Globalisation and Crisis

Registration is now open for the Research Seminar of the Ghent Centre for Global Studies. This seminar is on offer as a specialist course of the Doctoral Schools of Ghent University. The central topic of the 2017 Global Studies Seminar is Globalisation and Crisis.

The Research Seminar of the Ghent Centre for Global Studies is on offer as a specialist course of the Doctoral Schools of Ghent University. The Global Studies Research Seminar provides doctoral students whose research is situated in, or related to, the field of Global Studies in‐depth and advanced training in contemporary critical Global Studies, and theory and methodology in related fields, such as Postcolonial and Subaltern Studies, International Studies, EU Studies, Area Studies, Conflict Studies, etc., next to general scholarly skills such as reading, writing, discussing and presenting.

Globalisation and Crisis

The central topic of the 2017 Global Studies Seminar is Globalisation and Crisis. Crisis – financial crisis, environmental crisis, refugee crisis, … – is omnipresent in our contemporary globalised world. This seminar series will critically analyse the discourse and framing of certain phenomena as “crises” (the politics of crisis, crisis as a social construct) in relation to globalisation and world-making projects. We will discuss the different definitions of crisis in the Social Sciences and Humanities (equilibrium and rupture), and analyze the temporalities (continuity and change) and the spatialities (global and local) of crisis from an interdisciplinary perspective. A crisis is a moment with the potential for change or transition, and we will pay special attention to the bellwethers of and responses to it – contestations, mobilisations, etc. Following the introductory session, we will have 4 thematic sessions, focused on topics that tie in with the expertise of the Ghent Centre for Global Studies: 1) economic and financial crisis; 2) environmental crisis; 3) refugee crisis; 4) political crisis. Throughout the series and in the closing session, we will debate the interconnectedness of these themes and the multidimensionality of crisis.

Programme

Introductory session – Tuesday 14/2/2017, 14h-17h

  • Practical arrangements & assignments
  • Introduction to the central topic of this year’s course: globalisation & crisis

Lecturers:

1. Economic and financial crisis: political economy of global capitalism – Tuesday 28/2/2017, 14h-17h

  • Key words: comparative capitalisms, financial geography, political economy, historical and economic definitions of crisis, crisis as catalyst for structural change, global financial crisis, eurocrisis

Lecturers:

2. The nexus of environmental crisis: climate, energy and sustainability – Tuesday 14/3/2017, 14h-17h

  • Key words: climate change, environmental justice, sustainable development, global political economy of energy, political ecology

Lecturers:

3. Migration and refugees: whose crisis? – Tuesday 28/3/2017, 15h-18h – co-organised with the Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees and the Migration Working Group

  • Key words: migration, refugees, borders, mobility, conflict, human rights, multiculturalism, global citizenship

Lecturers:

  • Elisabeth Kirtsoglou (Dept. of Anthropology, Durham University)
  • Nando Sigona (School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham)
  • Jozefien De Bock (Study Hive for Economic Research and Public Policy Analysis, Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees and Migration Working Group, UGent)

4. Political crisis: the age of extremes? – Tuesday 2/5/2017, 14h-17h

  • Key words: globalisation, politics and democracy, crisis in politics (national, European and international), subjectivity and crisis, everyday politics, negotiating crisis, populism, radicalism, mobilisations, resistance, social movements

Lecturers:

Closing session: round-up and feedback – Tuesday 23/5/2017, 14h-17h

  • Key words: Round-up of the course, closing debate on the interconnections between the previous thematic seminars, feedback on the final papers.

Lecturers: