Syllabus: THE GEOGRAPHY OF RACE IN THE U.S.

Anne Bonds, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee

In this course we examine how race and geography are importantly connected. The geography of the United States is shaped by race and ethnicity at all spatial scales, from the street, to the neighborhood, to the city, and so on. A geographic examination of race analyzes the spatial dimensions of race and the ways in which these patterns are produced through histories and geographies of privilege and oppression, inclusion and exclusion, as well as conflict, containment, and mobility. Although we tend to identify race and ethnicity as ‘fixed’, concrete attributes, in fact, notions about race and ethnicity are quite dynamic and have been contested and transformed through political struggle, culture, history, and geography. We will examine the social and spatial construction of racial categories in order to investigate race and ethnicity as profound sets of power relations that shape places, societies, and everyday experiences.