Courses

Tor Halvorsen
Associate Professor, Department of Administration and Organization Theory / UiB Global

John Higgins
Professor, University of Cape Town

Detailed course description

The role of universities in promoting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and a sustainable development (including reaching the Paris Agreement goals) is crucial for our future. Universities are however embedded institutions; shaped by the societies they have been historically evolving within, and thus, also influencing these societies in a variety of ways. 

In the same way we talk of varieties of capitalism, we may also talk of varieties of knowledge societies. And due to this, we also see a variety of ways that knowledge may contribute to the implementation of the SDGs, and of the ways the SDGs may influence knowledge institutions.

The course will reflect on these varieties and our future ability to deal with the burning issues of the SDGs and the Paris Agreement within knowledge society relationships.

Ingunn Marie S. Engebretsen
Professor, Centre for International Health, UiB

Detailed course description

This methodological multi-disciplinary course will have mental health in focus. Its research perspective primarily addresses: global health policies on mental health; health system integration strategies; mental health and culture (including bold exposures and risk factors such as forced migration); dealing with extreme burdens (such as war, crime, deprivation, undernutrition and abuse); alcohol and drugs; and child development.

Law, State Practices and Resistance

Maja Janmyr
Postdoctoral Researcher, Faculty of Law, UiB

Marry-Anne Karlsen
Senior Researcher, Uni Research Rokkan Centre

Detailed course description

This interdisciplinary course aims to deepen the understanding of the politics of protection and control of contemporary migration. It asks: How are migrants given different bureaucratic and legal identities (e.g. refugees, stateless persons, irregular migrants) and what are the consequences of such distinctions and labels? What protection does international law and humanitarian institutions offer to different categories of people? What are the spatial, temporal and gendered implications of the protection and control practices aimed at migrants?  And, how are the legal and bureaucratic identities, and institutions of migration control, challenged by migrants themselves? 

This course introduces PhD candidates to key concepts, cross-cutting research and analysis in the fields of law, anthropology, human geography and political science. It offers lectures by leading migration scholars, student presentations, role plays, film screenings and a possibility of writing an academic paper, enabling the participant to earn 10 credits.

Terje Tvedt
Professor, Department of Geography

Tore Sætersdal
Assistant Director, UiB Global

Detailed course description

This course addresses one of the major global challenges in a world of climate change and increasing gaps between the demand and the supply of safe water. It is multidisciplinary in approach and concerned with long term changes and differences in conditions and possibilities for different types of water management.

The course will give the PhD candidates insight into and knowledge of relevant theoretical and historical literature on water management and water control. The course will also organize an excursion into the waterscape of Bergen and its surroundings to learn about how people on the Scandinavian rain coast manage their waters.

Kjersti Fløttum
Professor, Department of foreign languages, UiB

Detailed course description

Language is a crucial means for communication and interaction. Language not only reflects and expresses facts and observations; it also influences attitudes and behaviour. It thus constitutes a vital component of the cultural prerequisites underlying societal development.

The aim of this course is to discuss the role of language and language-use in a series of societal challenges and in various cultural contexts.

Through different approaches (theories and methods) illustrated through a diversity of cultural and societal settings, the course will focus on the role of language in relation to the following topics: politics, media, climate change, poverty, migration, business and norms.

Alberto Cimadamore
Scientific Director, Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP), UiB

Noel Keenlyside
Professor, Geophysical Institute, UiB

Detailed course description

In its Agenda 2030, the United Nations defines the eradication of poverty in all its forms and dimensions as “the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development”. The document defines climate change as the other great challenge of our time due to its effects on present and future generations and its unprecedented and disproportioned impact on the world’s poorest and most vulnerable.

The main objective of this course is to analyse these challenges and to provide PhD candidates with tools to address them. Transdisciplinary research (TDR) and more specifically, Sustainability Science, offer the possibility to address urgent societal problems focusing on the transition to sustainability.