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Sustainable Communities Field Course (Avignon - Marseille)

Module description

The Sustainable Communities Field Course to Avignon-Marseille is centred on taking a social learning approach that explores community responses to social, environmental and sustainability challenges. This module includes opportunities to explore themes like community food projects, sustainable food innovation and sustainable tourism in the Avignon city region, along with spatialities of migration and their intersection with sustainability, community organising and sustainable heritage and tourism in Marseille. The module will introduce you to a range of contemporary debates on sustainable futures, community action on climate change, sustainable food networks, the spatialities of demographic change and migration, multi-level governance and coproducing knowledge with partners within the context of The Climate Emergency. The focus on sustainability is extended through a commitment to using low carbon travel to visit these two European cities and their surrounding areas. Through experiencing these two field sites, you will learn how social scientists are working with community partners to help reimagine ways to engender positive environmental and social transformations.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This field course aims to provide an interdisciplinary field setting for you to learn and reflect on debates relating to environmental and social transformations within the context of anthropogenic climate change. The module will:

1. Enable you to experience ‘slow travel’ by rail as a means of a) reducing your carbon emissions for field work and b) reflecting on the value of incorporating your journey into the learning process.
2. Develop your understanding of the value of working within a social learning context to better understand action on partnerships for environmental transformation and visioning sustainable futures.
3. Develop skills of group working and an understanding of the value of coproducing knowledge with partners in social learning contexts.
4. Promote critical self-reflection on your own environmental values and practices.
5. Foster academic confidence through leading and participating in student group discussions on research learning exercises.
6. Provide an opportunity to engage critically with specific academic debates as a focus for your fieldwork extended essay. 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Develop place-based understandings of the interdisciplinary research themes related to the field course
• 2. Articulate and evaluate key academic debates, concepts and approaches associated with the field course

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Apply geographical concepts in different environmental settings
• 4. Identify a diverse range of approaches to the generation of knowledge and understanding in Geography

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Communicate complex ideas, concepts and theories
• 6. Reflect on and discuss learning experiences and draw lessons for personal development

Syllabus plan

Throughout Term 2, you will attend lectures and workshops and undertake guided reading to gain an understanding of the contemporary environmental debates. This will include information that will enable you to become familiar with the field course rail travel and destination cities. During the field course, you will participate in group-led discussions to critically debate the research learning activities for each day. You will work individually during and after the field course to develop a fieldwork extended essay based on a theme related to your learning experience on the field course. The field course will take place over 7 days including 2 days for outbound and inbound travel.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

If you are unable to engage with any of the field course module assessments for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will be re-assessed for field work skills via the following assessments, to be submitted for the August deferral period:

• A 1000-word research summary, based upon desk-based research on a theme, site, or issue related to the Sustainable Communities Field Course
• A 2000-word extended essay, related to key themes introduced in the contemporary debates lectures.

The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

If you fail the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%), you will be required to submit a 1000-word research summary and a 2000-word extended essay. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will count for 100% of the final mark and will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Adger, W.N., Fransen, S., Safra de Campos, R. and Clark, W.C., 2024. Migration and sustainable development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(3), p.e2206193121. 
• Alkon, A.H. and Agyeman, J. eds., 2011. Cultivating food justice: Race, class, and sustainability. MIT press.
• Blay-Palmer, A., Santini, G., Dubbeling, M., Renting, H., Taguchi, M. and Giordano, T., 2018. Validating the city region food system approach: Enacting inclusive, transformational city region food systems. Sustainability, 10(5), p.1680.
• Bulkeley, H., 2010. Cities and the governing of climate change. Annual review of environment and resources, 35, pp.229-253.
• Bulkeley, H. and Castán Broto, V., 2013. Government by experiment? Global cities and the governing of climate change. Transactions of the institute of British geographers, 38(3), pp.361-375.
• Köhler, J., Geels, F.W., Kern, F., Markard, J., Onsongo, E., Wieczorek, A., Alkemade, F., Avelino, F., Bergek, A., Boons, F. and Fünfschilling, L., 2019. An agenda for sustainability transitions research: State of the art and future directions. Environmental innovation and societal transitions, 31, pp.1-32.
• Kneafsey, M., Maye, D., Holloway, L. and Goodman, M.K., 2021. Geographies of food: An introduction. Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Schlosberg, D., 2007. Defining environmental justice: Theories, movements, and nature. OUP Oxford.
• Schlosberg, D., 2013. Theorising environmental justice: the expanding sphere of a discourse. Environmental politics, 22(1), pp.37-55.
• Sonnino, R., Marsden, T. and Moragues?Faus, A., 2016. Relationalities and convergences in food security narratives: towards a place?based approach. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 41(4), pp.477-489.
• Sultana, F., 2022. Critical climate justice. The Geographical Journal, 188(1), pp.118-124.

Key words search

Field course, environment, sustainability, resilience, communities