University of Gothenburg
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  4. Sofie Hellberg

Sofie Hellberg

Senior Lecturer

School of Global Studies
Telephone
+46 31-786 59 43
Mail
sofie.hellberg@globalstudies.gu.se
Visiting address
Konstepidemins väg 2
41314 Göteborg
Room number
E6015b
Postal address
Box 700
40530 Göteborg

About Sofie Hellberg

About me

I am Associate Professor (Docent) in Peace and Development Research and Director of PhD Education at the School of Global Studies. As Director of PhD Education, I am responsible for the School’s three doctoral programmes.

My research broadly concerns the environment, power and political governance. I am particularly interested in how environmental problems and climate transitions affect people in different ways, how they become objects of political governance, and how people respond to, negotiate and challenge such forms of governance.

I primarily work with qualitative and ethnographic research methods and have a particular theoretical interest in questions of power, governmentality, biopolitics and political agency.

Research areas

A central area of my research concerns water, water scarcity and environmental change. Much of this research has been conducted in South Africa, where I have studied water provision, water infrastructure and drought, among other issues. I am interested in how environmental change is both material and political: it changes people’s concrete living conditions, while also shaping how problems are understood, who is assigned responsibility, and which political responses are considered possible.

Another area of my research is Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Together with colleagues, I examine how education contributes to framing and addressing global sustainability challenges. We are particularly interested in the relationship between Education for Sustainable Development and global inequality, including questions about which forms of knowledge are given space, how responsibility for global environmental problems is distributed, and which ideas about sustainable lifestyles and futures are produced through education.

I also conduct research on climate transition and mobility. In this work, I have studied efforts to reduce car traffic and the conflicts that arise when cities seek to change how people move around. I am interested in how different goals and interests come into conflict in climate transitions, which ideas about possible and desirable futures emerge, and how the consequences of transition are distributed across different groups.

Ongoing research

In my ongoing research, I am particularly interested in temporality, political agency and democratic governance in relation to climate change. I examine how different understandings and experiences of time shape perceptions of what can be done, who is responsible for acting, and which forms of political action are considered legitimate.

Together with colleagues, I also continue my research on Education for Sustainable Development and the questions of knowledge, inequality and responsibility that arise when education is used as a means of addressing global sustainability challenges.

Teaching and supervision

I teach and supervise students at undergraduate and graduate levels in the Bachelor’s programmes in Sustainability, Societal Change and Climate Transition (HUSK), Global Studies and International Relations, as well as in the Master’s Programme in Global Studies.

My teaching primarily focuses on power and political governance, governmentality and biopolitics, environmental, natural resource and water issues and politics, Education for Sustainable Development, climate transition and mobility, and qualitative research methods.

I also supervise doctoral students and have experience of doctoral supervision at the University of Gothenburg, Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Rwanda.