Honours Seminar in Human Geography II: Geography of Citizenship & Migration
one-way Exclusions
3-hours per week
There is no specific textbook for this course; however, the text by Samers and Collyer is recommended - Samers, M., & Collyer, M. (2016). Migration. Taylor & Francis. Migration can be purchased through Amazon.ca for $94.89. Weekly readings are available through the course onQ site (See Course Reserves module). For each class session, you are expected to have completed the readings and come to class prepared to discuss them. To participate effectively in class, you must read the recommended articles and book sections that correspond to each module. Doing the assigned readings gives you a stronger grasp of course concepts and provides the foundation for your final assignment.
Please note that course information listed in the Arts and Science Course Calendar supersedes any information listed on the Geography and Planning website.
For the most current course offerings, registered Queen鈥檚 students should consult .
Course Description
Seminars offered by regular and visiting faculty on Geography topics related to their research interests. Consult the departmental homepage for further details of specific course offerings each academic year.
NOTE: Field Trip fees may apply in certain years; maximum cost $300.
Course Overview
In an era of unprecedented global migration, climate displacement, and shifting borders, how do people claim space, identity, and rights? This graduate seminar examines the urgent, evolving geographies of citizenship and belonging as nation-states grapple with mass displacement, humanitarian crises, and the politics of who gets to stay, who must leave, and who decides.
From millions of Ukrainians fleeing war, to record-breaking crossings through the Dari茅n Gap, to the EU鈥檚 New Pact on Migration and Asylum and the UK鈥檚 Rwanda deportation plan, these contemporary events reveal how border regimes are being reinvented and fundamentally reshaping citizenship discourse.
This course positions you at the forefront of these debates, examining how borders, belonging, and political membership are being contested and reimagined in real time. We will analyze recent Supreme Court decisions on immigration, municipal responses to migrant arrivals in major cities, the rise of digital surveillance at borders - the CBP One app requiring asylum seekers to schedule appointments before crossing, to Palantir's AI technologies used to track non-citizens - alongside grassroots movements creating alternative forms of belonging beyond traditional citizenship frameworks. The course interrogates the stark disparities in how different populations are received: why Ukrainian refugees access humanitarian parole while Haitian and Venezuelan migrants face expedited removal, and how the Dominican Republic's denationalization of people of Haitian descent reveals citizenship as both powerful and precarious.
This course examines citizenship not as a static legal status but as a lived, embodied experience shaped by race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, and other axes of power. Our lens moves fluidly from the body to border checkpoints, from the neighbourhood to the nation-state, from bilateral agreements to global governance regimes. Drawing on critical geography, anthropology, legal studies, ethnic studies, and migration studies, you develop a robust analytical toolkit for examining how citizenship is constructed, contested, and experienced, and for understanding the social, political, and environmental forces that shape migration, belonging, exclusion, and mobility across diverse global contexts.
Learning Outcomes
- Critically evaluate complex social issues using spatial and geographical analysis drawing on concepts such as place, space, and scale.
- Integrate theoretical and methodological approaches from various subfields of geography to analyze and explain social and environmental issues widely considered important.
- Apply advanced geographical methods to explore complex questions in human geography.
- Research and communicate complex geographical ideas and concepts in written and verbal forms through written assignments and classroom participation.
- Communicate key concepts from the course in plain language format to a non-academic audience to practice transferable skills beyond the class.
Assessments
Subject to Change
- Participation: 15%
- Student-Led Seminar: 15%
- Midterm/Blogpost/Opinion Piece: 30%
- End of Term Exam/Critical Review Paper: 40%