Sumários

Module 13: Alternative voices, perspectives and agendas

15 Dezembro 2025, 18:00 • Alexandre Abreu

5-hour module taught on 15 and 18 December by Alexandre Abreu.


Several alternative and critical perspectives on development are explored in additional detail, including postcolonial, feminist, ecological and post-development views. We draw especially on perspectives of women authors and thinkers from the global South. 

Module 12: How to change: theories and approaches to transitions and transformation

28 Novembro 2025, 18:00 • Alexandre Abreu

2-hour module taught on 4 December by Olivia Bina (ICS). 


Development and sustainability both imply the need (and desire) to change. We introduce the body of work that explores change by focusing on the three approaches identified by Scoones and colleagues: systemic, structural and enabling. 

Module 11: The empirical turn in development economics

21 Novembro 2025, 18:00 • Alexandre Abreu

5-hour module taught on 24 and 27 November by Henrique Pita Barros.


The last couple of decades have seen an increasing turn of development economics towards empirical approaches and the use of quantitative causal identification methods. This session presents and discusses these developments and some of the principles and methods underlying these approaches. 

Module 10: Sustainable development in the Anthropocene

14 Novembro 2025, 18:00 • Alexandre Abreu

5-hour module taught on 17 and 20 November by José Lima Santos (ISA).


1. What is development? Redefining prosperity. The dilemma of growth. The myth of decoupling.

2. From an Empty to a Full World. The economy as a subsystem of the ecosphere

3. Planetary Limits to Growth in the Anthropocene.

Module 9: Changing conceptions of human-nature relationships in sustainable development

7 Novembro 2025, 18:00 • Alexandre Abreu

5-hour module taught on 10 and 13 November by Olivia Bina (ICS)


We explore the rising interest in understanding sustainable development from the perspective of changing human-nature relationships. This perspective is becoming more visible in UN policy discourse and builds, amongst others, on core principles of ecological economics.