Tiina Kontinen appointed as Professor of International Development Studies
Kontinen has been an Associate Professor at the Ģֱ since 2020. She leads the research group Civil society and citizenship in development (CitDe), which has carried out several research projects funded by the Research Council of Finland.
Kontinen’s research group brings together postdocs, PhD researchers and master students with various disciplinary backgrounds to critically discuss and create knowledge concerning citizenship and civil society, mainly in the contexts of global South and in the field of development cooperation and humanitarian aid. The group investigates dynamics, manifestations and dilemmas related to conceptualizing citizenship and civil society, as well as conducts critical analysis of the practices undertaken in North-South civil society collaborations.
Kontinen is currently leading an academy project “Re-articulating citizenship in times of uncertainty: Hybrid narratives of COVID-19 responses in sub-Saharan Africa (2022–2026)”, implemented in collaboration with Makerere University, Uganda.
Kontinen also leads the Master's Degree Programme in Development, Education and International Cooperation (DEICO), an international programme shared between the two faculties. In 2022, she was awarded the University's Good Teacher Award.
International Development Studies is an interdisciplinary field of research that studies social phenomena, primarily in the Global South and in North-South relationships. Kontinen has published on NGOs as development actors, civil society, civic space and citizenship, mainly in Tanzania and Uganda, and knowledge production in North-South cooperation. She has led several collaborative projects with African universities.
“While global power asymmetries are widely explored in development studies, in my work I have pursued to disrupt them in research practice. For instance, research projects are planned, implemented, and published together with African universities and researchers”, narrates Kontinen.
Kontinen has worked as a PhD researcher, assistant lecturer and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, and since 2012 as a university lecturer at the Ģֱ. From 2016 to 2021, she was an Academy Research Fellow. He has been a visiting researcher at the University of Manchester, UK and the University of Dodoma, Tanzania.
She is active in the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutions (EADI) and was the Chair of the Steering Committee of the Finnish Universities Development Cooperation Network (UniPID) from 2021–2023.
Kontinen received her PhD from the University of Helsinki in 2007.
