Local Sites, Global Connections

This field class subject, combining on-campus classes with periodic off-campus field work in the Melbourne area, asks the question: in what ways are local sites globally connected? Sites selected for field study around Melbourne will vary year by year, as will the specific processes studied geographically at those sites. For example, study might be made of a selection of places and communities damaged by recent bushfire or flood, investigating how globally-sourced advice, personnel and equipment played a part in responding to those events, forging lasting links between those local places and the sources of their global assistance. Or, the global sources of contamination of local ocean sites might be studied. Or, the global worlds of social media might be mapped, by looking at a set of local social media users within particular urban populations. Or, the manner in which local environmental or urban policies may be drawn from overseas situations might be examined and critiqued, involving investigation of governance sites/settings in our local area and the ways they connect globally.