WINNIPEG, MB – The University of Winnipeg’s Global College is offering two Institutes in May devoted to climate change with visiting lecturers Professor Laura Balbuena and Professor Teofilo Altamirano. These intensive courses are offfered three university credits and can be taken in class or on-line. The course director is Prof. Ross McCormack, Director of the Global College Institute for the Political and Cultural Studies of the Americas.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT with visiting Professor Teofilo Altamirano
Also offered from May 7 to May 18, 2012, from 9:00 -12:00 pm, this course examines involuntary migration caused by climate change. Using both historical and contemporary cases, it discusses various weather conditions and events as major push factors on internal and international migration. Case studies of the weather phenomena and climate refugees will focus on societies in the Andes, the Himalayas and sub-Saharan Africa.
BIO:
Born in an Andean native community in southern Peru, Dr. Teofilo Altamirano is a native language (Quechua) speaker. Altamirano has an MA (econ) in anthropology from Manchester University and PhD from Durham University, both in England.
Altamirano was a Full Professor in Social Science at the Catholic University of Peru. His research interests include: urban anthropology; peasant economy; internal and international migration; remittances and the mobility of human capital. He has published nine books in Spanish and three in English; wrote about forty articles, some of them in English and his native language.
In 2011, he was conducting a research project on climate change and human mobility in Peru in collaboration with the United Nations University Institute of Environment and Human Security in Boon, Germany. Dr. Altamirano has also taught in several universities in the USA and in Canada and was a research visiting professor in Oxford and Bath in England; FLACSO, Ecuador and the University of the Vasque Country in Bilbao, Spain. Currently, he is a consultant to the World Bank, to the Inter American Development Bank; UNESCO, International Organization for Migration and the International Labour Organization.
Professor Altamirano is a recipient of the Edward Larocce Tinker Fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin USA. The Fellowship runs from August until December this year. Professor Altamirano will teach a graduate seminar to doctoral students as well as conduct a research project on environmental migration worldwide.
WOMEN AND CLIMATE CHANGE with visiting Professor Laura Balbuena
Offered from May 7 to May 18, 2012, from 1:00-4:00 pm, this course discusses the link between women and climate change. Using both historical and contemporary cases, it examines the impact of climate change on women and their ability to develop short-term and long-term strategies of mitigation and adaptation. Contemporary cases will be drawn from Africa, Asia and the Peruvian Amazon, one of the most biologically and culturally endangered regions in the world.
BIO:
Laura Balbuena Gonzalez is a PhD candidate in Political Science from the New School for Social Research of New York. She holds a MA in Political Science from the same university and a BA in Philosophy from the Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Peru (PUCP). Ms Balbuena is a researcher and consultant on gender issues and is currently a professor at PUCP and director of Peru Programs at the Institute for Study Abroad, Butler University.
Ms Balbuena is Secretary General of the Latin American Peace Research Association (CLAIP), President of the Association for the Development of Girls, Boys and Adolescents at Risk (ADENAR), member of the Board of the International Peace Research Association Foundation (IPRAF) and of the Executive Council of the Peru Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA).
Please contact Alex Gachanja for assistance with registration or with any questions regarding delivery of courses at 204.988.7105 or global.college@uwinnipeg.ca
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MEDIA CONTACT
Diane Poulin, Communications Officer, The University of Winnipeg
P: 204.988.7135, E: d.poulin@uwinnipeg.ca
