Andréas Litsegård
About Andréas Litsegård
I achieved a Master's degree in International Relations in 2004 and a PhD in Peace and Development Research in 2013, both at the School of Global Studies (SGS), University of Gothenburg (GU). My PhD-thesis was about civil society regionalization in Southern Africa. At the moment I am a senior lecturer at SGS, from 2014, and also a senior research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation (GovInn), University of Pretoria. My ambition is to combine research and teaching, with as small climate footprint as possible. I am deeply involved in climate transition issues at GU as the environmental coordinator at the department with responsibility for coordinating our sustainability work, for example development and implementation of a travel policy, and member of the environmental council at the Faculty of Social Science. I am also part of the new working group for social sustainability at GU, with the task of supporting the practical work with social sustainability, for example solidarity fridge, urban gardening, fair trade university and integration of immigrants in the operation of the university.
Areas of interest My research interests concern regionalism, governance, civil society, democracy, development co-operation, climate transition and migration; and how these research areas interact. I have done a number of field studies in Southern and East Africa since 2003, which is my main geographical focus area. I am also interested in pedagogical issues within higher education, particularly academic writing and peer review in learning processes.
Current research Currently, I am engaged in research about climate-related migration with a focus on governance in Ethiopia, within the six year research program 'A New Interdisciplinary Framework for Studying the Relation between Climate Change and Migration', running 2022-2028. The program is a joint collaboration between SGS and the Departmen of Earth Science at the University of Gotneburg, involving researchers from Norway, Ethiopia, Nepal and Peru. The program aims to establish a bold interdisciplinary research environment comprising the natural and social sciences to examine how climate change affects migration processes in three of the world’s most populated mountain areas, i.e. the Nepalese Himalayas; the Peruvian Andes; and the Ethiopian highlands. The program also strives to have an impact on policy making related to climate-related migration. Besides these projects I do pedagocial research on how to integrate academic writing and peer review in higher education, together with colleageues, based on our own experiences of having taught international relations.
Teaching and tutoring I foremost teach within International Relations and lead and lecture on bachelor courses. For ten years I have been working with the course Introduction to international Relations (IR1111). In 2017 this generated the Social Science Faculty Pedagogical Price at the University of Gothenburg, together with colleagues, for having integrated academic writing in education about international relations with peer review elements, based on a student-centred learning perspective. Also, I teach within Human Ecology on an advanced level; the Bachelor Program in Global Studies; and at the unit for Pedagogical Development and Interactive Learning at GU; as well as supervise bachelor, master and doctoral students with their theses. In total, I have about 5100 hours of teaching experience and have supervised about 40 Bachelor- and Master theses. 2017-2018 and 2020 I was the Subject Coordinator for International Relations where I pushed for pedagogical development of the IR-courses and the creation of a Bachelor Program in IR. I was also a member of the Pedagogical Task Force at SGS, organising pedagogical seminars, 2020-2022.