Global Inequalities In The Anthropocene (GEOG20011)

Inequality is a global phenomenon – something widely found to be growing within and between nations. This subject takes a critical geographic perspective, focused on understanding the variety of scales at which inequality appears. It looks beneath national comparative statistics on global inequality to (1) investigate the ways in which inequality is generated and materially experienced in selected societies, social groups and places, and (2) analyse how new forms and conditions of inequality may be emerging with the advent of conditions termed the Anthropocene (an epoch in which environmental conditions on our planet are profoundly influenced by human action). The subject examines ideas of justice that propose ways of reducing inequality, in the light of processes generating a variety of inequalities at different scales, and for different social groups and places. Examples will be drawn from urban, regional, neighbourhood and national contexts in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.