MSc Human Geography: Society and Space

Human geography is a dynamic discipline with profound influence on current debates in the social sciences and humanities. Human geographers focus on the relationships between space and society, in particular the interconnection between environment, place and identity, knowledge, globalisation processes, social justice, and a variety of other themes of crucial relevance in our contemporary world.

This programme provides you with a rigorous grounding in social theory and mainstream debates and techniques in human geography. It also offers a thorough training in qualitative and quantitative methods. The MSc is closely linked to the University's Cabot Institute, which brings together multidisciplinary research into all aspects of global environmental change. Read more from our current and former students, as well as programme lecturers, on the Society and Space blog.

Programme structure

Core units

• Experimental Geographical Methods: Practising Post-humanism in Social Research
• Theorising Society and Space
• Researching Society and Space: Hermeneutics, Genealogy, and Critical Theory

Optional units

Optional units can change from year to year, but may include:

• Affect/Biopolitics/Technologies
• Decolonising Environments
• Explanation, Causation and Longitudinal Analysis 
• Geographies of Time and Timing
• Geographies of Knowledge
• Practical Statistics for Use in Research and Policy
• Post-colonial Matters

ESRC-funded students must take either of the following:

• Explanation, Causation and Longitudinal Analysis 
• Practical Statistics for Use in Research and Policy

Dissertation

You will complete a research-based dissertation of up to 15,000 words. You begin work on the dissertation in May and submit by the middle of September.