This weekly digest is a collection of news, upcoming events and other opportunities from the Faculty of Social Sciences, Lund University and the wider area, compiled for Graduate School students.
In this week’s digest:
- Seminar: Performing Asia in the Nordic Sea and the Queerness of its Tensions
- CMES Seminar: It’s Time to Think About the Future of Palestine\Israel
- UPF Hosting Career Fair
- PhD defence in Sustainability Science: Ronald Byaruhanga
- Seminar – Social protection paradoxes, global brands and the garment industry in China’
- Korea-Sweden Career Opportunity Day
Performing Asia in the Nordic Sea and the Queerness of its Tensions
Seminar
The Crip and Queer Seminar series is proud to present this lecture by Jessie Yoon, PhD candidate in Performing and Media Arts as well as Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Cornell University, USA.
How can we locate Asia in the Nordics? With Lap-See Lam’s film installation The Altersea Opera — a 2024 representative of the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale — I reflect on the cultural making of Asianness in a Nordic context and its queer politics. Asian artists from the Nordic region and beyond collaborated to create a diasporic tale of Asia, at once tangible yet sensually fantastical. Thinking through spaces such as Drottningsholm’s Kina Slott and Sweden’s first Chinese restaurants, enduring fascination towards Asia often survives critiques against its fallacy, where myths of authenticity fuel desire instead of frustrating it. Instead, Lam’s artwork presents a queer tale of Asian Nordics, defying compulsions to locate where Asia is — whether within its geographic borders or in racialized bodies — in order to navigate how Asia operates through the tensions between the real and the mythical.
Jessie Yoon (they/them) is a PhD candidate in Performing and Media Arts as well as in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Cornell University, USA. Yoon researches queer/trans representation of Asianness in a contemporary and transnational cultural productions.
Date and time: 19 November 2025 13:15 to 15:00
Location: G:a Lungkliniken, Room 133
For more information, visit this page
CMES Seminar: It’s Time to Think About the Future of Palestine\Israel
Seminar
From Separation to a Shared Homeland: Paradox (and hope) of Settler-Colonial Urbanism in Israel\Palestine: This presentation will discuss settler colonial urbanism(s) in Palestine\Israel, while exploring the different spatial and political typologies developed during the last few decades. It will discuss how colonial planning has been used as a tool of social, demographic, and spatial control and how Palestinian claims for the right to the city are meaningful political forms of protest. The presentation will refer to Palestinian cities (such as Lydda) that were transformed into “Jewish-Arab mixed cities”, to new “Jewish cities” that are going through a process of “Arabisation”, to Jerusalem as a neo-apartheid city, and to the current spatiocide of Gaza. The main argument to be articulated in this talk is that moving from the paradigm of separation into a shared homeland is the only sustainable approach which will lead to a shared future.
The Future of Palestine: Gaza War and its Aftermath – Challenges and Future Scenarios: The ongoing Gaza conflict has triggered an unprecedented humanitarian and urban crisis across the Palestinian territories, with over 60,000 deaths—more than half women, children, and older people—and vast destruction leaving entire cities without any basic public services and infrastructure. This presentation examines the war’s humanitarian, political, and economic repercussions for Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem; explores post-conflict scenarios for Palestine, Israel, and the wider region; assesses reconstruction barriers and international responsibilities; and evaluates the war’s implications for regional cooperation and long-term peace prospects, integrating spatial planning, governance, and geopolitical perspectives to outline pathways toward possible future scenarios for recovery, resilience and statehood.
Date and time: 20 November 2025 13:15 to 15:00
Location: CMES seminar room, Finngatan 16
For more information, visit this page
UPF Hosting Career Fair
Event
Are you aiming for a career within foreign affairs?
If so, don’t miss out on UPF Lund’s Career Fair 2025!
The Association of Foreign Affairs in Lund (abbreviated to UPF Lund from its Swedish name, Utrikespolitiska Föreningen) provides a space for students and those interested in exploring the world of politics and foreign affairs. UPF’s official language is English. It was founded on February 8th, 1935 to disseminate information and encourage debate on international economic and political issues.
On November 20th, we’ll gather students and organisations working in or around international relations. The goal is simple; to help you explore where a background in global affairs can take you, and to connect you with people who work in the field.
Whether you’re just curious about your options or already have a clear path in mind, this is a great chance to get inspired, ask questions, and meet potential future employers!
Date and time: 20 November 2025 18:30 to 20:20
Location: Café Athen, AF-borgen Sandgatan 2
Lund
For more information, visit this page
PhD defence in Sustainability Science: Ronald Byaruhanga
PhD Defence
Ronald Byaruhanga has written a thesis entitled: Toward the Promised Land: Politicisation as a Pathway to Emancipatory Agricultural Transformation in Uganda
Abstract (Excerpt):
Amid escalating ecological crises, widening socio-economic inequalities, and intensifying climate change, the imperative to transform agricultural systems towards sustainability and equity has become increasingly urgent. Yet such transformation is often hindered by entrenched institutional and structural arrangements that privilege narrowly defined notions of productivity and market efficiency, thereby sidelining holistic approaches that emphasise resilience, equity, and human and ecological flourishing. Consequently, although pathways such as agroecology are gaining traction as viable alternatives, their adoption and expansion remain constrained. Against this backdrop, this thesis proceeds from the premise that realising such transformative alternatives requires confronting and disrupting the institutional, structural, and political obstacles that impede change.
In this thesis, I explore the potential of politicisation as a process through which dominant agricultural development practices and ideologies are reframed and contested in Uganda. Specifically, I investigate how politicisation unfolds and how it shapes the possibilities for advancing transformative agricultural alternatives, including efforts to reconfigure the institutional arrangements that structure agricultural systems. Grounded in critical realism, emancipatory social science, and social movement theory, the analysis seeks to uncover the underlying mechanisms and structural conditions that shape how social actors mobilise, exercise agency, and generate transformative social power. I examine how these actors challenge and reconfigure dominant agrarian models while navigating and negotiating political constraints, thereby illuminating the dynamic processes through which collective action and emancipatory transformation become possible.
Date and time: 21 November 2025 10:00
Location: Ostrom, Josephson, Biskopsgatan 5, Lund
For more information, visit this page
BROWN BAG SEMINAR – Social protection paradoxes, global brands and the garment industry in China
Seminar
Lisa Eklund presents about “Social protection paradoxes, global brands and the garment industry in China”
The Brown Bag Seminar Series (Forskning på gång): The department’s lunch seminar series is an informal arena for our own researcher’s to present and discuss research ideas and findings. Each presenter talks for about half an hour, followed by a discussion. Feel free to bring your lunch!
Please note: Places at the seminar are limited.
If you are not a student or member of staff at the Department of Sociology and would like to attend the event please email Lea Fünfschilling (lea.funfschilling@soc.lu.se) no later than 48 hours before the start of the seminar to inquire about available places.
Date and time: 25 November 2025 12:05 to 13:00
Location: The Department of Sociology, Gamla lungkliniken (House G), Room 335
For more information, visit this page
Korea-Sweden Career Opportunity Day
Opportunities
The Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Sweden welcomes you to an exclusive matchmaking event together with key partner agencies in Sweden and Korea to connect companies with talents from Korea. This unique platform is designed to help you showcase organizations, discover skilled Korean applicants, and explore new opportunities for global growth. Join us for the event and expand your opportunity!
Registration: link
Date and time: 21 November 2025 09:00 to 12:30
Location: Online or at Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Southern Sweden, Ångbåtsbron 1, Malmö.
For more information, visit this page