PhD Course on

Contemporary Social Theory in Studies on Natural Resources Management: Power and Participation

May 25-28, 2010

Forest & Landscape Denmark
Faculty of Life Sciences
University of Copenhagen
Rolighedsvej 23, 1958 Frederiksberg
Copenhagen, Denmark

About the course:
The PhD course is open for all the PhD students with a maximum of 20 participants. The objective of the course is to help PhD students (with no or little previous experience of sociology and anthropology) to
-grasp fundamental concepts of major social theories in the 19th and 20th centuries,
-learn of major controversies and developments associated with these theories,
-understand how these theories can be applied in research, and
-apply these theories in analysis of social issues addressed by their PhD projects.

The course will provide an introduction to selected contemporary social thinkers and concepts relevant to sociology. The course centres on the following thinkers but may include more thinkers where relevant:
Classical social theories by:
1.Karl Marx
2.Max Weber
3.Emile Durkhéim

Modern social theories by:
4.Michel Foucault
5.Pierre Bourdieu
6.Bruno Latour

The course is a four-day workshop where the first two days will centre on classical social theories and the second two days will centre on modern social theories. During the workshop, the following learning activities will take place:

-The lecturers will present major contributions of the social thinkers in social theories and their views on structures of a society, and power and participation of social actors.
-The lectures will present and discuss how these theories can be used in the analysis of natural resource management based on case examples described in research articles
-Students will briefly present social issues addressed by their PhD projects and discuss how the social theories and concepts could be applied in analysing them

Structure of the course and ECTS:
The course will earn participating students 6 ECTS.

The course workshop consists of two parts: the first part is lectures to introduce and discuss major theories in social studies and the second part is student paper presentations.

The first part will focus on providing participants with a basic understanding of major contributions of the selected sociologists to social theories and their views on structures of a society, and power and participation of social actors. This part also includes presentation of research examples as well as exercises where lecturers will present and discuss with participants how the social theories can be applied in actual research analysis on the basis of particular research articles.

The second part will focus on a discussion on how participants can use the social theories in their own research. The participants will be split into two-three groups based on the focus of their research. This is to facilitate a more focused discussion in smaller groups. In this session, students and lecturers will discuss the synopses of two-three students focusing on a social issue in their work and their thoughts on how social theories could be applied in relation to them.

Lecturers:
Lars Bo Kaspersen, Copenhagen Business School
Jesse Ribot, University of Illinois
Anders Blok, University of Copenhagen
Casper Bruun Jensen, IT University of Copenhagen

Organizers:
Jens Friis Lund, Moeko Saito-Jensen and Iben Nathan all Forest & Landscape Denmark

Participant requirements:
The course is open to all PhD students with a maximum of 20 participants

Before the course week
An application for the course should be sent to Jens Friis Lund, jens@life.ku.dk by February 28th, 2010 with a synopsis of your entire PhD project (max 500 words). The synopsis should contain the subject of the PhD project including the title, objective, theoretical background, site, research questions and methods, how far you are in the project (e.g. just started, before data collection, write-up phase), and how this PhD course can assist the project.

Notice of acceptance will be sent by March 15th, 2010. Participants will be selected on the basis of the synopsis.

A reading list for the course will be distributed by March 15th, 2010. All compulsory course literature should be read before the course.

By April 30th, 2010 all participating students must submit a course paper with a maximum of 2,000 words. Students should describe a social issue in their project and how they plan to investigate this issue using the theories presented in the curriculum.
By May 10th, each student will be assigned to read and prepare comments to one to three papers written by other students.

During the course week
Participants should be prepared to make a 5-10 minutes oral presentation of a social issue in their PhD project and how one or more theories presented in the course could be applied to it based on his/her submitted course paper. Lecturers and other students will provide feedbacks and comments to both his/her presentation and course paper.

Participation fee:
Each participant is requested to cover their own accommodation and travel costs. Upon admission to the course, the participants will be contacted to facilitate accommodation reservations at hotels etc. We will notify students in case we are successful in obtaining funding and able to discard the participation fee.

Course work load:
4 days of 7.5 hours campus course: 30 hours
Reading of literature: 90 hours
Preparation of synopsis: 40 hours
Preparation of presentation of synopsis: 5
Total: 165 hours

See more at: http://www.phdadm.kvl.dk/cgi-bin/phdkursuskat/offentlig/phdkat-db.plmode=viskursus&recnum=7702&identifier=2009-12-21*10:07:22

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Moeko Saito-Jensen, PhD
Faculty of Life Sciences
University of Copenhagen
Rolighedsvej 23, 1958 Frederiksberg
Copenhagen, Denmark
e-mail: mosa@life.ku.dk