Refugee Week at City Lit: Climate change, food insecurity and refugees
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Learning modes and locations may be different depending on the course start date. Please check the location of your chosen course and read our guide to learning modes and locations to help you choose the right course for you.
- Start Date: 17 Jun 2025End Date: 17 Jun 2025Tue (Evening): 19:00 - 21:00OnlineFull fee £10.00 Senior fee £10.00 Concession £7.00
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What is the course about?
The single-session course examines how colonial expansion, extractive economies, and monoculture farming have driven food insecurity and mass displacement, forcing communities to migrate in search of sustenance and safety. We will examine how industrial agriculture, land dispossession, and climate change exacerbate hunger and refugee movements, while also highlighting resistance efforts that reclaim food sovereignty and human rights.
What will we cover?
- The impact of colonialism on global agriculture and food sovereignty
- Industrial farming, monocultures, and ecological degradation
- Land dispossession, food insecurity, and forced migration
- Corporate control over seeds, soil, and supply chains
- Indigenous and grassroots resistance movements
- Alternative models for just and sustainable food systems.
What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...
- Understand the historical links between colonisation, extraction, hunger, and forced migration
- Identify the social, economic, and environmental consequences of industrial agriculture and displacement
- Recognise key resistance movements advocating for food sovereignty and sustainable alternatives
- Reflect critically on the role of global power structures in shaping food access, migration and production.
What level is the course and do I need any particular skills?
This course is suitable both for newcomers to the subject and for those who have some background knowledge. You will need a good grasp of English to keep up with the course. An ability and willingness to explore relevant shared resources will increase what you get out of the course.
However, as with most of our history, politics and current affairs courses, an open mind and a respectful willingness to listen to and think about views with which you do not always agree are more important than specific levels of skills.
How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the class?
There are no additional costs, but you may wish to bring pen and paper or a digital equivalent for notetaking.
Are there any other costs? Is there anything I need to bring?
No additional costs, but you may wish to bring a notepad and pen or digital equivalent for note taking.
When I've finished, what course can I do next?
- Refugee Week at City Lit: Refugees – Entrepreneurship and Business
- Refugee Week at City Lit: the refugee figure in the 20th century
- Refugee Week at City Lit: Refugees and displaced people in modern Chinese history
- HMI34 Museums and Repatriation
- HMI39 Historical memory in Russia
- HMI40 Historical memory in Ukraine
- HMI41 History and memory in the United States of America
Olivia Durand is global historian doing work and teaching on the politics of history and memory, settler colonialism and colonial port cities in addition to the history of 19th century Russia, Ukraine and America. Olivia has worked at Oxford University, the Free University in Berlin and the Institute of Historical Justice and Reconciliation in the Hague and is keen to offer more courses at City Lit.
Please note: We reserve the right to change our tutors from those advertised. This happens rarely, but if it does, we are unable to refund fees due to this. Our tutors may have different teaching styles; however we guarantee a consistent quality of teaching in all our courses.