Question session

After nine days of doctoral courses, lectures, debates and countless cups of coffee, the PhD students attending the BSRS should be well qualified to give their opinion of the event. Some questions during a coffee break showed that the Summer School has been useful:

Sonia Aziz Malik

– My home university in Sudan has a link with the University of Bergen, and that is how I became aware of the possibility of attending BSRS, says Sonia Aziz Malik. She is a PhD and lecturer in gender issues and human rights, and has been following the doctoral course on human rights in development.
– We have had a lot of discussions about human rights and poverty, and now we will go back and try to reflect the things we have learned in our own societies.
She feels the BSRS has met her expectations.
– We have been met with great hospitality, good food and good moments of recreation. We have made many acquaintances with great knowledge, and I hope we will continue our connections after we leave Bergen. And most importantly, we have had access to the library and to many databases and electronic resources that many of us do not have at our home universities. I want to thank all the organisers for this fruitful opportunity, and especially the rector of the UiB, who sponsored my coming here, she says.

Phillip Pasirayi

Phillip Pasirayi is writing his doctoral thesis on human rights perspectives of poverty, or, in other words, the right not to be poor. He claims to have benefited a lot from the lectures and discussions at BSRS.
– It has been an eye-opener for me. I have met professors who are big in their fields, and I have been able to share experiences with other scholars of different nationalities and backgrounds. The debates have been very interesting, and taken together this means that I will be able to approach my topic from different angles, he explains.
He emphasises the benefits of a broader perspective.
– I have met scholars from Latin-America and from other parts of Africa, and I can use examples from their experiences in a comparative approach to my research. I would certainly like to keep in touch with professors and colleagues that I’ve met here. It will help us all to keep updated on trends and new research, which is very important.

Paula Aguilar and Rosana Campos

In the canteen Paula Aguilar from Argentina and Rosana Campos from Brazil are having a cup of coffee before the doctoral course sessions start. They were both introduced to the BSRS through their affiliation with the CLACSO-CROP program.
– Being here has been great, Paula states.
– We have had good classes, and it has been very interesting to meet African participants and learn about their experiences. We don’t normally have much connection with African scholars; the South-South link is not very common. Being updated on the latest research from the North has also been interesting.
Rosana agrees:
– People from Africa and from Latin- and South America have different concepts of poverty. We study poverty mainly as a social and political concept, while they study a broader range of factors, including cultural and economic factors. And we have more inequalities, while they have more poor people in actual numbers. Learning about each others’ concepts of poverty has been very interesting.
– We have discussed with other people in our group and maybe we will write something together, or at least we can teach examples from other parts of the world. It will be useful to be able to show that the same things happen to people in completely different parts of the world, Paula says.
They are both happy for this chance to read up in their fields.
– We have been able to exchange a lot of material with colleagues, and to use the library resources at UiB to look for articles and books. Journal subscriptions and articles are very expensive back home, Rosana explains.

The questions session is written by Kjerstin Gjengedal. // August 2008