Geography 230: Geographies of Global Inequality, Fall 2014
Assignment #1: Discourse Analysis and Representations of People and Places
A major goal of this course and of your research paper is to develop a deeper, historical and contextualized understanding of issues confronting people and
places in the Global South or/and in the Global North.
For Assignment #1, you will choose a geographic location of study, locate media and other depictions – representations – of that place and people within that
place and do a short analysis of the “naming and framing” that you see going on in those representations. In assignment #2, you will examine a particular topic/issue
within that place through a political economy perspective. It’s helpful to start thinking about the topic you want to examine in your final paper and think about the
place and people that are affected.
Step One: Choose a Place
Assignment #1 will help you write the first part of your final paper. In assignment #1, you are to define the geographic place of your research project/final paper. Be
specific about the place that you want to study. For example, you might be interested in examining the affects of NAFTA on subsistence farmers in the Mexican
countryside in your final paper. The purpose of assignment #1 is to start examining how the place of Mexico and/or a particular region of Mexico such as Oaxaca and how
certain people from those places such as Mexican subsistence farmers and peasants are understood and represented within the media. Narrowing the scale of your analysis
as much as possible-from Mexico, to the Oaxaca region to subsistence farmers and peasants- will make it easier for you to say something meaningful about the topic you
decide to examine in assignment #2 and final paper.
If you’re not clear how to narrow your geographic place of analysis here are a few more examples:
If you are interested in Latin America and in agricultural issues, you might choose to write about women’s agricultural cooperatives in Guatemala. How are Guatemala
and the women agricultural cooperatives represented and understood within the media?
If you’re interested in human rights and privatization issues, you might want to investigate water privatization in Bolivia or the oil industry in Nigeria. How is
Bolivia and the Indigenous peoples of this country represented within the media? Or, how are Nigeria and the Ogoni people understood and represented in the media?
If you’re interested in inequality within the United States or Canada, you could investigate access to housing and other resources in New Orleans after Hurricane
Katrina or Tar Sands development on Indigenous territory in Canada. In the first case, how are New Orleans and certain people from that place such as Black/African
Americans represented within the media? In the second case, how are reservations/Indigenous people/First Nations understood and represented within the media?
If you’re interested in big ‘D’ development and tourism, you might want to investigate the World Cup in Brazil. How was Brazil, cities in Brazil such as Rio De
Janeiro, favales (slums) and people from these places represented in the media leading up to and during the World Cup?
Step Two: Finding Varied Representations of the Place/People
Now that you have chosen a place/people, you will need to find two different newspaper articles about that place. If you already know that you want to examine access
to housing in post-Katrina New Orleans, you should look for newspaper articles specifically on that topic. These articles will come from different types of media
sources, showing two contrasting views or representations of the same place/people. To find articles depicting contrasting views, we recommend that you seek one
article from the mainstream media and a second article from an alternative media source (blogs, NGO reports and academic articles are not considered ‘media articles’).
You can find useful search engines for news articles at this link (Check the ‘NEWS’ tab):http://guides.lib.washington.edu/content.php?pid=157715&sid=1335123
Finding these sources could easily require a great deal of time! We strongly suggest you start this process early.
Step Three: Summarize Each Article
The two articles you identify will form the heart of the “representations” section of your final paper. Once you have found the articles, write a 2-3 sentences summary
of what each article is about. This should be short and descriptive. Make sure that you include a full reference/citation for each article with its summary.
Step Four: Analyze These Representations
Next, you will write an analysis of the two articles. This analysis is to focus on how your chosen site/geographic place of analysis is depicted – represented – in
each of the different forms of media. When comparing and contrasting the two sources, you will want to address issues such as:
• How are the place and people represented?
• How are words and imagery (including photos, graphics, etc.) used to portray the place and people in a particular manner?
• Is there an issue defined in the articles (ie lack of housing in New Orleans post-Katrina) and if so how is that problem FRAMED?
• Who is held responsible or TARGETED, and how are they portrayed?
• What is implied to be the “SOLUTION(s)?”
• Who is set up as the potential ‘problem-solver’ or ‘good guy’?
• Do you know of different ways of describing or approaching this issue that are not covered in your sources (e.g., from lecture or reading or other experiences
you’ve had)?
• Who is left out of the discussions in the various sources? Whose voices are not heard?
Remember that not all the articles will contain all of these questions, so you don’t need to answer them all, but make sure you are getting at how the issues are being
framed. You will be trying to uncover how different media sources name and frame the place, people and issue that you have chosen to study, and start to think about
how they portray the problem and imply a solution.
Be sure to cite specific examples of phrases, images, word choices, etc. from your two sources to support your analysis. You can find a tab of ‘CITATION &
WRITING GUIDES’ at: http://guides.lib.washington.edu/content.php?pid=157715&sid=1335123
The assignment should be 750 words (3 pages), double-spaced, 12 point font, including the summaries of the two articles and your analysis of the articles.
Please include your TA section on your assignment.
Geography 230: Geographies of Global Inequality, Fall 2014
Research Topics for Final Paper
If you prefer, you can propose other topics to your TA (for e.g. topics related to colonialism, race politics, immigration, or…).
1) International Debt and Debt Relief
How is debt being debated in the media? Under what circumstances did the country you select (in Global South or Global North) become indebted? What is the political
economy of debt (i.e. how it linked to current and historical political economic relations?). Is debt relief a form of development? What should be done about debt?
Should it be forgiven, and if so, under what circumstances? How are indebted countries represented by media outlets? How do these representations shape global
responses to debt crisis?
2) Shifts in Social Policy and Increasing Inequality
Explore examples of recent social policies (policies that provide for education, health or social protections) in a particular topic/place. What is happening to the
social/public sphere? How have these policies contributed to or alleviated poverty and inequality in the Global South or Global North? What sorts of contestations to
these policy shifts have occurred in your place of focus? How are social policies represented by the media? How do these representations shape/influence our ideas
about poverty and inequality and about who is poor and why?
3) Is Microfinance a development policy?
In what ways does microfinance create or hinder development in the place you are researching? For the place you are researching consider the following questions: Who
are the major targets for microfinance loans? Who benefits from microfinance and how? What are the limitations of microfinance as a pathway out of poverty? What
institutions are implementing microfinance? Who profits from microfinance? Is microfinance a solution to the challenge of inequality? Explain why or why not.
4) How have big ‘D’evelopment projects shaped inequality?
Select a major development project (e.g. Dam’s like Narmada in India or the Volta in Ghana; agricultural commercialization, land reform…). What version of development
is being expressed? What are the economic impacts of the project? What are the social effects of this project? Who is most affected and why? Who or which groups
are more likely to benefit? How do these projects influence poverty and inequality?
5) Social Movements in response to inequality
What sorts of alternatives have emerged in response to inequality/poverty in Global South or Global North? Select a social movement in either the Global South or the
US (e.g. Landless Movement in Brazil, SEWA in India, Occupy in the US, etc.) and explore its roots, history, and goals. Who are the participants? What are they
responding to? What sorts of (spatial) strategies is the organization deploying? Do you see signs that these social movements are being co-opted by a neoliberal
agenda? How are alternatives to neoliberal policies represented in the media? What political gains have these movements achieved?
The more specific you make your case study, the easier it will be for you to say something meaningful about it in relation to development and inequality within the
limits of a short paper. On the contrary, the less specific you make your case study, the more chances to find more literature that speaks to that topic. This is a
hard decision to make, so we encourage you to do some research on a few topics to see what’s available and more ‘do-able’ for you.
If you’re not clear how to narrow your topic within these broader themes, here are a few examples of potential research topics:
If you are interested in Latin America and in agricultural issues, you might choose to write about women’s agricultural cooperatives in Guatemala or the affects of
NAFTA on subsistence farmers in the Mexican countryside.
If you are interested in environmental issues, you might want to investigate a controversial environmental issue that you’ve heard about within a particular country.
Some possibilities would be the construction of dams in China, the mining industry in Chile, or deforestation in Brazil.
If you’re interested in human rights and privatization issues, you might want to investigate water privatization in Bolivia or the oil industry in Nigeria.
If you’re interested in inequality within the United States, you could investigate access to housing and other resources in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
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