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Some Corner of a Foreign Field? Contemporary Militarised Landscapes, 1899 to the Present Day

Module description

When we think of ‘militarised landscapes’ we most likely picture the battlefields on which wars have been fought. Whether the open uplands of the veldt during the South African War at the turn of the 20^th century; the trenches of the Western Front, 1914–1918; the exploded crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral bombed in 1940; the jungles of South Vietnam, decimated by Agent Orange in the 1960s; the burning oil wells during the Gulf War of 1990-91; the Manhattan skyline after 11 September 2001; or the Al-Madina Souq in Aleppo, destroyed as a result of fighting during the Syrian Civil War in September 2012 – they are distant, in time and/or space, separate from our present-day peacetime lives.

This interdisciplinary module – drawing on scholarship from History, Heritage, Geography, and Critical Military Studies – seeks to challenge this sense of distance and separation. Even before the first bomb is dropped, preparation for warfare materially and imaginatively reshapes landscapes and environments. This module will enable you to understand how space, place, environment and landscape are shaped by military presence, and encourage you to consider how wider geographies are touched by militarism.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module seeks to expand your understanding of militarised landscapes beyond a narrow definition of ‘where military events happen’. Taking a comparative, thematic approach from the turn of the 20^th century to the present day, we will examine a variety of case-studies considering them as simultaneously material and cultural sites that have been mobilised to fulfil military aims and/or have been (re)shaped by conflict. The module does not follow a neat chronological structure; instead, five key questions will frame a 12-week exploration into these often secretive, hidden, dangerous and controversial sites that occupy huge swathes of national territories.

1. How have geographical terrains shaped the way wars are fought?
2. In what ways does the environment fuel conflict?
3. What is the environmental impact of war?
4. How has landscape and the environment become part of the transition from war to peace?
5. How do military and civilian landscapes co-exist?

This module is inspired by the Cornish landscape. In a county surrounded by seas on three sides, military fortification is commonplace; castles, bunkers, pill boxes, observations posts, airfields, military bases, and monuments abound. In order to help you understand the processes by which land and space become militarised within different environments, and the residual effects of this on wider society, the module will include a fieldtrip.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

• 1. Display a deepened knowledge and understanding of the ways in which land and space have been militarised within different environments, and what impact this has on wider society, over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries
• 2. Make a close specialist evaluation of key aspects of the academic study of the way landscapes are reproduced, represented, and experienced as a consequence of military activities and perspectives through independent work, group activities, and seminar discussion
• 3. Appraise competing scholarship on militarised landscapes and understand key issues from different disciplinary perspectives, including History, Heritage, Geography and Critical Military Studies

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

• 4. Understand and critically evaluate evidence connected to different case-studies and put them in dialogue with the wider interdisciplinary scholarship
• 5. Competently use archives, libraries and electronic databases to find information
• 6. Contextualise changing perspectives and approaches over time

ILO: Personal and key skills

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

• 7. Set tasks independently and solve problems, formulating appropriate questions and marshalling relevant evidence to address them
• 8. With minimum guidance digest, select and synthesise evidence and arguments to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument
• 9. Develop team-work skills and build confidence in oral delivery in both the seminar and group presentation

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Introduction: On War, Geography, and Militarism
• The Jungle is Neutral? Modern Warfare and the Combat Environment
• Energy and Hunger Wars
• The Silent Casualty: Environmental Impact of War
• Urban Reconstruction and Renewal: Rebuilding Europe after the Second World War
• Landscapes of Remembrance
• Environmental Peacebuilding 
• Conflict Archaeology
• Co-Existence and Collision: Military-Civilian Landscapes (including field trip)
• Defending the Nation or Defending Nature?
• Conclusion

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

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. 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.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Coates, Peter, Tim Cole, Marianna Dudley, and Chris Pearson, ‘Defending Nation, Defending Nature? Militarized Landscapes and Military Environmentalism in Britain, France, and the United States’,Environmental History, 16:3 (2011)
• Diefendorf, Jeffry M., In the Wake of War: The Reconstruction of German Cities after World War II (Oxfor: Oxford University Press, 1993)
• Dolan Stover, Justin, ‘“Shattered Glass and Toppling Masonry”: War Damage in Dublin and Paris,’ in Paris - Capital of Irish Culture: France, Ireland and the Republic, 1798-1916, ed. Pierre Joannon and Kevin Whelan (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2017), 175-87.
• Doyle, Peter and Matthew Bennett, ‘Military Geography: the influence of terrain in the outcome of the Gallipoli Campaign, 1915’, The Geographical Journal 165:1 (1999)
• Inglis, Ken, Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 1998)
• Pearson, Chris, Scarred Landscapes: War and Nature in Vichy France (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008)
• Ryan, Chris (ed.), Battlefield Tourism: History, Place and Interpretation (Oxford: Elsevier, 2007)
• Saunders, Nick (ed.), Beyond the Dead Horizon: Studies in Modern Conflict Archaeology (Oxford: Oxbow, 2012)
• Swain, Ashok and Joakim Öjendal, Routledge Handbook of Environmental Conflict and Peacebuilding (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020)
• Woodward, Rachel, ‘Military landscapes: agendas and approaches for future research’, Progress in Human Geography 38:1 (2014)
• Woodward, Rachel, ‘Looking at military landscapes: definitions and approaches’, in Renaud Bellais and Josselin Droff (eds.), The Evolving Boundaries of Defence: An Assessment of Recent Shifts in Defence Activities. Contributions to Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Development, Volume 23 (2014)
• Woodward, Rachel, Military Geographies (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2014)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE
• Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS)

Key words search

Military; Conflict; Landscape; Space; Place; Environment; Modern; Britain; World