Welcome

Welcome to the Centre for Global Women's Studies

The Centre for Global Women’s Studies builds on a strong tradition of engaged learning and research in Women's Studies at NUI Galway and in the wider community since the original Women’s Studies Centre was established in 1988. The present Centre sits in the School of Political Science and Sociology within the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies. It complements and contributes to existing strengths in the School, especially in development studies, international relations and human rights, social and political theory, and sociology of gender, sexuality and religion. 

Societies everywhere are being reshaped dramatically by globalisation, which can be seen in all aspects of everyday life - cultural, economic, political and social. The Centre for Global Women's Studies recognises that globalisation and global issues are always simultaneously local and gendered.  Lived experiences of armed conflict, climate change, disease pandemics, forced migration and displacement, organised transnational crime and religious political authoritarianism, for example, are experienced as local realities, affecting women and men differently. To begin to address the inequalities and exclusions that go hand-in-hand with these and other global issues, it is essential to examine and understand how our local realities, global forces and gender power relations work together. In doing so, we learn how gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and other formative aspects of our identities and experiences play a very big part in determining our life chances in globalisation and in navigating related challenges and crises.  

The Centre for Global Women's Studies at NUIG is committed to community learning and research through the provision of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, applied and basic gender research, and community engagement that build cross-disciplinary knowledge and understanding of gender and global issues through a critical human rights lens.

Study With Us

The Centre for Global Women’s Studies offers a taught MA in Gender, Globalisation and Rights, on a fulltime or part-time basis.

In addition, we offer the undergraduate module European Women’s Studies each semester for visiting international and Erasmus students.  Global Women’s Studies topics are also integrated into the BA subject Political and Sociological Studies.

The Centre for Global Women’s Studies supports PhD research in topics related to our research theme and areas where active research projects are ongoing. See Our Research for more information.