The Critical Geographers!

 Thanks again everyone for an incredible semester!  I will miss our Thursday evenings!  Be in touch, okay!  Keep the blog going too!  We're all making spatial histories from here on out!

socialist mosaic - the pen can break the chains of our bondages

 

Final Topic

 Matthew R. Berry

 Critical Geography

 Professor Simpson

 3 December 2020 

Final Topic

    My final topic will be utilizing the materialist method to look into the outdoor industry and specifically mountain guiding. Considered the blue-collar outdoor industry job, mountain guiding involves poorly paid laborers who use technical skill to safely climb mountains and other features with clientele. Most guides are forced to work multiple jobs due to the low-paying wages, yet the clientele could be considered the bourgeoisie who can afford to spend, upwards of tens of thousands of USD for these workers to assist them up mountains they otherwise could not technically or physically climb. Guides enjoy the work, generally speaking, but looking into the industry could very much shed light on larger metanarratives such as globalization and exploitation of workers. Having worked the last few years since I left the Army as a guide, it was a personal topic that I felt this class set me up to research and discuss well.

(Sorry!! Only just saw that this was due today when looking at the presenation instructions!)

Final Project Topic

     I would like my final topic to be on the indoctrination of LGBT+ communities into the dominant ideology of capitalism. I want to focus on how the Global North has taken the concept of sexual liberation and reframed it to fit pre-existing narratives of sexuality. Meanwhile, LGBT+ populations of the Global South continue to be exploited and marginalized. 

Sources will include:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2059436420949985

https://brill.com/view/journals/hima/24/2/article-p138_7.xml

Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage

The Traffic in Women by Gayle Rubin

Class readings (Sex in Public, Sexuality, The Body)

(Sorry this is late, I didn't catch that we were supposed to turn this in last week!)

Final Essay Topic

    I am focusing my final topic paper on the historical geography of sanitary landfills and the language used to describe them, with an emphasis on landfills in Alaska.

final essay topic

 My final essay topic will be the civil war in Donetsk and Luhansk and the manner in which the war is depicted in physical space and media.

Final Essay on Hog Farming

 My final essay will be on a topic I have recently discovered. I will be examining the history of hog farming and how it has changed and formed the geography in North Carolina, specifically.