Critical essays are intended as a measure of how well you understand and are able to integrate ideas, facts and arguments presented in lecture and the readings. 

You are responsible for submitting 4 critical essays throughout the semester, at least 2 before mid-term.

I am essentially treating these as mini take-home exams so we will not be able to answer questions or review drafts.

Critical essays will be graded based upon both content and mechanics (essentially readability). I am interested both in the way you engage with the material and your ability to effectively convey your point.

To that end, I expect that you will make a point and take a critical perspective. It is not important that we agree but far more so that you present your ideas in an organized and convincing fashion.

Critical essays should be between 4 to 6 double-spaced pages with 1-inch margins and 12-point in Times New Roman (or a similarly readable) font.

In terms of content, you will be expected to draw on both the readings and the lectures related to the question in your response.  Critical essay answers should draw on materials covered in the previous week’s lectures and readings. You may want to include additional information (articles, books, examples) as well, but you are not required to do so. 

You will be expected to make an argument and support that argument with evidence from lecture and readings.  Don’t be afraid to ‘have a take’—I’m less interested in assessing your perspective than I am in the way you make your argument. The best critical essays will have a clear critical thesis—it moves beyond review and interjects your opinion into the class readings, lectures, and discussions.

When using evidence, be specific by citing a particular work (for example, “As Valverde notes, there are an often overlooked series of laws and policies governing a street corner”).  Lecture material can be cited as follows “As was noted in lecture, power comes in many forms.” If you are citing a direct quote or specific data from the readings make sure to include the page number and if you are including additional material, you will need a bibliographic reference (you can choose the style, just be consistent).

All basic grammar rules apply!  Poor grammar makes a paper difficult to read and will result in a reduction in points.

Critical essays are due in-class on Mondays. There are a broad range of topics to pick from over the course of the term, so take a moment to look through the course themes and readings to get a sense of what you might want to respond to. Critical essays questions are only valid for the week they are distributed – you cannot hand in a previous weeks’ response. 

Critical Essay #1: Due January 19

An operating assumption of this course is that power is reflected and realized through a range of practices, not the least of all, space. Our world is set up to within these relational imbalances, to signify institutions of power and sovereignty, and re/produce power relations within the spaces we live, work, and inhabit—what some geographers will distinguish as material space.

Take a space and parse through the power relations that have developed it. Who is in charge and what kinds of power—instrumental, representational, dispersed, and associational—that are embedded in the space. There are often many kinds of competing power relations operating at once. You might, for instance, identify representational power in Convo Mall of the University over place naming and wayfinding while at the same time suggesting the space holds an associational power as a historically central meeting point for student protests, or, as is more common today, student club fairs.

The objective here is to think critically and creatively, so try to think beyond obvious pillars of state power. (For example, no writing on City Hall or the Vancouver Police Department.) Your space may be anywhere, though it must be real. (We’ll get to creating our own fantasy spaces later.) Include photos if you’d like and they’re accessible, but photos do not affect grading or change page length guidance.

Critical Essay #2: Due February 2

In a time of Internet communication and globalization in commerce and personal mobility, do borders still matter? Do they still exist? Are new borders emerging? Around who or where? Using the lecture, readings, and any supplemental material of your choosing, explain the role of borders, not simply to political geographers, in 2015. Take a position around the contradiction between increasing trade and globalization with the entrenchment and recent fascinations with borders and nationalist/statist sovereignty.

Critical Essay #3: Due February 16

"Map, or be mapped." Discuss.

(Engage with class materials, lecture notes, and readings to discuss the way mapping and cartography is central to territoriality. How are maps instruments of claiming space? In particular, please address the politics of 'calculable space' and how spaces are made visible and calcuable and to what end.)

Critical Essay #4, Due February 23

Public space, like property, is contingent, and sets up a relationship between people and space. Mitchell thinks it's ending or already gone, Blomley suggests flower beds might help reassert claim to public spaces. All of this makes us wonder why public space matters, or flipped around, why does private space or property matter? Perhaps public space is not dead or nonexistent but waiting for our input and engagement? Think about the public spaces you interact with. How do they work for you? How could they serve you better? Think as well about the public spaces you do not access. What makes these spaces inaccessible or undesirable? How could they be made more inviting or accessible to you and your needs?

Critical Essay #5, due March 23

What determines our mobility? Discuss how a range of factors--race, wellness, age, gender, money--all change the way we move through space. If, as several students have noted, this cannot always be corrected, why does recognizing our mobilities matter? You might discuss, for instance, how property systems are built on our knowledge of processes of ownership or how access to presumably so-called public space is made easier by private resources.

Critical Essay #6, DuE April 6

Two options this week for students who want to write on gender, or post-9/11 security practices. First, on gender: how does a space become gendered? What are the power structures, discourses, relationships, at play that allow spaces to become decidedly masculine or decidedly feminine? Is there anything to be done to prevent or counter such discourses?

One of the realities of post-9/11 security making is a fixation on bending and twisting geographies in wyas that make our relationship to space more fraught, complex, and confused. Do these approaches work and can they work for the long haul? Knowing what you know now about power and space, how would you approach the USA PATRIOT Act, Bill C-51, the expansion of surveillance, or the encroachment of 'home' in to spaces of terror/ism?

Critical Essay #7, Due April 13

For this final week, reflect on the course and the project of something called 'poltical geography'. To that end, I direct you back to a question initially posed (but unanswered) on the midterm: "We are in a project of defamiliarisation. What, then, are the politics of the familiar and who is served by the taken-for-granted? How and to what end?" You should think about the course both through the individual units or lectures but also thematically from a more cumulative, considered view. Now that you have seen (nearly) everywhere I plan to take you in political geography, how can the tools you have developed help make space, for who and how?