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Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in Polar Studies
3. Curriculum
The course is split into two Strands; Humanities and Social Scienecs, and Physical Sciences. Each strand comprises 16 hours of lectures/seminars, and runs for the whole of the first term. Each Strand contains two separate elements, each of 8 hours teaching. Candidates are also expected to attend relevant research group seminars (e.g. in Polar Physical Science or Polar Social Science & Humanities) held in the Institute. In terms two and three, students work towards their dissertations. The teaching within each strand is complemented by supervisions with the student's supervisor, and training in appropriate methodologies and techniques to enable the student to undertake their dissertation.
Strand 1: Humanities and Social Sciences
| Title | Co-ordinator | |
|---|---|---|
| Element 1 | The Anthropology of Northern Peoples | Dr. Piers Vitebsky |
| Element 2 | Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Biodiversity and Development | Dr. Michael Bravo |
Please note: details of courses offered are subject to change from year to year.
Element 1: The Anthropology of Northern Peoples
The aim of this course is to explore the diversity of social and cultural forms found around the Arctic and sub-Arctic and to relate these to variations in environment, patterns of resource use, social structure, religion and spirituality, history and forms of state, and encapsulating white society.
The course will draw on a range of recent fieldwork to focus on traditional ethnography of the Arctic peoples, ethnohistory of the Native-European contact, and recent challenges brought to native residents by industrial expansion and modernisation. Seminars will cover various aspects of the complexity of native cultural and social systems; patterns of Native-European encounter and interaction throughout the Arctic; an overview of traditional subsistence patterns within the circumpolar area; and modern issues on the circumpolar agenda, including native struggle for self-determination, access to traditional lands and subsistence practices, preservation of native legacy and languages, etc. Selected aspects of these topics will be developed on a more specialised level in the module during Lent Term.
Element 2: Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Biodiversity and Development
The aim of this course is to examine critically the resurgence of interest in the role of Indigenous Knowledge Systems in applied development studies. Deconstructing the notion of 'indigeneity', the first session is devoted to discussing what is meant by the term indigenous, what constitutes 'indigenous knowledge' (I.K.), and of how, if at all, this might be distinguished from other forms of 'local', 'tacitly held' or 'folk' knowledge. The geography of I.K. will also be discussed. Attention is then given to describing recent legislative and institutional initiatives directed at 'salvaging' and re-applying indigenous knowledge in the development of more reflexive resource management systems. The nexus between the preservation of I.K. and other Western systems for codifying and protecting knowledge such as systems of Intellectual Property Rights law is also examined. Case studies based on agroforestry and ethnobotany are then used to illustrate how I.K. has been variously exploited. The contextual and methodological difficulties associated with the transference of I.K., as well as its potential applications, are discussed in the concluding session.
| Title | Co-ordinator | |
|---|---|---|
| Element 1 | Polar Remote Sensing | Dr. Gareth Rees |
| Element 2 | Glaciology and Climate Change | Prof. Julian Dowdeswell |
Element 1: Polar Remote Sensing
This course examines the uses of remote sensing in the polar regions. Most important is its ability to gather information from very large areas - tens of thousands of square kilometres up to truly global scales - practically instantaneously. Data sets can thus be obtained by Remote Sensing that could not practically be obtained in any other way, either because of the extreme remoteness of the study areas (a particular advantage for the polar regions) or simply because of their large area. Some of the more recently developed microwave (radar) systems can also provide imagery through cloud, which again is a major advantage for polar studies.
Element 2: Glaciology and Climate Change
Modern Glaciers and Ice Sheets
The distribution, form and flow of glaciers and ice sheets will be discussed, along with some of the geophysical and remote sensing methods used to measure and monitor glaciers. We will consider the mechanisms by which glaciers and ice sheets move - by internal ice deformation, by basal sliding in the presence of water, and by deformation of underlying saturated sediments. Glaciers and ice sheets are formed when snowfall does not melt completely by the end of the summer. The snowfall builds up year on year and compacts to form ice. Whether a glacier or ice sheet is growing or decaying depends on its annual net mass balance - the difference, if any, between mass gains through snowfall and mass loss by melting and the production of icebergs if the ice-mass ends in the sea or a lake. Mass balance is clearly related to climate, and if the climate changes so too will ice volume and extent. We will discuss the relationship between ice and climate and how this may change in a warming world.
Past Glacial Activity - the Record in Glacimarine Sediments
High-latitude marine environments, from fjords, through the continental shelf, to the deep ocean, provide a record of past glacial activity covering a variety of timescales. The inception of Late Cenozoic ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland can be identified from the first occurrence of outsize pebbles (known as dropstones) transported by icebergs and delivered into predominantly fine-grained marine muds. At shorter timescales, the growth and decay of ice sheets during 100,000 year glacial-interglacial cycles can be found on continental shelves and in continental slope sediments. Fjords often contain a record of glacier fluctuations over the last 10,000 years or so. The nature of glacimarine sediments is influenced by both the climatic and oceanographic setting (e.g. glaciers reach the sea in environments ranging from SE Alaska and Chile, through to the very cold fringes of East Antarctica), and the dynamics of the ice-sheet system (e.g. fast or slow flow, or surge behaviour). Interpretation of the glacimarine record needs to take both climate and ice-dynamic factors into account. The sessions on the glacimarine record will include; an introduction to continental margins as the setting for sediment delivery to the marine environment from glaciers; processes of sediment delivery, including the significance of meltwater and iceberg processes in different climatic environments; the nature of reworking processes; the sedimentary record at different timescales and its interpretation in the context of ice-sheet growth and decay.