MA in Geography (Risk)

This MA course is designed for those who wish to explore the social dimensions of risk and resilience. The Department of Geography is especially well-suited to examine these in relation to environmental hazards, climate vulnerability, and security-related risk, but you are encouraged to develop your own thinking in relation to any aspect of risk research, including broader environmental change, disaster risk reduction, risk and insurance, risk and health, risk and migration, risk and social policy, risk and governance, borders and terrorism. This course foregrounds the existence of multiple ways of understanding risk, from risk as an objective phenomenon managed through scientific tools (e.g. in the case of environmental hazards) to risk as a social construct and a political technique (e.g. in the case of risk and security).

Dealing with risks as a function of both the natural and social environments we live in, the course responds to the growing realization that many risks are being created through social processes bound to questions of security and vulnerability, including the ways that risk techniques are emerging and being employed as a means of securing uncertain futures.