Course teached as: B015972 - GEOGRAFIA DELLO SVILUPPO 3-years First Cycle Degree (DM 270/04) in ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL AND HEALTH COOPERATION AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Teaching Language
ITALIAN
Course Content
The subject of the course is the geographical diversification of economic development and the discussion on the different capacities of societies and eco-systems to generate and support specialized processes of wealth creation. The analysis will be qualitative and quantitative, essentially linked to socio-economic variables, but also natural and cultural, and it will be conducted in a long-run perspective, with particular attention to the last thirty years
F. DINI, Geographical Differences in Development: a Reconstruction, Florence, Firenze University Press, 2012. Other materials will be uploaded on the Moodle Unifi e-learning platform during the lessons. The program for non-attending students includes the above volume (main text) and D: HARVEY, The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises of Capitalism, Oxford University Press, 2010.
Learning Objectives
KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING: Provide students with information packages (historical and contemporary) and with theoretical interpretation tools that allow an adequate understanding of the processes of geographical diversification of development
APPLYIED KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING: Support students in the empirical elaboration of the most current themes of development and improve their ability to argue through greater conceptual and linguistic variety.
MAKING JUDGEMENTS: Develop the ability to address the discussion of development towards analytical and methodological complexity; foster the autonomy of thought on social, scientific and ethical dimensions of economic development.
Prerequisites
NONE. The course is in the first semester of the first year.
Teaching Methods
Lectures with PPT support and audio-visual material
Further information
DEVELOPMENT GEOGRAPHY is the first module (6 cfu) of the integrated course GEOGRAPHY OF DEVELOPMENT, ENVIRONMENT AND TERRITORY (12 cfu) of the triennial degree in ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION (SECI). The second module of the integrated course is GEOECONOMICS AND GEOPOLITICS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (second semester).
Type of Assessment
Oral mode. Particularly the exam will verify: (1) information and knowledge on the topics of the exam schedule. (2) Accuracy of language, in particular the ability to use a correct descriptive and interpretative language. (3) Ability to combine the theoretical models presented in the lessons with the processes and the empirical evidences of the current scenario. The final evaluation will be the overall result of these three skills.
Course program
The program is organized in four thematic areas:
1) Methodological survey on the geographical diversification of economic development. Preliminary information. Relations between socio-economic processes and eco-systems. Transdisciplinary character of the interpretations of development geography.
2) Long-run geographic constraints in development processes. Reliable design of the world map, relativism of context and QWERTY effects. Is a natural interpretation of the Eurasian advantage credible? Why and on what hypothetical economic, cultural and eco-systemic assumptions the European domain of the world in the second half of the second millennium? Geographies under construction of the market economy and capitalism.
3) Development Geographies of the industrial era. Definition of interpretative tools: cyclical or staple theories of economic growth, business cycles, regulation school, technology and techno-economic paradigms as tools for explaining cumulative and expansive market processes. How do you get to the so-called globalisation?
4) Reading geographic diversification of development from the industrial revolution to today. What are the structural effects of transition to industry? How, why and with what effects do internal markets arise? How, why and with what aspect does the relationship between territorial state and trans-territorial market change? How, why and with what effects does global markets begin to replace internal markets? What happens to globalisation and the geography of development after the depression started in 2006-2008?