MA (Environment, Society and Development)

University of Galway

Global issues of development, security and the environment have never been so important. The COVID-19 pandemic, the broader overstepping of ecological boundaries and the threat of climate change have brought questions of neoliberal economic production, environmental sustainability and human security to the fore. If you would you like to acquire the critical thinking and field-based learning skills that are essential in addressing these challenges, then the innovative and award-winning MA in Environment, Society and Development (MA-ESD) is for you.

Engaging vital overlapping environmental and security challenges

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.

Field-based learning and civic engagement

A core element of the MA programme will involve you working in the challenging international development context of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Through partnering with the United Nations Development Programme, and a range of other NGOs, government agencies and communities on the ground, you will gain vital experience of civic and community engagement in bringing critical thinking to development practice.

Career Opportunities

MA-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 Experience

In 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.