Moa Dahlberg

About me

Presentation 

My research focuses on development studies, postcolonialism, and natural resource management.

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science.

I have a PhD in Political Science from the Political Science Unit, Luleå University of Technology. I received my MSc in Development Studies from the Department of Government at Uppsala University in 2014 and my BSc in Development and International Cooperation at Södertörn University in 2011.

During my academic studies and prior work, I have conducted field research in Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa on topics including democratization, migration, gender, violence, and land rights. I have also been a visiting PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science at the University of Cape Town.

I am a member of the steering group for SweDev, a Swedish network for development research.

Research

My current research focuses on two areas: 1) traditional institutions, 2) governance of natural resources.

In my PhD, I examined how the state's ability to establish and enforce collective rules in areas of limited statehood is shaped by its interactions with local authorities. More specifically, I studied how hybrid governance arrangements with traditional authorities influence the state's capacity to govern. The empirical focus was wildlife management in National Parks in Southern Africa, and the research relied on extensive qualitative fieldwork and surveys collected in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. Articles from the thesis have been published, for example, in Governance (Dahlberg and Söderberg, 2024) and the Journal of Development Studies (Dahlberg, Matti, and Ntuli, 2026).

Selection of articles in progress:

"Barriers to Collaboration between State and Traditional Authorities in Conservation in Southern Africa" ​​with A. Sundström and H. Ntuli. Under review.

"The Potential of State-Driven Collaborative Governance in Emerging Environmental Policy Areas" with A. Sandström

"Drivers of participation in illicit resource extraction and environmental dependence in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area" with H. Ntuli, E. Muchapondwa, and Boscow Okumu

I currently work on three research projects:

The first one, "JustInTime: Governance for Epistemic Justice in Times of Rapid Socio-Ecological Change," financed by Formas, aims to bridge Indigenous Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Western science to ensure sustainable and equitable outcomes in natural resource governance.

The second project, "Towards a more Adaptive Swedish Wild Boar Management System with Enhanced Collective Action Capability: Lessons from ASF outbreaks in Sweden and abroad", financed by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, investigates how management systems can enhance their capacity to prevent, detect, and promptly respond to emerging ecological needs, such as outbreaks of African Swine Fever.

The third project, "Sustainable Culture-driven Development of Industrial Locations," is a seed project, funded by Natural Resources for Sustainable Transitions (SUN), which aims to integrate the industrial and cultural sectors to contribute to social sustainability, community engagement, and place attractiveness in industrial communities in northern Sweden that are affected by the green transition.

She has previously worked on the following research projects:

• 2017 - 2022 “Corruption and Wildlife Management: Collective Action in Transnationally Protected Reserves" (The Swedish Research Council).
• 2022 - 2024 "Waging war to save the peace parks: A study of militarization of wildlife management” (The Swedish Research Council).
• 2020 - 2024 "Managing a Moving Resource: Opportunities for, and Obstacles to, Collective Action in Swedish Wild Boar Management" (The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency).

Teaching

I teach several courses on globalization, international politics, and democratization in the political science bachelor's program and the subject teacher training program. I also supervise thesis students, preferably in themes such as development studies, postcolonial theory, traditional institutions, or gender.