Scientific Coordination

Boaventura de Sousa Santos

António Sousa Ribeiro

Maria Paula Meneses

 
a) Postcolonialisms and Global Citizenship

The program focuses on colonial heritages and contemporary postcolonial challenges viewed as a vantage point to analyse an increasingly interconnected and multipolar world and to support a critical reflection on the conditions for solidary development and global citizenship. It places a special emphasis on the study of the relationships created by the colonial encounter in the spaces of Portuguese language and the resulting challenges. The orientation is interdisciplinary, combining contributions from Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science, Human Rights, Cultural Studies, Literary Studies and History, among others.
Some themes: culture, translation and interculturalism; racism and anti-racism, neo-colonialism, regionalization and globalization; postcolonial State, rights and justice systems; relations between knowledge and power; hegemony and counter-hegemony.

b) The doctoral programme and CES

The Doctoral Programme “Postcolonialisms and Global Citizenship” began in 2004/2005, and is starting its sixth edition in 2013/2014. It is adapted to the organisational forms proposed by the Bologna Declaration for the 3rd Cycle of Higher Education.

Diversity and openness

Students arriving from different cultural contexts to Coimbra, find in CES a truly cosmopolitan atmosphere of a research centre with an international dimension where the diversity of interests and orientations is permanently stimulated. CES Researchers have extensive experience in different areas and countries and CES PhD students are developing research projects in four continents. Doctoral programmes are flexibly organized, providing a common context for deepening scientific thinking while they are open to proposals that meet students' goals, according to the their profile and research interests.

An interdisplinary spirit at a centre of excellence for research in social sciences

Socially and culturally diverse, CES also benefits from its status as a multidisciplinary environment for research in social science and humanities, where students are able to attend classes, conferences and seminars on several academic fields.

A friendly and supportive environment for the development of research projects

In addition to CES diversity and openess, there is a welcoming and supportive atmosphere conveyed by the teaching and administrative staff. Students receive a high level of personal attention, training and supervision from teachers, designed to meet students’ individual interests. Each student can have two supervisors, usually with complementary expertise; they will also benefit from the wide range of knowledge of the CES's academic team.

The PhD programme

During the first year of the Doctoral programme, students are expected to attend six seminars. For more detail, students should contact the department directly; however, the doctoral programme can be summarized as followed:

Year 1: Classes/seminars;

Year 2: first semester: A guidance seminar (which includes research methods) and an advanced training seminar. At the end, students are expected to elaborate and defend a research project with 10.000 words before a panel.
The research project proposal includes a critical review of the existing literature on the selected subject, a summary of the presented project, and the definition of a schedule for its execution. The project will be presented at a seminar attended by the Programme’s teaching staff and, if the project is approved, the student receives the status of doctoral (PhD) student in the process of thesis elaboration.

Years 2 and 3: During this period, students are expected to contact regularly their supervisors, to elaborate and send progress reports and to discuss the developed research.

Year 3+: Elaboration of thesis. On their return, students must meet regularly with their supervisors in order to discuss and comment an initial draft of the thesis chapters. This preliminary work is presented to the programme’s teachers and students, at a seminar specially designed to guide the thesis elaboration. Students also have the opportunity to attend other seminars and conferences, with renowned national and international guest speakers.

Once integrated at CES, PhD students are also students of the Faculty of Economics of University of Coimbra, which provides them all the necessary support at the academic level and excellent computer-related conditions.