Letter from the Chair
Dear Friends –
The Global Studies Department at UCSB is dedicated to the study of the processes and impacts of globalization. As Global Studies scholars, we forefront questions that emanate from the Global South and the issues shaping the lives of globally marginalized communities, including those under stress from racial discrimination, poverty, inequality, human rights abuses, climate change, and more. We understand globalization as a historical and contemporary process, which impacts lives in complex ways, and we strive to create an inclusive environment and discourse around compelling contemporary issues. We do this using multiple methodologies drawn from disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities, and we encourage our students to benefit from mixed methods of inquiry.
Global Studies at UCSB has a strong undergraduate program that recruits and trains hundreds of Global Majors annually. It has a robust two-year MA program where students learn to examine vital issues of human rights, environmental justice, global governance, economic development and finance, global migration, racial justice, and much, much more. In our Ph.D. program, students engage in cutting-edge, theoretically ambitious research that has global impact. Global Studies faculty are trained internationally, engage in state-of-the-art research, and reflect the diversity of our global community. The department co-founded the Global Studies Consortium, which maps and guides the progress of this growing discipline.
The Global Studies Department has advanced the discipline globally, and our faculty and students continue to provide leadership in emerging areas of global interest. Apart from our strong academic foundation, we do not shy away from action-oriented and public-facing research, policy-making, and world-shaping discussions. We look forward to building partnerships with global academic institutions, networks that can support our graduate students and research, as well as our strong alumni presence around the world.
Thank you!
Professor Javiera Barandiarán
Chair, Department of Global Studies
Global Studies Diversity Statement
Global Studies as a field and department are deeply committed to racial justice in our scholarship and our society, within the context of our commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion—and beyond. We have been engaged as individuals and as an academic unit in racial justice research and pedagogy for many years, and we have carried forward the UC-wide diversity mission in our intellectual and social engagements. Our research, teaching and practice reflect our collective recognition that beyond individual or group biases, systems of oppression are built on historical and institutional domination and power. The Global Studies Department works to make material changes to institutions of the university that structurally erect barriers to equity for students, staff, and faculty that have been historically marginalized and oppressed. Additionally, the Global Studies Department is a scholarly community that aims to provide models of collegiality and professionalism to our students. As a UC campus, we are mindful of our obligation to ensure an inclusive and civil environment that respects the rights of all students to academic freedom, non-discrimination, and dignified treatment. All members of our community are expected to honor these norms of civility and respect in all interactions between and among faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students, and staff. Unprofessional and inappropriate behavior in our community includes public disparagement of any member of the community on the basis of any identity, background, belief, or personal condition (a full list is available on p. 38 of the Graduate Student Handbook).
What is Global Studies?
Global Studies is a growing field concerned with understanding the historical and contemporary phenomenon of globalization in all its aspects. Although global phenomena have been studied for many decades, global studies as a field developed largely after the turn of the 21st century and has expanded exponentially since the first programs were founded in Asian, European, and American universities in the 1990s. Moving away from conventional state-based notions of the international order, the field of global studies seeks to promote critical reflection on how the world works as an interlinked, interactive set of processes and relationships that operate across broad spheres of experience.
Faculty in Global Studies
Global Studies faculty are engaged in a wide range of interdisciplinary research agendas which utilize approaches from the humanities and social sciences to provide perspectives that are historical, critical, and engaged. Faculty teach and conduct research in the department’s three thematic concentrations: (i) global culture, ideology, and religion; (ii) global political economy, development, and environment; and (iii) global governance, civil society, and human rights. Core faculty are augmented by affiliate faculty who teach undergraduate and graduate courses and by distinguished visiting faculty. A total of over thirty-five faculty participate directly in the program. (See our Faculty page.)
Graduate Program in Global Studies
The MA program welcomed its first cohort in fall 2005 and the PhD program in fall 2015. The PhD Program is the first of its kind at a Tier-1 Research University in the United States, and the first within the University of California system. It is a stand-alone degree and is separate from our highly successful terminal MA in Global Studies, which has been operating since 2006. In fall 2003 a graduate-level PhD Emphasis in Global Studies was created, supported by the departments of Anthropology, English, History, Political Science, Religious Studies, and Sociology departments, and coordinated by Global Studies.
Undergraduate Major in Global Studies
Within the first five years, the numbers of Global Studies majors grew to over 900 per year—60% focusing on the socioeconomic and political aspects of globalization, and 40% emphasizing the cultural and ideological side. More majors from Global Studies participate in Education Abroad experiences than from any other department or program on campus.
The first student to enroll in Global Studies was Safeed “Titu” Asghar. After graduation Titu attended the American University School of International Service in Washington DC. Now married, he is employed in government service in the Washington area. Other graduates of the program have attended Columbia University’s School of International Affairs, the George Washington University School of Foreign Service, UC San Diego School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, other graduate programs in international studies, law schools, business schools, and medical schools. Some have gone directly into business, public service agencies, and government service. Many have traveled abroad. Several have gone into the Peace Corps and some completing the foreign service exam. The Alumni Page of our website provides letters from alums reporting on their diverse and fascinating experiences around the world.