MA (Environment, Society and Development)

University of Galway

The MA-ESD will engage you on a critical exploration of the various practices of development and security that define our contemporary world, and ultimately how that critique can enable more informed, participatory and transformative interventionary practices. The programme involves engagement with a number of core areas in international development, critical security studies and political ecology, and will expose you to global concerns that encompass a complex and dynamic mesh of environmental, geopolitical and economic processes. On the programme, you will gain enormously from the field experience of working on the ground in an international development context, and as a graduate you will have the ability and ambition to activate a wide range of expert critical knowledges in shaping a more sustainable world.Career OpportunitiesMA-ESD graduates have gone on to work in key governmental, planning and public policy roles in their home countries, and in a wide range of UN agencies and other national and international NGOs. They have also added richly to the work of environmental agencies and specialist policy institutes throughout the globe, as well as pursuing PhD research in leading academic departments worldwide.Field ExperienceIn addition to engaging you on the most cutting-edge theoretical work from the interdisciplinary fields of development studies, critical geopolitics and political ecology, the programme has a strong emphasis on problem-solving skills, reflected in the focus on field-based learning practices. You will gain enormously from the experience of working on the ground in Bosnia with a variety of international development practitioners and local community partners.