and my friends thought thatwe would all agree (all the group) on what the assignmentwould be. Not at first of course, we went into the session withlots of different ideas about the best assignment, but we thoughtthat by the endwewould agree [.] But afterwards, after we hadcome to the consensus, lots of my friends didn’t agree with it,they are unhappywith the choice made by the group overall. I’mOK with it [that year group chose a critical review of a relevantcontemporary film or novel], it suits me, I think I can do it well,but I know several people who are really worried about it. Thismade me realise that agreeing and making a decision as a grouparen’t quite the same thing’

(Student Reflective Diary, 2010).

Reaching a consensus decision on their assignments enables thestudents to distinguish between a political necessity e there has tobe an assignment to complete the module and gain sufficientcredits for a degree e and their own individual values regardingpreferred assignment type, which remain at odds across the group.The students thus begin to appreciate first hand some sense of theineradicability of difference, and that such an understanding ofdifference does not preclude the possibility of finding politicalconsensus, but rather throws it up as a potential amid pluralism.

Of course, having to set an assignment in the classroom is farremoved from negotiating issues around religious clothing in publicspace, positive/affirmative action in welfare provision, or ‘freedomof speech’, to highlight just some of the controversial debates acrosssocieties. But my experience here is that students can move on togain a greater understanding of the geopolitics of inter-ethnic andinter-cultural relations as temporary, context-driven and fragilesettlements.

Geography, identity, belonging: engaging with peace-buildingthrough fieldwork

Catherine Nash

Contemporary arguments about the pedagogic value of field-work in geography, informed by the discipline’s reflective critiqueof its history of exploration, stress the significance of fieldwork as aform of active learning (Hope, 2009). How might fieldwork be a

Fig. 1. Different assessment techniques (most appropriate to this module from 51 techniques, adapted from Knight & Yorke (2004)).

A.J. Williams et al. / Political Geography 34 (2013) 24e34 27

Fig. 2. Learning outcomes of the module.

A.J. Williams et al. / Political Geography 34 (2013) 24e3428

means of engaging more specifically with emerging interests in thepolitical geographies of peace? Writing in this journal NickMegoran has recently called for geographical attention to themeanings and practices of peace and especially to the overlookedbut crucial everyday processes by which ‘peace in its fullest sensesis lived, created, sustained, and struggled for’ (Megoran, 2011: 187).Education, he argues, is one dimension of a political geographycommitted to peace. He invites us to consider ‘how field trips cancontribute to peace education’ (Megoran, 2011: 186). Here I want toreflect on my experience of taking a small group of undergraduatestudents on a week-long fieldcourse to Dublin and Belfast, whosefocus on efforts to address violent conflict and social divisionthrough practical and creative strategies resonates with theseemerging interests in political geographies of peace.

Geography, identity, belonging is the title of a semester long(twelve week) module offered to second and third year geographystudents in which the fieldwork component is preceded by eightweeks of preparatory lectures, seminars and group project devel-opment. As its title suggests, the module addresses themes ofidentity and division that span political, social and cultural geog-raphy but it does so through a specific focus on Ireland andNorthern Ireland. It addresses themes of cultural diversity, socialinclusion, belonging and citizenship in relation to traditional cat-egories of national and ethnic identity and new patterns of immi-gration and racialized difference in these contexts. Students areencouraged to consider the concept of ‘belonging’ in terms of

Fig. 3. Forcefield analysis of positives and negat

people’s sense of cultural location, inclusion and shared identity,and in the sense of cultural ownership and property. The modulealso fosters students’ exploration of the ways in which these issuesare central to political conflict and accommodation, to anxietiesabout social and cultural change and to tensions between differentversions of collective national identity in Ireland and NorthernIreland, but also more widely.

While the depth of our focus on these two contexts in advanceand in the field is an important pedagogic dimension of themodule,it also encourages students to consider these issues of nationhood,race and ethnicity in Britain and in their own lives and experiencesin ways which are sometimes quite difficult to do sensitively whenengaged with more directly. In this respect at least, it is the obliquerather than direct approach of a module that is ostensibly aboutother places, that make class discussions about the politics of na-tional identity in London or Britain possible. In other instancesstudents encourage each other to be more reflective about theirown senses of national identity as they begin to explore the makingof national and ethnic identities in Ireland and Northern Ireland.Despite the geographical proximity, many and often most studentshave never been to Ireland or to Northern Ireland. Others havefamily connections. Our discussions of these patterns of family linksor previous lack of knowledge, and students’ reflections in the fieldonwhat is similar and what seems different in both cities, feed intoour consideration of the wider interconnected history of the mak-ing of ideas of Irish, British and English identity and difference.

ives, regarding different assignment types.

Fig. 4. Verifying learning outcomes for different assignment types through matrix diagramming.

A.J. Williams et al. / Political Geography 34 (2013) 24e34 29

Much is also gained from the simple but effective comparativenature of the fieldwork. Students ideally bring to the field an un-derstanding of the historical processes (of colonialisation, nationbuilding and modernization) and events that created the two po-litical units, and some sense of the similarities, distinctiveness andentanglements of the configurations of cultural belonging anddifference in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Students consider thecities comparatively in multiple ways: comparing Dublin and Bel-fast to cities in Great Britain or other places they know; andcomparing Dublin and Belfast to each other. In exploring the poli-tics of heritage and commemoration, for example, in Dublin andthen in Belfast, students gain more understanding of the broadissues and their distinctive dimensions in each place. The order oftheir work, first in Dublin and then in Belfast, is deliberate. It meansto intensify their sense of what is shared and distinctive about eachcontext: new stark evidence of ethno-national division in Belfastbut overlapping issues of class-based segregation and the politics ofurban redevelopment. It is set up as a way of thinking aboutIrishness and Britishness in an ‘Irish’ city whose ‘Irishness’ is per-formed and remade in diverse ways, and then in a ‘British’ city,whose ‘Britishness’ is deeply defended, contested and challenged,not least by the city’s official St Patrick’s Day Carnival that wefocused on for the last day of our most recent field trip. It is alsomeant to highlight the political geography of state boundaries andprovide some insight into their intensely politicized nature. Wetravel from Dublin to Belfast by coach crossing the now relativelyinvisible and open but deeply contested border, and so back into theUnited Kingdom but on the island of Ireland, picking up hints ofwhere this has happened by changes in road signage, car registra-tions and post boxes (Nash & Reid, 2010). I ask students to look outfor the border; most miss the moment of crossing over or realizeonly when their mobiles switch back to UK service providers. Butthis anti-climax often prompts much discussion later about thehistorical making of borders and boundaries, the everyday work ofthe state at the border (Painter, 2006), the changing nature of thisborder over time, and the continuities and shifts in its politicalstatus, material form and symbolism.

As with many approaches to undergraduate fieldwork in geog-raphy, the emphasis of the module is on active learning andengagement. Making this happen in practice is helped by severalweeks of pre-trip preparation. The emphasis throughout is oncollective effort and shared responsibility. The fieldwork is pre-sented as a collective research project in which students workwithin small groups to develop specific research projects in Dublinand undertake pre-arranged interviews in Belfast to feed into ourshared knowledge and understanding. The focus of our work inboth contexts is on their material geographies: their key symbolicsites, public spaces, institutions, monuments and redevelopments.These material geographies are then contextualized and exploredin relation to commemoration and urban regeneration, inequality,identity and exclusion, and the ways in which different organisa-tions and groups are engaging with issues of identity, diversity,inclusion and division in both cities.

It is this focus on the practical and creative work of organisa-tions addressing questions of exclusion and division that thestudents engage with most directly in their project and interviewwork. In Dublin this has included meetings with those working inasylum seeker support and advocacy organisations and anti-racism sports organisations, with those addressing Travellerrights, identities and experiences, and those developing radicalvisions of public art and social change. We have undertakenwalking tours and had presentations of innovative projects such asthe ‘Placing Voices e Voicing Places’ project which is exploringquestions of heritage in relation to national and local, and longsettled and migrant versions of historical value. Students areencouraged to consider those they encounter not simply asresearch subjects to be interviewed but as people themselvesengaged in creative and constructive public geographies (Fuller,2008). They are encouraged not only to understand the prob-lems of certain models of national belonging, for example, but toconsider how people are working to address these issues in activeand practical ways. Theoretical debates that sometimes seemsabstract and disconnected from the world are made concrete andcome alive through this work. At their best these encounters are

A.J. Williams et al. / Political Geography 34 (2013) 24e3430

opportunities for engaged and mutually enriching conversationsbetween staff, students and activists.

This is carried forward and has a heightened significance in ourwork in Belfast. The aim is to foster a depth of understanding ofBelfast as a divided city in relation to the long history of colonialismand more recent history of conflict. However it is also, importantly,to encourage students to consider the work of well-established andnew organisations and groups who have addressed and continue toaddress the multiple strands of division in the city and NorthernIrish society more widely. So, while our work in Belfast includesvisits to the ‘peacewalls’ that separate working class Protestant andCatholic residential areas of the city, and for many students this isthe most remarkable aspect of the field trip, considerable effort ismade to avoid a voyeuristic ‘tourism of the Troubles’ style visit or toreinforce an over-simplified and reductive image of ‘two commu-nities’ locked in an anachronistic and intractable conflict. This isdone partly by working with the students in the weeks before toaddress the complex and changing dimensions of division and ac-commodation (Douglas, 1997), including new issues of ethnic di-versity. This is achieved by discussing the ethics of tourism in post-conflict contexts, and Northern Ireland more specifically(McDowell, 2008), but also, and most significantly, focussing in ourfieldwork on practical and creative responses to conflict and divi-sion in Belfast.

This has included collective and small group student-ledmeetings with organisations such as Groundwork Northern Irelandbased in a well-known interface area of north Belfast which worksin partnership with local communities to address division andpromote environmental, social and economic regeneration. Wehave also engaged with the Belfast Interface Project, an umbrellagroup representing community organisations on both sides ofinterface areas addressing questions of safety and cross-communityrelations. Rather than only introduce the students to the dividednature of the city, students are encouraged to consider the inven-tiveness, patience, persistence and creativity of a wide range ofsocial and cultural groups who engage with the causes and effectsof this division. However, our focus is not just on the most visiblemanifestations of division and responses to them but on wider is-sues of the legacy of conflict, on new patterns of division, newforms of ‘peace building’, the politics of ‘neutral’ or ‘shared’ publicspace and cultural policy (Nash, 2005). This has included encoun-tering the work of organisations addressing the politics of memoryand commemoration in Northern Ireland in relation to the Trou-bles, faith-based organisations responding to violence and otherforms of hostility directed towards new immigrant groups, orinnovative out-reach theatre youth work and music and culturalgroups addressing old and new forms of division and diversity inNorthern Ireland. We pay particular attention to children’s andyoung people’s everyday experience of sectarian territoriality in thecity, by encouraging students’ engagement with the issues affectingan age group near to their own. This is a starting point foraddressing questions of inter-generational reproduction of anxietyand antipathy but also possibilities for change, and for reflecting onthe ways in which the disaffection of economically marginalizedworking class boys and young men intersects with a tradition ofsectarian ‘recreational’ violence. Workingwith organisations in thisway means we are always encountering the latest developmentsand issues and examples: a newly opened gate in a peace wall, anemerging cross-community initiative, a repainted mural, forexample.

Students respond in a variety of ways. They are often shocked,perplexed, disturbed or moved by the ‘peace-walls’ or accounts ofdivision. Some are impatient with the sensitivities surroundingideas of cultural rights or commemoration, or frustrated by theapparent slowness of change and what seems like the tentative

nature of activist approaches to community relations in NorthernIreland, or the lack of a simple solution through policy-making andlegislation. These are reactions that, in turn, other students chal-lenge, question or qualify, making counter-arguments that areequally affective as well as analytical. Others develop new senses ofunderstanding as their reading and our previous discussions sud-denly or incrementally begin to make sense over the course of theweek and develop new ways of participating and new levels ofinterest and critical engagement. Some are inspired to pursuefuture careers in community, environmental or advocacy organi-sations or in critical urban planning. At its best there is a sense ofthe fieldwork mattering beyond the module’s assessment, course-work deadlines and credit weighting.

In practical terms, undertaking fieldwork of this kind entailsthe time consuming organisational work of setting up our col-lective and student-led small group meetings with a wide varietyof organisations that, rather stressfully for me as organiser, oftenonly fall into place just before, or even during the trip. Establishingand maintaining relationships with these organisations is crucialfor this sort of fieldwork, and in preparing the Belfast componentthis also means working hard to convey the nature of the field-work so that it does not look like we are giving students asimplified, superficial and even exoticized version of the Troublesor blithely intruding on an already heavily researched provinceand city. It depends on people saying ‘yes’ to requests to meet upwith small groups of students and it is these small group meet-ings, prepared for and led by students, that are central to givingour fieldwork a sense of being ‘real’, immediate and meaningful.The generosity of organisations and individuals makes this sort offieldwork possible and enriching for staff and students. Thecoherence and rhythm of the trip depends too on juggling thebalance between, and student expectations about, the amount ofactive work and less demanding orientation and observation onfoot or in the coach. In practice, the fieldwork means respondingto the students’ reactions in ways which help them deepen theirknowledge and understanding through fostering an ethos of col-lective learning, engagement and exchange between staff, stu-dents and those they encounter.

Much of this is common to the pedagogies of fieldwork inhuman geography. But more specifically, our work in Belfast (andto a large extent, in Dublin) is based on a sense of the value andethics of attending to agency and activism as a counterpoint tocritical scepticism about the possibilities for change and as asource of inspiration for staff and students alike. But this focus onpeace-building in this wide sense is not meant to encouragenaïve optimism or a superficial or distorted impression of thepolitical geographies of this city. Students are encouraged tounderstand the depth of the problems that prompt theconstructive responses we consider. Nor are these responsespresented as easy solutions. Instead we consider complex ques-tions about the relationship between peace-making on theground and formal political processes, policy making and politicalrepresentation, legislative developments and attitudinal shifts,between class and other dimensions of division, and in relation toprocesses of urban redevelopment and change. Through ourmeetings and group projects we address the inadequacy ofenvisioning Belfast either as a peaceful post-conflict city or asplace locked in perpetual conflict. Instead we consider what canbe learned from those who in painstaking, practical and inventiveways are peace-making in a divided city. This model of engagingwith political geographies of peace through fieldwork could beapplied in other post-conflict contexts, with all the attendantethical challenges, practical issues and rewards of exploring how‘peace in its fullest sense is lived, created, sustained and struggledfor’ (Megoran, 2011: 187).

A.J. Williams et al. / Political Geography 34 (2013) 24e34 31

Making class debates work in political geography

Nick Gill

Using structured or semi-structured debates in political geog-raphy offers numerous pedagogic benefits, including the promotionof active engagement by students which can enhance learning,mastery of the content and the development of critical thinking andoral communication skills, as well as empathy (see Kennedy, 2009).But how do we make debates work on the ground? This inter-vention gives some ideas about how to use debates as a way toencourage students towards thinking critically and argumenta-tively through their class experiences, which surelymust be seen askey skills for a truly political geography. This is a bold claim and ofcourse, no pedagogic technique is perfect, but what follows willgive at least some idea of the ways debates can be useful. I willdiscuss four aspects of class debates, drawing upon my experienceof using these over seven years of teaching on geography coursesrun by the universities of Bristol, Lancaster and Exeter in the UK.These four aspects include when to use class debates, how to set upa basic class debate, what modifications can be made to class de-bates and some topics within political geography that have gonedown well (and badly) with my own students.

Class debates are generally more flexible than many peopleimagine: I have used themwith groups of over 100, although muchlarger than this may be impractical. One useful innovation is to use‘adjudicators’ to judge the debates rather than to try to judge themas a class teacher. Adjudicators are students picked from the classwho deliver a judgement on a debate they have chaired at the endof the session. This allows the class teacher muchmore flexibility interms of running parallel debates, listening in to a range of debates,assessing students if required (for a discussion of assessment ofdebates, see Kennedy, 2009), or managing the timing of the debate.I have used debates that fit into 25minutes slots in a class, as well asones that have spanned two one-hour class slots, so they are vari-able in terms of timing. There are, then, few practical limits onwhen to use a class debate: a minimum group size that is able tosustain a conversation and a suitable roomwith movable chairs areabout the only prerequisites.

It is worth bearing in mind, though, that debates are sometimesdaunting for students. This is important because if students becomeoverawed in classes theymay learn less, or less effectively, and theirattendance may decline over a course. There are various measuresthat can be taken to assuage the concerns that they may have. First,it is worth emphasizing that what is discussed will not leave theclassroom (unless it is assessed). This is part of creating a safe spacein which to debate that might also involve ground rules like notinterrupting when someone is speaking, not using inappropriatelanguage and not getting ‘personal’ (see Brookfield & Preskill, 1999:7e14 for a list of ideal ‘dispositions’ in democratic discussion). Interms of building confidence, I have also found it useful to runpreliminary open sessions where students are invited to discussanything that gets them angry or annoyed as an ice-breaker (andeverything from fox-hunting bans, to speeding tickets, to pro-hibitions on cannabis has been discussed).

The basic starting point for any debate is to settle on a questionthat will hold the attention of the group and has two distinct po-sitions. At the beginning of courses, or if time is short, I generallyassign positions to teams of students i.e. tell themwhich side of thedebate they are going to argue for. This is useful for making themthink inways that theywould not necessarily support, and studentsgenerally understand this reasoning if they ask why they are in aparticular team. Then the two teams prepare their cases. Here I tryto encourage teams to prepare detailed points, and also to prepareresponses to what they expect will be the reaction to their points

from the other side. This period is therefore useful in encouragingstudents to move two or three steps along a line of argument. Atthis point in the class if not before, I take the opportunity to collectadjudicators (one for every two teams that will debate). I usuallyask for volunteers, but they could just as easily be nominated toequalize the strength of the two teams (e.g. by taking an articulatemember from an already strong team). The adjudicators are briefedon their role, which is to encourage debate and to ‘score’ the debatein the way they see fit. These adjudicators are the ones that theteams need to convince, and it is their judgement that will count.The adjudicators themselves are asked to prepare not only a deci-sion (fence-sitting is strictly prohibited!) but also a two-minutejustification of their decision for the class.

The debate then runs for a minimum of ten minutes and usuallyconsiderably longer (a variety of alternative debate formats arediscussed by Kennedy, 2009). I have run debates in first year classeswhere the teamsmust simply make a new point in order not to losee this is effective for getting all team members to speak and can bea great icebreaker at the start of a term or year. For more advancedsessions, I have offered the adjudicators a scoring system that as-signs one point for a new line of argument but two points for adirect rebuttal of a previous line of argument (which is moredifficult). In practice, this scoring system is rarely carried out, but itsreal value is in letting the class know that the adjudicators havebeen instructed in this way, which can then make themmore likelyto engage in fertile debate.

At the end of the debate, adjudicators are asked to give theirverdict on each debate. It is usually helpful to give all the teams twominutes notice of the end of the debate e this can enliven discus-sion and ensure that a degree of summarizing occurs. The adjudi-cators themselves are key to this part of the class and invariably riseto and relish the challenge. To support the adjudicators, however, itis useful to give them a minute or two to prepare their decisions(and the debates can continue at this point). It is also helpful toselect confident members of the class to be adjudicators, especiallyif this is the first time that debates have been used with a class. Around of applause for each adjudicator is helpful too, as well as forthe team they nominate as the winner. The whole class listens toeach adjudicator in turn, which poses logistical challenges if you arerunning the classes in tandem.

There are a wide range of modifications that can be applied tothis basic debating framework. First, the class itself can be asked tovote ‘outside’ the assigned positions of the students (i.e. what dothe students really think). This is particularly interesting if twovotes occur, one before the debate has been run and one afterwards.It is surprising how often the class as a whole changes its mind e

I’ve seen almost wholesale changes of heart on the question of UKmembership of the EU, for example. A second modification is toinvite the class members to prepare cases ahead of the class itself.This will involve two sessions, one to introduce the activity andanother for the actual debate. I have provided newspaper clippingsduring preparatory sessions, although there is no reason why stu-dents should not gather their own newspaper stories. I have alsofound it useful to ask adjudicators to take into account the degree ofpreparation in these debates. A third modification is to allow stu-dents to occupy the positions of their choice for the debate, ratherthan assigning positions. There are a range of ways in which groupmembership can be constructed, depending upon learning objec-tives (see Race & Brown,1998: 83). Other moreminormodificationsinclude: allowing the teams to choose a team name before they getstarted which can give them more ownership of their team andspark their enthusiasm; setting aside a protected couple of minutesat the beginning and end for each team to nominate a member toprovide an opening and summation; and combining the debatewith a presentation topic, current developments in the news, or a

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theme from the lectures on a module. For small classes of first yearundergraduates who may be less confident, I have also requiredeveryone to speak so that the quieter ones have got over theirnerves about talking in front of the group. It is also useful tocontinue class debates in virtual space after the class session.

Suitable topics for debate in political geography abound, andpolitical geography as a sub-discipline lends itself nicely to debate.There is, nevertheless, an art to avoiding claims that almosteveryone would agree about and choosing ones that are likely todivide the class (such as ‘no platform’ positions on extreme/fascistparties). It is better to choose a debate that is likely to split the classunless there is a very strong and dominant group, in which casethey can be assigned the most unpopular position (for a discussionof ‘how to get students to stop speaking’ if particular groups orindividuals are highly articulate, see Habeshaw, Gibbs, & Habeshaw,1992). Topics that have been successful in the past include: ‘Weshould fear climate change’, ‘In an age of terror, the state is justifiedin using increasingly intrusive surveillance measures’, ‘The stateshould treat men and women differently’, ‘Britain should loosenborder controls’, ‘People should be made to vote’, ‘MaximumDevolution¼Maximum Freedom’, and ‘Peace is always good’. So, ingeneral, a provocative statement with a clear ‘for’ or ‘against’implication is most conducive to debate.

There are various criteria to use when judging the success of adebate. If discussions seem to have a life of their own and appear tobe capable of continuingwell beyond the end of the class, this couldbe taken to indicate a good session. Alternatively if some of thequieter students have taken the lead in a debate, or if some of themore confident students have had tomodify their arguments, thesecan also be positive signs. Debates are not always successful. Themore theoretical and abstract debates in particular can tend tofizzle out more quickly or have students talking past each other onthe basis of disparate examples. For example, debates that I haverun that have not gone well have usually required students todebate an abstract concept such as ‘is the state, at root, no morethan an idea’ or ‘sovereignty and territory are coterminous’. Whilethese sorts of issues might be interesting to established politicalgeographers, undergraduates in general need more time to processthese sorts of abstract discussions, and I have generally found itbest to provide more mainstream topics that can subsequently berelated to the conceptual elements of a course. Debates can also get‘out of hand’, although I have never had to stop a debate because itis too unruly or inappropriate. More commonly, students will lookto bend the rules in favour of their team e e.g. by debating past thefinish of the debate or by attempting to shout down or over-rule anadjudicator. In one case, students insisted on a re-vote after anotherfive minutes of debate in order to persuade the class differently(sadly this did not work). It is difficult to prescribe what to do insituations like these because each class is different, but in generalmaintaining fairness is more important to students than adheringrigidly to the rules.

From the perspective of the class teacher debates allow you toengage with the class in a hands-on way. As the teams are pre-paring their cases the teacher can circulate around the group(s) andhear the dilemmas and convictions of the class members, and overa course (e.g. 10 weeks) groups can get very proficient and creativein preparing and delivering arguments. More broadly, in an era thatis marked by the foreclosure of politics, such that an increasingproportion of what passes for politics is really just discussion abouthow to reach some already-agreed destination or implement somealready settled upon solution (Swyngedouw, 2010), it is critical for adiscipline that claims to be political to practice genuine disagree-ment and dissent (Rancière, 2004). Instituting dissensus, not abouttechnical issues but around fundamental and intractable points ofcontention, should therefore be a priority for teachers of political

geography, and debates offer one way to seek to achieve thisobjective.

Connecting concepts with real world issues: letters tonewspapers assignment

Raksha Pande, Alex Jeffrey and Nick Megoran

It was at the end of a seminar on nationalism and ethnicity that astudent said to one of the authors;

‘Raksha, it is all well and finewhen Stuart Hall tells us that we allneed to think of ourselves as ethnically located rather thanreserve the term for the so called visible minorities. but whatdoes it matter?. because when I go to the supermarket thisevening I’ll still get my poppadum from the aisle marked ethnicfoods and I’ll still get asked where I am from because I have anunusual surname even though I have always lived in Sheffield.’

What the student was pointing to here was the belief thatsomehow concepts and ideas taught in the classroom start and endat the threshold of the university and that in the real world outthere, no one understands what social construction is or whydeconstructing established categories is a significant part of theknowledge making exercise in social sciences. In other words, thequestion for many students is: how does disciplinary knowledgegained as part of reading a geography degree influence our un-derstanding of, and our relationship with, the world? This is ofparticular significance in political geography teaching wherewe areengaged in trying to help students to question, critique, rethink andhopefully re-imagine concepts and ideas such as nation, identity,culture, and patriotism; all of which students come to the class-room regarding as being fixed, given and real.

As an attempt in encouraging students to identify and analysethe links between abstract geopolitical concepts and real worldexamples, we have been running an innovative assignment as partof the second year Political Geography module at Newcastle Uni-versity. We call it ‘the letters to newspapers assignment’. Taking itsinspiration from the letters-to-editor sections in newspapers,we setstudents the task of submitting a letter for publication to the editorof a UK national, regional or local newspaper, responding to an itemin that paper that in someway relates to the taught material on thecourse. As we point out to our students, the letters sections ofnewspapers are important for a number of reasons. They are aprominent public forum that can often set agendas in politicaldebate. The Red Cross and Amnesty International are examples oforganisations that have their origins in letters published in UKnewspapers. They are also often the only parts of newspaperswheregenuinely dissenting views to the editorial are to be found. Wedeveloped the assignment with the broad aim of encouraging stu-dents to take responsibility for relating ideas taught in the classroomto the world around them and to help them to employ theirknowledge to actively engage in contemporary political debates.

We take our inspiration from the writings of Brazilian educatorPaulo Freire. Freire (1998a, 1998b) argued that critical pedagogyshould be one that ‘not only supports the practice of students andworkers reflecting critically upon their location in the world, butalso on their relationship with the world’ (McLaren &Farahmandpur, 2002: 48). Much of the standard material onassessment and teaching is silent on this issue (see for exampleBedford & Burgess, 2001; Bryan, 2006), prioritizing instead thecultivation of subjectivities that ‘aspire to become more efficient,professional individuals’ (Bryan, 2006: 225) e which might beinterpreted as consumers and producers ideally suited to neolib-eralism. The letters to newspapers assignment was intended, as

A.J. Williams et al. / Political Geography 34 (2013) 24e34 33

Yarwood puts it, to help students ‘develop as geographers andcitizens’ (2005: 367). Pedagogically, it was designed ‘to createpossibilities for the construction and production of knowledgerather than to be engaged simply in a game of transferringknowledge’ (Freire, 1998a: 49). Differentiated from the ‘trans-mission model’ of teaching, it is a form of ‘active learning’ that asFletcher argues ‘encourages learners to make sense of topics byengaging in the learning process through participation in a struc-tured learning activity to obtain desired learning outcomes’(Fletcher, 2005: 313). For our students we believe that, choosing anews item, reflecting on it and managing to précis the gist of theiropinions in the form of a letter, marked a move away from passivelearning to some degree of critical participation in the affairs of theworld (see also Pande, Jeffrey, Megoran, & Young, 2012).

As this was a new form of assessment which required skills notusually taught at school or university, we took care to equip thestudents to undertake it. An introductory lecture explained therationale of the exercise, and used examples of letters published bythe instructors’ to explain how to identify relevant newspapermaterial to respond to, how to write letters, and the actual processof submission of letters to editors. A separate handbook was pro-duced for the exercise, explaining rationale and process verycarefully. The handbook also contained links to web sites providingguidance on writing letters to newspapers, for example from theAmerican Civil Liberties Union (2012). This initial lecture was alsofollowed up by a two-hour workshop where students wereencouraged to bring draft letters or recent newspaper articles fordiscussion in groups. This session provided the opportunity for thetutors on the course to talk to every student about possible lettertopics and share ideas on style and content. The formal andinformal feedback from the students identified this session asparticularly helpful in clarifying the objectives of the assessmentand the marking criteria.

In terms of how the assignment fitted with the module syllabus;students were required to submit for assessment the originalnewspaper item they responded to, the letter they wrote to thenewspaper with proof of submission (usually an automated emailresponse), and a 1600 word essay on the aspect of the political ge-ography course that their chosen newspaper itemand letter engagedwith. The letter itself was not marked e if it were, it would beincluded in the already limited word limit, possibly encouragingstudents to curtail the length of their letter to allow more space forthe essay, to the detriment of the letter. The essay was worth 40% oftheoverallmodulemark, the remainder being anexamination. In theearly iteration of this exercise we asked students to write a ‘com-mentary’ rather than an essay, though this approach often led towritten work that focused solely on the factors that led to the se-lection of a specific story rather than the story’s relevance to politicalgeography. In order to emphasize the importance of connecting thestory to the themes of the course, in subsequent years we havedecided to specify that the essay is assessed on its ability to engagewith the authors and themes of the political geography course.

All students submitted the letters to their chosen newspapersand each year around 5% would be published. While studentswould usually be very proud to see their letter providing a contri-bution to a national debate, sometimes students would distancethemselves from the nature of their letter after completing theessay. When students reflected on this movement from letter toessay, perhaps in a class discussion at a later date, they remarked onthe role of the assessment in urging them to think about what ar-guments are effective within newspaper correspondence, andwhich forms of communication are most appropriate. These re-flections illuminate why we, as tutors, have not included blog oronline comments sections within this assessment. Where sucharenas provide an immediate and (almost) certain outlet for

opinion, they do not have to go through the process of editorialselection and revision involved in letters to newspapers.

The topics students engaged with varied in focus from the ‘waron terror’ to Somali pirates, Scottish nationalism to the Spanishclaim to Gibraltar. The newspapers they chose ranged from thebroadsheets to the regional papers from Newcastle, and topicscovered the range of geographical scales from local, UK, to inter-national. After the assignment, we asked the students to return afeedback questionnaire. Overall the students felt the assignmentwas instrumental in helping them to link abstract ideas with realworld issues by helping them in taking their reading beyond aca-demic text. ‘I read more newspapers now’, ‘Listen to the news’ weresome responses. It also encouraged them to engage with currentdebates and issues by looking at newspaper reportage in a morecritical way. Most significantly they pointed out that writing letterswas an empowering experience because expressing their opinionsto a public audience made them ‘feel grown up and more mature’.Hence, we believe the letters to newspapers assignment waseffective in signalling a move away from passive learning byfollowing an ‘active learning’ pedagogical model. It was instru-mental in initiating an autonomous learning process wherebystudents were encouraged to become more reflexive, responsibleand critical when reflecting upon their relationship with the world.

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of some of these interventions were presentedat a Royal Geographical Society e Institute of British GeographersPolitical Geography Research Group workshop at Newcastle Uni-versity, UK, in January 2011. We would like to acknowledge thesupport of the RGS-IBG and Newcastle University in funding thisevent, and would like to thank workshop participants for theircontributions to the event. We are also grateful to James Sidawayfor encouraging us to assemble this intervention, and to PauliinaRaento for careful editing over a number of iterations.

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