PhD.- course SPL-8006: Gender and Mobilities

The theme

Mobility is a global phenomenon growing in scope. It takes several forms and concerns and includes local and national as well as transnational prosesses. Research on gender and geographical mobility therefore provides an important contribution to current debates on culture, place, space and politics.

The PhD course aims to reveal the knowledge status of research on gender and mobility through a critical lens in order to clarify and illuminate some of the different perspectives used in various disciplines such as sociology, geography, anthropology, gender studies etc.

We will seek to assess the various forms of mobility and their connections to cultural, economic, political and social processes manifested on many levels and  involving women and men in partly similar and partly different ways. Evidence suggests that such diversity and such variation must be analyzed beyond the current dominant academic positions.

We will particularly emphasize and problematize some aspects of the growing neoliberal trends and tendencies in the present globalised economy, such as the development of distinctions concerning gender and citizenship, gender and cosmopolitans as well as gender, ethnicity and class. The neoliberal trends will function both as a context for and as active agents in the mobile practices of individuals and groups.

There will also be a particular emphasis on various theoretical and methodological issues, for example researchers’ situatedness. Attention will be given to new perspectives and methods, for example the use of GIS in understanding mobilities. How to combine and benefit for combining multiple methods and on how they may be combined or possibly improved will also be subjected for investigations.

These and other methodological issues are particularly interesting in that we are dealing with societies in constant change and with actors who, through their mobile practices, are related to different local contexts.

Practical information

• The Symposium/PhD.course will be arranged at the University of Tromsø in 18th-20th of June 2012
• The programme is now available and contains international as well as national keynote speakers
• The course yields 5 credits when participation and paper within the main theme gender and mobilities, have been approved.
• All PhD.-students must register in two steps: 1) register to the Symposium (pay a conference fee) and 2) register to the PhD.-course (no course fee). Registration form for the symposium/conference participation For information about registration to the PhD.-course, see below. 
• In order to apply for admission to the PhD course you need to be admitted to a PhD.- programme. There are a maximum of seats that will be prioritized according to section 10, category 1-3, in Regulations for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) at the University of Tromsø  

PhD.-course registration and deadline: 15th of May 2012

• Please use the application form for admission to PhD.- courses (8000-courses) at the University of Tromsø you find this here (remember any attachments).
• Please send a draft of your paper approximatly 10 pages not later than 1th of June 
• Send the application form and draft of your paper  to: Section for Research Services, Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, University of Tromsø, NO - 9037 Tromsø, Norway.
• Questions about PhD.-course registration can be sent to Hege A. Fjellstad in the Faculty administration.    

Exam information and deadline: 15th of August 2012 

• The exam is to produce a paper in English or a scandinavian language (10 pages) which will be presented at the symposium/Ph.D.-course and commented by a senior researcher in the field, as well as by the other participants. The final version of the paper, for example included comments given at the symposium, should be submitted not later than 15th of August 2012 
• Send the exam paper in three copies to this adress: Section for Research Services, Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, University of Tromsø, NO - 9037 Tromsø, Norway.
• Questions about PhD.-course exam can be sent to Hege A. Fjellstad in the Faculty administration. 
• Regulations for examinations at the University of Tromsø 

Academic responsable for the course

Halldis Valestrand, ISS and Siri Gerrard, Kvinnforsk.