The Societies and Globalisation department’s main objective is to understand contemporary societies in the tropical and Mediterranean regions while analysing the dynamics, transformations, adaptations and resistances that underlie and drive them. The research conducted takes an interdisciplinary approach to social challenges, with the aim of demonstrating their implications and relevance for countries in both the South and the North. The various research programmes strive to understand the dynamics at work in the diverse array of societies. They all have in-depth knowledge of the field and apply their approach at several levels.

They can be divided into eight main subject areas:

• Governance, relationships with power and institutions
• Inequalities, vulnerability and adaptability
• Gender relations
• Interactions between nature and societies
• Affiliations, resources and territories
• Migrations, mobility, movement and social reconstruction
• Education and knowledge
• Urbanisation, cities in the Global South and development

Anthropology, economics, geography, demography and sociology are the main disciplines represented. The department also includes archaeologists, historians, legal experts, urban planners, political scientists, statisticians and linguists, as well as several environment and life science researchers (agronomy, ecology, pedology, hydrology, health, remote sensing, modelling and geomatics).