Communication for Development, Malmö University

04/06/2025

MA Communication for Development graduation ceremony June 2025

27/03/2025

APPLY FOR OUR COMMUNICATION FOR DEVELOPMENT MA PROGRAM & FREESTANDING COURSE PACKAGE NOW!
The spring application window for ComDev’s flagship MA course, Advances course are open from 17 March – 15 April 2025 and we are once again looking forward to receiving your application!

These are tumultuous times for global development and humanitarianism and we will continue critical discussions, hands-on reflections from various "fields" and navigating with you the complexities of the polycrisis.

Spread the word with colleagues, friends & relatives!

In addition to our one-year 60 credit MA program we are also offering a free-standing 15 credit course Advances in Social Action, Planning and Evaluation.

Now in its 25th year, the MA program is a 50% full-time course (four semesters) taught in our online blended learning Glocal Classroom that we have pioneered, improved and enhanced since 2000!
The Advances course will be taught full-time-ideal to combine with other studies or a more focused way to connect with ComDev again

Looking forward to your application and another global group of inspiring students!

All links below in the comments!

05/02/2025

The dismantling of USAID & the paradoxes of global development

So many things are happening to global development right now-so ComDev's Tobias Denskus zoomed out a little bit to reflect what this current moment of crisis means for the complexities and paradoxes of around foreign aid.

His post focuses on these seven paradoxes & challenges:
1. Aid “from the American people” is much more than an imperial foreign policy tool
2. The aid-industrial complex needs a fundamental re-think
3. Expat aid workers and consultants may lose jobs-but many local jobs and livelihoods are affected as well
4. It’s not just Trump or the US-global development in the OECD is under pressure
5. Reforms are needed, but many governments target aid for short-sighted, populist, right-leaning, migration-related reasons
6. Aid is still not the answer to humanitarian or climate crises or questions about local responsibilities
7. No matter how much information, communication and facts experts provide, aid continues to be an easy target for mis-/disinformation

(Link to post in comments)

29/11/2024

The ComDev team is saddened by Thomas Hylland Eriksen's untimely death.
One of the founding fathers of the program, the mastermind behind "Media, Globalization & Development" and a great mentor and friend will no longer draw elaborate graphics on the blackboard at our seminars. Our condolences to his family.

03/09/2024

In his new blog post ComDev's Tobias Denskus writes about "How the conservative playbook to undermine aid and reduce civil society space is working out in Sweden", summarizing recent developments in the aid sector that take place even though the full extent of Sida's "reforms" with NGOs is yet largely unknown:

"The risk is that conservative, populist or outright right-wing critics of aid have an even easier way to further their agenda, will cut budgets, divert it to more anti-immigration measures and undermine important discussions about global solidarity, inequalities and what Sweden’s role should be at home, in Europe and abroad when it comes to sustainable development".

(AI prompt: "Sweden cuts development aid")

25/08/2024

Join us live during 27-28 Aug (stream info on this FB page) when literary writing on life in Makhanda is turned into site-specific performances around the city. The project-movement is being arranged, performed, researched( and further mediated by zines and seminars) by a Rhodes RU Drama-Malmö MA ComDev student and staff team

05/08/2024

The new issue of 'herri' has contributions from/or about a couple of people with affiliation to Communication for Development, I link to the articles in comments.

'herri' is a cultural journal offering a 'new model for online archiving and journal publishing that rejects a print lineage (book or magazine) for online publication but rather embraces a screen-based genealogy, foregrounding both cinematic and gaming approaches to digital design, user experience and navigation' (form A***n Kaganof's editorial).

herri is an attempt to imagine what decolonized sound looks like in the age of techno-hybridity

07/06/2024

The MA in Communication for Development is doing a call among its first year students for an on-site student researcher in a Participatory Public Performance Project in Makhanda, South Africa, July/August 2024 (with some Erasmus+ funding for field work).

We are also interested in program alumni, especially people based in Southern Africa, who would like to be involved informally. Get in touch with Anders Høg Hansen, if you want to know more.

It is continuation of a pilot project phase that ran in Joburg last year with various seminars and collaboration between University of Johannesburg and Malmö University.

Here you have the first lines of the call:

From 8 July 2024, Alex Halligey will be developing a participatory public performance with 10 MA Drama students at Rhodes University in the town of Makhanda, South Africa. The project/movement is part of the research Halligey, Anders Høg Hansen and Mikael Rundberg have been developing since 2022 using participatory public art processes in an educational context across institutional and national borders. The initiative employs different phases of art/media work with a focus on creative writing and public space performance - but also including exhibitions, zines/magazines, and educational seminars - to facilitate dialogue about the urban everyday.

The first iteration of the project, Breaths of Joburg, took place in Hillbrow, Johannesburg in 2023. A documentary on this first iteration(link in comments) and reviews by Dave Mann and Kgomotso Monch-Maripane (link in comments) consider the project’s success at engaging place and community in sophisticated and inclusive ways, delivering a public art project that is fun and accessible, as much as it surfaces the complexities of urban spaces and how we live in and through them.

06/05/2024

'Music, Identity and Migration' is the theme of the 7th editions of the annual Eurovisions event. Check out the program here. You will be listening to acoustic versions of song centest entries, a talk on a book Mix Tape Memories, and much more, over 2 days. Beginning Tue 7 May at 9.10

Third session May 2019

05/04/2024

Congratulations to ComDev's Tobias Denskus who is one of the three editors of the new Handbook of Humanitarianism & Inequality!

ComDev's Joshka Wessel is among the 61 authors and contributed a chapter on "West Asia & North Africa" to the volume!

Do join their virtual book launch on 26 April!

Tobias Denskus blogs about international development, focusing on media, communication for social change & professionalism in the aid industry

05/04/2024

Congratulations to ComDev's Tobias Denskus who is one of the three editors of the new Handbook on Humanitarianism & Inequality!
Among the 61 authors, ComDev's Joshka Wessels also contributed a chapter on "West Asia & North Africa"!

Join their virtual book launch on 26 April!

Tobias Denskus blogs about international development, focusing on media, communication for social change & professionalism in the aid industry

18/03/2024

APPLY FOR OUR COMMUNICATION FOR DEVELOPMENT MA PROGRAM & FREESTANDING COURSE NOW!

The second application window for ComDev’s 1-year flagship MA course and Advances course is now open until 15 April 2024 and we are once again looking forward to receiving your application!

So please spread the word with colleagues, friends & relatives!
In addition to our one-year 60 credit MA program (https://mau.se/en/study-education/programme/HACFD) we are also offering a free-standing 15 credit course Advances in Social Action, Planning and Evaluation
(https://mau.se/en/study-education/course/KK625B).
For the first time we are offering the Advances course online, but full-time during the first 10 weeks of the autumn semester.

Now in its 24th year, the MA program is a 50% full-time course (four semesters) taught in our online blended learning Glocal Classroom that we have pioneered, improved and enhanced since 2000!

Looking forward to your application and another global group of inspiring students!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEY9BKZEjgk&t=1s

This English-taught master's programme offered at Malmö University gives you the skills to work with media and communication in international development coo...