Cuz's courses

This course examines the economic geography of developing countries through a Marxist theoretical lens, exploring how capitalism creates and maintains global and local inequalities through spatial processes. Students will engage with foundational concepts including primitive accumulation, uneven development, world-systems theory, and the new international division of labor to understand how wealth extraction, labor exploitation, and environmental degradation operate across geographic scales. The course traces the historical development of core-periphery relations from colonialism through contemporary neoliberal globalization, analyzing specific processes such as export processing zones, land grabbing, structural adjustment programs, and resource extraction in the Global South. Through critical examination of topics including urbanization and slums, gendered labor relations, social reproduction, and environmental crisis, students will develop analytical tools, including mapping, to understand how capitalism necessarily produces geographic inequality while also exploring forms of resistance, social movements, and alternative development strategies emerging from the Global South. Using learning circles and collaborative pedagogical approaches that embody democratic and egalitarian principles, the course connects theoretical analysis with contemporary struggles for social and environmental justice, preparing students to critically analyze and engage with questions of global development, spatial inequality, and transformative social change.