Key research themes

Environmental Justice and Sustainability

While debates around the concept of the Anthropocene rage on, the world races ever closer to the climate tipping point. 

This cluster centres on debates and discussions concerning notions of the environment and sustainability, bringing together researchers approaching this multifaceted topic from different disciplinary angles and geographical settings. 

On a global scale, the climate crisis and biodiversity crisis are leading to the exhaustion of resources such as water, food crisis and insecurity, as well as droughts, wildfires, sea level rises. The social effects of these crises are marred by inequalities and distributed unevenly across the global colour line. Meanwhile, states, governments and NGOs look for quick fixes and technocratic solutions to a global problem that requires deep structural transformation to address. This is not just the case in the Global North, but also in the Global South, where new actors are getting involved in discussions around the ‘green transition.’ 

The Environmental Justice and Sustainability Cluster is interested in understanding how resource scarcity - understood in a broad sense to include natural, social, and economic resources - has been and is being created and contested. How do people navigate resource scarcity in their everyday lives and mobilize to fight against social, economic, and political exclusions and injustices that are deepened by the climate crisis and affected by climate change adaptation strategies? What are the historical processes that underlie current ecological crises and the epistemic and political strategies and movements established in response? These questions weave together compelling studies of relationships between humans and non-humans, their histories and engagements with ‘modernity’, and how they are intertwined with discourses and practices central to globalization, transnationalism, and development. 

Politics of the Transnational Production of Knowledges and Cultures

Our research cluster explores the intricate dynamics of transnational imaginaries, and the circulation of ideas and forms of knowledge across borders, delving into how global concepts are adapted and implemented at local levels. 

We scrutinize the mechanisms through which international forums and organizations contribute to the formation of global governance structures, paying particular attention to the dissemination of ideas related to progress, development, modernity, and environmental concerns. This investigation extends to understanding how ideas and imaginaries that are constructed as being universal are understood and applied in practice in various local contexts, highlighting the diverse interpretations and implementations these concepts undergo.

Furthermore, the group delves into the politics of expertise and legitimacy, examining how knowledge and authority are constructed and contested in different cultural and geopolitical settings. We give special emphasis to the spaces where knowledge is produced, ranging from local to intermediary and peripheral areas, acknowledging the significant role these diverse settings play in shaping the global discourse and how, in turn, global discourses are reshaped and refitted to diverse local circumstances.

Approaching these themes from social science and humanities perspectives, our research aims to broaden the understanding of the complex interplay between global ideas and local realities, offering insights into the processes that underpin the transnational exchange and adaptation of knowledge and concepts. Examples of processes studied by our members include the attempted transfer of Japanese productivity methods to locally-owned Ethiopian factories, the adaptation of modernist urban planning ideas to Belgrade, the capital of socialist Yugoslavia, and the local implementation of global conservation strategies.

Transnational Migration and Mobility Cluster

This cluster is interested in understanding the dynamics of movement and stasis by exploring how relationships and networks shape our understanding of mobility and immobility. Our research focusses on how individuals, families, and communities form connections, navigate social networks and experience mobility or immobility. We do this by examining migration and the constraints that shape them offering a holistic understanding of the interplay between individuals, communities, and broader social systems. Also, we examine how individuals and non-human entities interact within the realms of mobility and immobility. 

Our research seeks to unravel the intricate web of relationships that contribute to the complex landscape of (im)mobilities by delving into social, economic, and cultural issues. Our diverse group of researchers focus on a wide range of interesting topics such as mobility of unaccompanied minors, transnational migration of young people, transnational families, migration campaigns, return migration, wellbeing of individuals, migrant remittances, migration and development and remittance houses.

Activism & Power in a Globalized World

In a highly globalized world, where 23% of the humans live below the US$ 3.65 poverty line, and nearly 50% below the US$ 6.85 poverty line, the challenges that people face are mounting. Besides a climate crisis, strongly linked to a biodiversity crisis, societies experience the strain of inequalities expressed in various domains: economic, political and ecological. These inequalities frequently also have an ethnic and/or gender dimension, with BIPOC communities –whether for example in Latin America, the United States or Europe – facing extraordinary strains. On a global level, multi-polar realities are producing profound shifts with the emergence of strong ‘new’ players from the Global South (GS), like China, Brazil, Indonesia, and the weakening, but frequently still dominant role, of countries from the Global North (GN). At the same time, non-state actors like corporations, NGOs and transnational civil society networks are forces to be reckoned with, especially in a global landscape that experiences profound technological changes due to digitalization, the importance of social media and the phenomenal rise of Artificial intelligence. 

These profound global changes involve new challenges but also new opportunities for the poor, the discriminated, the disenfranchised and the marginalized. On the one hand we witness the crumbling of democratic structures and havoc wreaked by populist politics and fake news, while on the other hand we see how transnational activist networks benefit from communication technologies to amplify their voices and strengthen their impact. 

This research cluster is dedicated to exploring the multifaceted dimensions and historical trajectories of power dynamics within such globalized contexts. Our diverse group of researchers is passionately engaged in exploring a wide array of topics, encompassing social movements and activism, state-society relations, state-business interactions, and interstate relations including South-South collaboration, while embracing a rich spectrum of transnational theoretical approaches. As we navigate the intricate web of interactions within and among societies, corporations, governments, and global structures, we share a commitment to unravel the complexities of power dynamics that both shape and redefine the global socio-political landscape and the forms of activism aimed at driving change within these dynamics. Together, we strive to illuminate the nuances of our interconnected world – a world characterized by the potential of deepening cohesion as well as unravelling and disconnection. Our collective aim is to foster a deeper understanding and, perhaps, ignite transformative insights that will help steer emancipatory trajectories of our shared future.

Gaps and Tensions in Development: Local Agency within Global Structures

How do global structures act as constraints and/or as opportunities for local development and viceversa? This cluster seeks to debate the positionality of the global vs local orders in the study and teaching of development. It highlights the (dis)connections between international and local development models. It welcomes approaches that challenge the meaning of global threats and narratives (e.g. social and climate justice, restoration, victimhood, marginalisation and vulnerabilities) that are the core of development interventions from a local community-based perspective. It invites new ways of thinking about development strategies so that are tailored to local contexts and emphasise the agency and capabilities of community actors. 

The cluster also promotes reflection on the interdependencies and contrasts between the global and local levels when theorising and studying development. We plan to organise teaching and research events in which development topics are theoretically and methodologically analysed from this global-local perspective. These include: Social Class, Climate Change, Organised Crime and Violence, Gender-Based Violence, Poverty, among others.