Sofie Hellberg

Peace and Development Research
MSc, Postgraduate student

About

Sofie Hellberg is a PhD candidate in Peace and Development Research. She started her research education in 2007 and holds a Master degree in Political Science and a Bachelor degree in Human Ecology, both from Lund University.

During her years as a PhD candidate she has been a visiting scholar at the School of Development at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and a visiting research fellow at the School of Environment and Development at The University of Manchester, UK.

Areas of interest

Sofie’s areas of interest revolve around the politics of water, environmental and resource governance, (green) governmentality, biopolitics, power and agency, the nexuses between environment/development and security/development as well as research methodology.

Current research

The Ph.D Dissertation is on water and water service delivery in eThekwini Municipality, South Africa. The dissertation applies a biopolitics/governmentality perspective and its main focus is placed on how water and water access matter in terms of people’s lives. Based on narrative interviews with local water users on water and water management devices in eThekwini municipality it explores these questions in term of how water accessibility and water governance are part of constituting life and lifestyles and how power relations in water management shape subjectivities, interests and agency of the water users.

Sofie Hellberg is also engaged in a methodology project, together with Maria Stern and Stina Hansson, which deals with how we methodologically can approach the agency of being governed. It deals with questions such as how we can understand and apply the concepts of agency of freedom from governmentality and biopolitics perspectives and how we can do so in methodologically rigorous ways.

Teaching and tutoring

Sofie teaches in the bachelor program in Global Studies and in courses in Global Development Studies, International Relations, Human ecology, African Studies as well as on Global Gender Issues. Her teaching is mainly focused on power theories, governmentality and biopolitics, environmental- resource- and water governance, the relationship between development and environment, environmental and resource governance in Africa and research methods.