Sorry for the break, blame the Masters!

I have been away from the blog for a few weeks as I have been wrapped up in both work and schoolwork. The course I have been taking has been towards completion of my Masters. As many of you know when Janna and I returned from living in Malawi in 2009 we decided to start Masters degrees part-time. We wanted a flexible option so we decided to take our degrees by distance education via Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada. Both of us are pursuing degrees in Integrated Studies which pursues an interdisciplinary social science approach. The idea is that the narrow disciplinary focus common in university is not necessarily the best approach to tackle today's complex problems. In the public policy world these are often called wicked problems, examples include tackling poverty, climate change, and international governance. These are problems that have so many layers, factors and players that it is necessary to have a broad understanding of a lot of disciplines as opposed to a narrow but expert understanding of one discipline. We each have areas of focus though. Janna's is equity studies and also community development. My area of focus is global change, basically a study of globalization, it's effects and ways to effect a positive, equitable future. The course that has been absorbing all of my non-work time for the last few weeks has had the very broad topic of What is Globalization? I was late getting started with the course as it officially started in the beginning of September while I was trying to wrap up my Ministry of Labour work and get ready for our move overseas. Then I took a few weeks getting settled here in Ghana. I had to write 3 papers. One on what globalization is, one on how power is practiced in our networked society and one examining the recent resolution of the longest trade dispute in the history of the World Trade Organization dealing with bananas. It is nice to be done as interesting as the course has been just in time for the Christmas break. More on our travels during the break soon.