Course syllabus

The course is held between 20th January 2025 - 26th March 2025

Finding your way on the University 

 

Dear all,

Welcome to US1221 Inequality, crisis and natural disasters! As course convenors, we hope and expect that you will find this course exciting, interesting and useful. We look forward to seeing you at the first class (20 January; 15:15 room 204). We will use that occasion to clarify course structure and expectations (and you may use this occasion to ask questions), but let us summarize the broad stroked here. Please note that we 'hit the ground running': the sessions for 21, 22, and 23 January all have a significant amount of reading. Don't let this take you by surprise and try to get going early on.

The course consists of four parts: 1) inequality, 2) crisis, 3) understanding disaster and 4) responding to disaster. The central logic of the course is that crises and disasters affect everyone, but they do not affect everyone equally. Such moments of rupture are junctures where inequality becomes visible. We therefore first need to understand what inequality is, what mechanisms drive it, and how different forms of inequality (socio-economic, gender, political, nationality, race/ethicity) interact (part 1). Then we turn to financial and other forms of crisis, as critical junctures that expose inequality in society (part 2). The second half of the course (part 3 and part 4) then turns to "natural" disasters. These are also crises, but they bring in an added dimension of nature, ecology and climate change.

There three assignments for this course.

• Assignment 1 (a and b) comprises an essay (6 hp) and links to part 1 and 2 or the course.
• Assignment 2 is a group assignment on disasters (3 hp) and links to part 3 of the course.
• Assignment 3 comprises a research design exercise in the shape of a proposed evaluation of a disaster responses (6 hp) and links to part 4 of the course.

There will be an opportunity to 'retake' each assignment several weeks after the first instance, in case a student fails. There will be a second retake opportunity some time in the summer. For full details see here.

In addition, you are required to attend all mandatory sessions: classroom seminars and workshop seminars to complete the course (as explained below).

The course consists of a variety of formats:

• Lectures: these are not mandatory to attend but they form the backbone of the course so we strongly recommend it.
• Classroom seminars (mandatory): these seminars comprise interactive sessions where lecture content is mixed with small group exercises. As preparation to these sessions, you will be required to answer a basic question about the reading and bring your answer on a piece of paper to class. This paper will be used to check your attendance. Those who do not attend will have to submit a replacement exercise.
• Workshop seminars (mandatory): these are like the conventional seminars where students work in small groups. Attendance will be taken via an attendance sheet. Those who do not attend will have to submit a replacement exercise.
• Finally, there are some special sessions, such as a film screening, a panel interview on contemporary class issues and a drop-in session to discuss assignment-related questions.

We keep track of attendance for all seminars through this overview page. If you cannot attend for a pressing reason, you do not need to inform us beforehand. If you are not listed as ‘having attended’ a mandatory session, you will need to submit the replacement (under the respective section of assignments). These are due 2 weeks after the respective session. It is your responsibility to check whether you are listed. If you are wrongly listed as “not attending”, please contact the person responsible for that session.

Best wishes,

 

Bart and Per, Course Coordinators

 

Bart Klem, bart.klem@gu.se  

Per Knutsson, per.knutsson@globalstudies.gu.se  

 

Link to Reading List, Syllabus and Schedule:

Find syllabus and reading list (search for the course using the course code)

Please note that the reading list can be updated until 8 weeks before the start of the course. The syllabus and schedule can be updated until 2 weeks before the start of the course.

Link to schedule

Study Administration

If you have questions about admission, registration and access to Canvas, you can contact education administrator Matilda Andersson. You will find the contact information in the Student Portal.

If you need a transcript of records you can order one here: https://studentportal.gu.se/en/your-studies/registration-results-and-certificates?f_sn=1&i_gs=1 

Study Counselling

If you need to talk about your study situation or if you have questions on how to plan your studies, you can contact the Study Counsellors at the School of Global Studies:

studentcounselling@globalstudies.gu.se

Your Contact Details

At the University of Gothenburg we retrieve contact details from different sources so it is important that you, when needed, forward or update your e-mail address in our different systems in order not to miss any important information. Please make sure your contact details are correct, by following the instructions here: https://studentportal.gu.se/en/digital-tools/change-contact-details-in-our-systems 

Sustainable student life

For general information and support for a better study environment we recommend that you visit the site student health in the Student Portal. This is where you can also find contact information for student healthcare.

Student Ombudsmen

The ombudsmen are here to support and advise students who encounter problems in their education. Please follow this link to find out more.

 

About Canvas and the Student Portal

Link to schedule, syllabus and reading list will be published here at the syllabus page before the course starts. You will access the other pages once you have registered for the course. Most courses will use the function Modules to navigate the course content. For information on how to use Canvas, please look at the Canvas guides or contact Servicecenter for support. 

At My Studies in the Student Portal you will find general information and contact information for various functions that are relevant to students at the School of Global Studies. You can find these pages at the following link: https://studentportal.gu.se/en/organization/school-of-global-studies 

In the Student Portal you will also find other student related information and log in to all the student university e-services. We recommend that all students explore the resource "To search, read and write".