Sociale Geografie

Economic Geography will help you understand the social and economic aspects of the changing global division of labour.
The Master's Economic Geography is organised around global production networks and clusters. Contact with circuits of the global economy has profoundly affected the lives of an increasing number of people around the world. The rise of global production networks is not just enabled by communication and transport technologies, but also by (national and global) policies of de-regulation and re-regulation. Economic Geography will help you understand the social and economic aspects of the changing global division of labour. The programme will look at how concrete cases of global production networks and clusters evolve in both developing and developed countries. Students will examine the geographical distribution and the locational strategies, the insertion in the local economies, the competitive strategies and the power relationships within the networks. Also, the increasingly blurred division between the global north and south will be discussed.

The Master's in Environmental Geography focuses on human-ecosystem interactions and is well-placed to throw light on the daunting environmental challenges facing our planet.
The Master's programme in Human Geography provides students with a strong background in contemporary theories and theoretical and methodological debates in human geography, more specifically in the geographical sub-disciplines that are the focus of the four tracks.

It could be argued that we have gone beyond the Earth's carrying capacity and are approaching planetary boundaries. Other arguments hold that human ingenuity will equip us to deal with new challenges in the future. This programme focuses on the relationship between humans and their ecosystems. This is done by taking a strong spatial perspective and researching the impact of both global and local environmental change on humans.

The Master's in Urban Geography provides students with a better understanding of the global and local processes that shape cities today.
The 21st century will undoubtedly be an urban age. As processes of globalisation and economic restructuring have contributed to unanticipated urban growth across the globe, cities are considered to be key engines for innovation and economic growth and have been rediscovered as attractive places to live, work and play. This celebration of urban life and cities as places of infinite opportunities, however, is only one side of the story. Cities are confronted with substantial social challenges related to polarisation and urban inequality, processes of segregation, fragmentation and privatisation of the urban landscape. Consequently, cities are places of both unanticipated wealth and concentrated poverty, deprivation and vulnerability, shaping the life experiences and opportunities of urban dwellers in diverging and complex ways. This raises important questions about urban inequality and social justice.