CEMUS Critical Friends – Affiliated Teachers, Researchers and Contributors


CEMUS has since the first idea of doing a multidisciplinary, environment-and-development, student-led course been a place that have brought together different people of all ages, passions, knowledges and life experiences. Students from different academic backgrounds meeting each other in intense and fun discussions, meeting guest lecturers bringing in research and practical understandings and perspectives, meeting course coordinators facilitating creative workshops and collaborative seminars. On this page we introduce CEMUS Critical Friends (affiliated teachers, researchers and contributors) that have been connected to CEMUS for a long time and now are involved in our courses and outreach activities.


Kevin Anderson, Professor Tyndall Centre, University of Manchester, Adjunct Professor University of Bergen and visiting Professor Uppsala University – UK, Norway & Sweden

Kevin Anderson is professor of Energy and Climate Change, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, at the University of Manchester. He was the second Zennström visiting professor in Climate Change Leadership at Uppsala University, now visiting professor at Uppsala University and adjunct professor at the University of Bergen. Kevin is a well-known and established researcher within climate change science who engages frequently with policy-makers, the private sector, civil society as well as the media. He has pioneered research on carbon budgets and pathways to acceptable mitigation levels, and worked on the technical, social and economic interactions involved in the transformation of energy systems, the mitigation and adaptation to climate change.


Azril Bacal Roij, PhD in Sociology, Uppsala University – Sweden

Azril Bacal Roij. PhD in Sociology, Uppsala University. Professor, Peace Education, CIPAE-Puebla, México (2005-2021). Guest-lecturer, Participatory Action-Research, Mällardalen University-Eskilstuna (2017-2021), Sweden. (R) Senior Lecturer, Sociology & Cultural Studies (1993-2006). Visiting Lecturer, Urban Planning, UCLA (1996). Rural Development, Universidad de Córdoba, (2001-2003). Endowment Humanities Scholar, Otterbein College, (1995).University teacher and Researcher (“Prototype of Integrated Farming”), Colegio de Postgraduados, Mexico (1981-1987). Associate Professor, Human Sciences, UNALM, Perú (1967-1980, 2011-2015). Guest-lecturer, Anthropology Department, Uppsala University. Advisor, Minister of Agriculture (Agrarian Reform, Rural Development, Peasant Training, Peasant Radio-Forum program), Perú. Academic Coordinator, Latinamerican Master Program in Communication (1967-1969). Chairman, Anthropology & Sociology, UDLAP-Puebla, México (1983-1985). Consultant, UNESCO-OREALC (Teacher-Training in Rural and Marginal Areas of Latin America (1981-1982). Consultant, IIIA (“Rural Development in Indigenous Areas of Latin America”). Academic Coordinator, Workshops ”Conflict Prevention and Management,” PCRI-Uppsala University-UNALM, Perú (2013-2017). Research: Ethnicity; Ethno-Politics; Ethnic Discrimination; Participatory Experiential Action-Research; White Nationalist-Populism; Rural Development; Self-Management; Higher Education; Quality of Working Life and Democratization – in Latin America,” SIDA (1989-1991); ethnic identity of elder Latinas, Research Program on ”Ethnic Aging, Research & Development, Social Services and Ethnology Department, Stockholm (1993-1997). Member, “Red Universidad y Compromiso Social,” Seville, Red Paulo Freire, Swedish PAR Association (SPARC). Board member of Research Committees 10, 05, 26, International Sociological Association; IRIPAZ; former member, Paulo Freire Institute. Popular Educator and Cultural Worker: film & poetry forum: “equal value of all human beings,” cultural division, Uppsala Municipal Council. Published poems in Spanish, Swedish, English. Engaged scholar in social movements for environmental, climate justice, and peace.


Jan van Boeckel, Professor Art & Sustainability, Research Centre Art & Society, Hanze University of Applied Sciences – Netherlands

Jan van Boeckel is a Dutch artist-educator and researcher. In June 2020, he was appointed as professor art & sustainability at the Research Centre Art & Society of the Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen. Academic year 2018-2019 Jan was senior lecturer in visual art education at the Academy of Design and Crafts of Gothenburg University. That year Jan was also guest educator and researcher at CEMUS, the Centre for Environment and Development Studies in Uppsala, Sweden. From 2015 until 2018, he was professor in art education at the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn. Jan van Boeckel has also been program director in design theory at the Iceland University of the Arts in Reykjavik (2014-2015). In 2019, he started teaching painting courses at MK24 in Amsterdam. Jan has regularly taught at Schumacher College in Dartington, the UK; at University College of Southeast Norway; and in previous years also at CEMUS in Sweden.


Gloria L Gallardo Fernández, Professor emerita Södertörn University – Sweden

After university studies in Chile, Poland and México, I obtained my PhD degree in Sociology at Uppsala University (Sweden), where I was also promoted to associate professor. I was promoted to professor in Environmental Sciences at Södertörn University. In a nutshell, my research focuses on the use of natural resources in the interface between rural and global, the redefinition of land and sea ownership/possession with a focus on agro-pastoral communities and small-scale fishing.

Before moving to Södertörn University, I was the Director of Research Studies for Cemus Research Forum (Cefo), part of the Uppsala Centre for Sustainable Development (CSD) – an educational and research platform for interdisciplinary studies on sustainable development jointly funded by Uppsala University and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). I was appointed in 2000, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Rural Development Studies at SLU, where I was also Program Director for the International Masters Program in Development Research, Application and Theory (MADRAT). In addition, I have worked, among others, as a Lecturer at the Department of Sociology at Uppsala University, and at the Department of Ecological Economics at Mälardalen University.

My present research concerns the political economy and ecology of mining conflicts in Chile together with an interdisciplinary group of researchers with the aim to develop theory and methodology to support empirical research involving co-production of knowledge and sustainable transformation strategies related to natural resource access and use.

I work presently as Senior Lecturer and professor in Environmental Sciences with focus on Global Development Studies at the School of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies (NMT), where I teach in various courses such as Modern Development Theories, Research Design, Qualitative Methods, B-level Essay Writing, Contemporary Development Theories, etc. I am presently member of the Educational Advisory Group of ACCESS’s Research school − an academic collaboration between fourteen Chilean and Swedish universities and contact person for ACCESS at Södertörn University.

https://www.sh.se/english/sodertorn-university/contact/researchers/gloria-l-gallardo-fernandez


Dougald Hine, Co-founder of a school called HOME & the Dark Mountain Project – Sweden

Photo: Ingrid Rieser

Dougald is a social thinker, writer and creator of a series of projects and organisations. From 2009 to 2019, he was a director of the Dark Mountain Project, which he co-founded with Paul Kingsnorth.

Together with Anna Björkman, he runs a school called HOME: a gathering place and learning community for those who are drawn to the work of regrowing a living culture. The school is based in Östervåla, 50km northwest of Uppsala.

Originally from the northeast of England, he has been based in Sweden since 2012 where he spent two years working as leader of artistic development for Riksteatern, the national touring theatre.

His writings include Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto (2009) with Paul Kingsnorth, The Crossing of Two Lines (2013) with Performing Pictures and Walking in the Void (2020) with Baldwin & Guggisberg.


Niclas Hällström, Director What Next Forum – Sweden

Niclas Hällström is Director of the What Next Forum in Uppsala, Sweden, founder of CEMUS and initiating CEMUS first course “Människan och naturen” (Humanity and Nature) given for the first time during the autumn semester 1992.


María Florencia Langa, PhD, Sociology, Uppsala University – Sweden and Argentina

María Langa is an Argentinian researcher working in Sweden since 2015. She received her PhD at the Department of Sociology of Uppsala University in 2020 after successfully defending her dissertation Thick Nature: Morality and Practice in Swedish Urban Gardens. Her work is at the intersection of environmental and urban sociology as well as the sociology of morality and valuations. She studies the development of values for nature and the environment with attention to the role of material, technical and spatial arrangements. She has a background in media and communications studies and history, studying qualitative change in visual culture over time and the development of cities from early rural settlements in the North Patagonia Region in Argentina. She is part of several research groups and networks in Sweden and is currently participating in the sustainable development program at CEMUS, Uppsala University.


Doreen Stabinsky, Professor Global Environmental Politics, College of the Atlantic – USA

Doreen Stabinsky is professor of Global Environmental Politics at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, USA.

Her scholarly and other professional work lies at the intersections of land, food, and climate change. She actively researches, writes, and speaks about land and climate change issues, including recent work at the intersections of carbon markets, net zero, and nature-based solutions. She also carries out research and policy advocacy on the emerging issue of loss and damage from slow onset impacts of climate change and serves as advisor to a number of governments and international NGOs on these topics in ongoing negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.

In 2015-2016, Doreen held the first Zennström visiting professorship in Climate Change Leadership at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her most recent publications include: Environmental Politics for a Changing World: power, perspectives and practice (written with Ronnie Lipschutz) and Missing Pathways to 1.5 *C: the role of the land sector in ambitious climate action (published by the Climate, Land, Ambition and Rights Alliance (CLARA), with several co-authors). She is a contributing author to the 6th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) currently in development.


Pella Thiel, Educator and Activist, Rights of Nature – Sweden

Photo: Annika af Klercker

Pella Thiel is a maverick ecologist and activist who works with relational, systemic activism, change processes and leadership för a society in harmony with nature. She is a co-founder of the Swedish Transition Network, End Ecocide Sweden, Save the Rainforest Sweden and the Swedish Network for Rights of Nature. She also teaches ecopsychology and is a part of the eco-psychology/art/activist NGO Lodyn. Pella coordinated the first three Rights of Nature Conferences in Sweden and is a part of the UN Harmony with Nature initiative. Pella has an MSc in Ecology from Stockholm University with the thesis on rainforest restoration in Ecuador. She enjoys pigs, having her hands in the soil at the smallholding in the archipelago of Stockholm where she lives, whiskey and playing with people who truly love what they are doing.