Research Project > Universal Aspirations vs. Geopolitical Divides: Imagining the World as a “Post-Millennial” in the SDG Era > News

Project Kickoff & Welcome to Postdocs Tirza van Bruggen and Conrad John Masabo

Welcome to Tirza van Bruggen and Conrad John Masabo who started their postdoc positions on the research project ‘Universal Aspirations vs. Geopolitical Divides: Imagining the World as a “Post-Millennial” in the SDG Era’. Their arrival marks the official kickoff of the project that investigates how youth in Tanzania and Denmark locally (dis)engage with sustainability and development as well as the tensions between global imaginaries, placed experiences, universal aspirations and geopolitical divides.
Published by:
  • Universal Aspirations vs. Geopolitical Divides: Imagining the World as a “Post-Millennial” in the SDG Era (Research Project)
  • Socio-Economic Research Centre (Research Centre)
    • From left to right: Tirza, Conrad and Mette
    From left to right: Tirza, Conrad and Mette. Photo by: Somdeep Sen.
    By: Universal Aspirations vs. Geopolitical Divides: Imagining the World as a “Post-Millennial” in the SDG Era

    Project Kickoff and Welcome

    Welcome to Tirza van Bruggen and Conrad John Masabo who started their postdoc positions at Roskilde University at the start of May. Tirza and Conrad will be working on the research project ‘Universal Aspirations vs. Geopolitical Divides: Imagining the World as a “Post-Millennial” in the SDG Era’. Their arrival marks the official kickoff of the project, led by Associate Professor Mette Fog Olwig, that investigates how young people in Tanzania and Denmark perceive their responsibilities, possibilities, and challenges in affecting sustainability and development aspirations. 

    All over the world, youth today are confronted with challenges, such as climate change, that cut across national boundaries. At the same time, young people are more connected than ever before through social media. In fact, some have argued that they constitute a new global generation. Global actions for a global generation are encouraged by the UN-mandated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which represent sustainable development as a universal aspiration. Seemingly in line with this global imaginary, youth across the world have already jointly mobilized to combat climate change and participated in coordinated collective actions, such as school strikes. Yet, contrary to global imaginaries that drive such supposedly equal partnerships, these young people face very diverse local life circumstances shaped by vastly different dynamics of social and economic privilege and inequality. This project investigates how young people in Tanzania and Denmark both engage and disengage with sustainability and development and navigate this tension between universal aspirations, characterized by the vision of global solutions and equal partnerships, and contrasting geopolitical divides.

    In these first few weeks since the project kickoff early May, the project team came together to discuss roles and responsibilities, next steps, the project timeline, and upcoming fieldwork plans.

    In the project, Mette will investigate the motivation for young professionals in Tanzania and Denmark to work on sustainability and development, and on how they view their ability to affect sustainability and development locally and globally. As the principal investigator on the project, Mette draws on her background in Geography and Development studies, her prior involvement in large research projects, and her extensive experience in conducting fieldwork – in Tanzania, Vietnam, Denmark, the United States, and Ghana.

    Tirza will explore what university students at Development Studies programs in Tanzania and Denmark consider the most significant sustainability and development challenges and solutions – both locally and internationally. She will particularly focus on how they imagine their current and possible future role as ‘world citizens’ in affecting change in an increasingly interconnected, yet continuously hierarchical world. In studying this, Tirza draws on her background in Anthropology, Development Studies and International Relations, and on her considerable prior fieldwork experience in Indonesia. 

    Conrad will study the interest of (high) school students in Tanzania and Denmark in sustainable development, and how they view their responsibility as well as ability to assume a (future) role in affecting sustainable development – both locally and internationally. In doing so, Conrad draws on his background in Education, Political Science, Governance and Regional Integration Studies, Childhood Studies, and Government and International Studies, and on his previous research in Tanzania on social and political structures. He will investigate the extent to which the school context influences youth’s own perceptions and activism, and whether the concept of ‘waithood’ that is so central to framing youth in Tanzania can inform our understanding of young people’s activism in climate change and international development aspirations.

    The project ‘Universal Aspirations vs. Geopolitical Divides: Imagining the World as a “Post-Millennial” in the SDG Era’ is funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (IRFD)/Danmarks Frie Foskningsfond (DFF) under the Sapere Aude program and runs to the end of June 2027. For more information, please visit our project website.