9 ECTS credits
250 h study time
Offer 1 with catalog number 4024078ENR for all students in the 1st semester at a (E) Master - advanced level.
Crime and the City introduces students to the large domain of spatial and urban criminology. It reflects upon the relations between criminological phenomena and space. Citizens’ lives, practices, experiences and emotions are influenced by the architectural properties of places and their locations in the wider urban fabric. Inversely, its inhabitants, commuters, users, and visitors create and recreate space daily. This double relation between society and space is introduced in the course and then brought into dialogue with criminological topics and themes, such as fear, order/disorder, and conflict. On a theoretical level, the profile introduces work in spatial and urban criminology, with excursions into criminological, urban, social and cultural geographical theory and method. The first central theme of the course is fear. This concept will be critically discussed and decomposed in its different meanings and connections to the city, with particular attention to public space. Various aspects of fear will be treated, such as the relationship between fear and space, fear of the other (gender and ethnicity), labelling, representation, stigmatization of neighbourhoods, nightlife, the politics of fear, and the relationships between fear and securitization. The second central topic is order. This topic will be explored through a diversity of subthemes that include public order, incivilities, nuisances, crime prevention, conflicts in public spaces, urban securitization, surveillance and control of public spaces, protests and the right to the city, and a critical analysis of environmental criminology and situational crime prevention. The third central topic is qualitative urban criminology methodologies. Through practices like city walks and photography, students learn how to conduct observation in public spaces. They will also experiment with digital cartography and will be encouraged to explore other alternative qualitative urban criminology methodologies. The course focuses on Brussels cases but also includes examples from the Global South (particularly from Brazil).
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Knowledge and insights:
Skills:
Attitudes:
The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
Oral Exam determines 30% of the final mark.
PRAC Practical Assignment determines 70% of the final mark.
Within the Oral Exam category, the following assignments need to be completed:
Within the PRAC Practical Assignment category, the following assignments need to be completed:
Evaluation
Students do not necessarily need to succeed the practical part of the evaluation to take part in the oral exam.
The practical exercises (70%) are composed by a 20% individual paper, a 20% opinion piece (in duo), and a 30% group task. These percentages are subject to potential changes.
The use of generative AI is only permitted for proofreading purposes. Each use of generative AI must be appropriately acknowledged.
Late submissions will only be accepted if accompanied by a valid reason.
Students in the second session who have already entered any of these assignments in the first session keep the marks obtained in the first session in the second session. Any of these assignments, when not submitted in the first session, need to be submitted as part of the assessment in the second session. In this case, the opinion piece will be submitted individually, and the group task will be replaced by an individual paper.
The working students are evaluated in the same way as the students in the regular track.
This offer is part of the following study plans:
Master of Criminology: Standaard traject (only offered in Dutch)
Master of Urban Studies: Standard track
Master of Teaching in Social Sciences: criminologische wetenschappen (90 ECTS, Etterbeek) (only offered in Dutch)