Liberating learning: Thinking beyond ‘the grade’ in field‐based approaches to teaching

This paper is positioned within current debates on education development and the value of fieldwork as a pathway to fostering a nuanced, sophisticated and empathetic world view among students. Here, we focus on one form of field‐based teaching within geography, that is, intensive field studies courses taught abroad. We draw on our experience as cofacilitators of a six‐week intensive field course conducted in various parts of Thailand. The course we discuss in this paper was focused on teaching students both applied research skills (critical engagement, ethnographic research methods and ethical research practice) and substantive content (the social, cultural, political and economic aspects of Thailand from a geographer's perspective). We argue that the value of field studies lies in the ability of such a course to help students enhance and deepen broad, generalisable skills such as problem solving; ethical research practice; critical engagement with complex social issues; and independent research skills.     

‘The law is not for the poor’: Land,law and eviction in Luanda

This article investigates how an existing two‐tiered land tenure system creates a hybrid space that blurs, and essentially questions and problematizes the boundaries of the formal/informal divide as presented within Angolan political and legal discourses. It showcases how urban formality and informality exist alongside each other in Luanda and how people take recourse to both formal and informal channels in attempts to secure housing, land tenure and livelihoods in the city. Through case studies, the article describes how small‐scale farmers in Luanda's northern municipality of Cacuaco lost their lands to urban development in 2009–10 and the ensuing circumstances in which formal rights and informal land tenure became intermeshed and ambiguous. As the case studies illustrate, a gap exists between the legal code and practice on the ground. This gap is represented in how Angola's postconflict land strategy, with its forced evictions and demolitions of houses and neighbourhoods, often with little or no compensation, is at odds with the Angolan Land Law, which states that land may only be expropriated by the state or local authorities for specific public use and must be justly compensated.