Content:
This seminar offers students the unique opportunity to directly exchange ideas and knowledge with international experts and social actors in order to gain first-hand insights while studying in Germany. The project seminar will discuss the role of electromobility in the currently debated mobility transition and its chances and challenges towards more sustainable societies. The students will get input from experts of Global South and Global North on mobility transition focusing on electro mobility and impacts of raw material extraction especially in the South American countries: Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina.
The seminar will focus on answering the two following core questions:
- Under which conditions can electro-mobility improve people’s quality of life in Germany and in the rest of the world (South America in particular)?
- Can batteries be produced without socioenvironmental impacts?
Germany and Europe have a key role in the transition towards a low-carbon future. How the current transition strategies are designed, and what are their positive and negative impacts in both the Global North and Global South in a context of climate emergency, are a key question for all kinds of disciplines. Focusing on sustainability, students will learn that the solutions to the urgent challenges of the 21st century need to be contextualized not only ecologically but also socially, economically, and technologically. Through this seminar students will experience what it means to analyze and reflect knowledge from different disciplines and to work together in a team in order to channel that knowledge into one concise report.
In groups focusing on different subtopics, the students will work on a report about the socio-environmental cost of electro mobility. Ideally, we will form two main groups: one focusing on the South American context and one focusing on the German/European context. The outcome will be aligned in one coherent report.
If successful, the report will be forwarded and published by our expert partners.
Methodology:
- Lectures: The students will get background information via online lectures.
- Group work: The students will work in groups on a mutually derived research question contributing to the overall report. Depending on the research question/subtopic the students may use qualitative interviews, data analysis or lecture analysis.
Outcome:
Report on the socio-environmental costs of electro-mobility from two perspectives: South America and Germany. Including analysis and recommendations. The report will be written in English and will require a German summary.
Depending on its quality, the report will be forwarded to different NGOs in the Global South and North to be used for their informational purposes (e.g. Observatorio Plurinacional de Salares Andinos; Brot für die Welt, Heinrich Böll Stiftung, other universities such as Freiberg, Erfurt and FU), with corresponding acknowledgements for the group contribution.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of the course, students will have learned to:
- gather, reflect, and discuss first-hand expert knowledge from a south-north perspective.
- analyse information on currently highly relevant topics (climate change, green technologies, water and sustainable development) from different kinds of sources and perspectives (social actors, academics)
- work and collaborate with a transdisciplinary and transcultural team in order to produce a collaborative report.
About the interdisciplinary teaching tandem:
Dr. Ilka Roose is a Research Fellow of the Sustainability Process (Nachhaltigkeitsprozess, napro) of the University of Duisburg-Essen since 2019 and is cooperating with the team of the BNE certificate. She just published her dissertation (Flows of Chilean water governance: social innovations in defiance of mistrust and fragmented institutions) and holds a master degree in Urban Culture, Society and Space. Her main research areas are Water Governance and Sustainable Development.
Ramón Morales Balcázar holds a Master in International Studies / Sustainable Agricultural Development (France) and a Bachelor’s degree in International Business Administration (Chile). He is now a Phd Student in Rural Development (Mexico) working on conflicts and socio-environmental impacts of lithium extraction in Indigenous territories of Northern Chile as a consequence of the implementation of electromobility in a context of climate crisis. Ramón is founder of local NGO Fundación Tantí and member of the Plurinational Observatory of Andean Salt Flats, a cross-border platform comprised by indigenous leaders, activists and academics from Chile, Argentina and Bolivia.
Ilka and Ramón met as university students in Valparaiso, and years after the interest for sustainability encouraged them to collaborate for this course. |
