(in Polish) Gendered Geographies of Power, Migration and Social Change 3700-ISSC-GGP-WOR

This course examines human mobility and social change through the analytical lens of gendered and generational power relations. Drawing on the Gendered Geographies of Power framework (Mahler & Pessar, 2001) together with the concepts of generation and life course, the course explores how demographic structures, socio-cultural norms, environmental pressures, political crises and economic inequalities shape diverse forms of mobility and immobility.
We analyse demographic patterns such as youth-dominated populations, gender and generational imbalances, ageing societies and changing care needs. We explore gendered vulnerabilities linked to environmental change, conflict, and economic instability. The course investigates multiple mobility trajectories, family migration, retirement migration, labour mobility, irregular routes and asylum seeking, and their differentiated risks. We discuss shifts in gender roles within households and communities, including the experiences of those who remain immobile (left-behind populations), drawing on empirical case studies and qualitative materials such as interviews.
Spatial inequalities and power relations are approached through land ownership, home-making practices, welfare regimes, care chains, agricultural and domestic labour, and urban precarity. The course also examines how climate change amplifies existing gendered and generational hierarchies by affecting livelihoods, food production and access to water. Through lectures, text-based discussions, empirical case studies and student project work, participants gain a multidimensional understanding of how mobility, gender and generational dynamics intersect in shaping contemporary social transformations.
The course is suitable for students interested in combining the categories of gender, generation and power with the lived experience context of households, families, local communities and livelihoods, as well as the spatial contexts of home, land and natural environment. Students will be invited to critically engage with academic contributions from various disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, political science, social geography and development studies, as well as critical journalism and creative content to develop multifaceted analyses of selected social phenomena in the region. This workshop-style class will combine reading-based discussions and small exercises with larger individual or group tasks devoted to in-depth analysis of selected topics or case studies, culminating in class presentations.

Course structure:
1. Introduction: organisation and theoretical foundations (Human Geography, Gendered Geographies of Power and Life-Course Framework)
2. Demographic regimes I: youth-dominated populations & gendered transitions to adulthood
3. Demographic regimes II: ageing societies, care crises and labour shortages
4. Gender, environment and vulnerability
5. Mobility infrastructures and migration trajectories
6. Urban spaces, precarity and mobility
7. Guest lecture: Urban informality, housing precarity and gendered experiences
8. Household transformations and gender roles in migration contexts
9. Immobility and left-behind populations
10. Family, retirement and lifestyle migration
11. Labour, agriculture and migration
12. Climate change, gender and generation
13. Student project presentations and assessment