THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2017/2018

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Geosciences : Geography

Undergraduate Course: Development and Decolonization in Latin America (GEGR10114)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Geosciences CollegeCollege of Science and Engineering
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThis course introduces students to key theoretical perspectives in Latin American development geography, including dependency theory, postdevelopment, feminist approaches and the MCD paradigm. Drawing on a wide range of historical and contemporary case studies from across the continent, it will explore the main development challenges facing the region and the diverse and creative ways in which people respond to them. Students will also gain an in-depth knowledge of how these processes can be theorized. The course will be delivered through a weekly two hour class meeting that will combine lectures, class discussions, and student presentations. Visual media including documentaries and YouTube clips will be used to illustrate and provoke engagement with core concepts. Students will gain insights on Latin American development from geography, development studies and cultural studies.
Course description Week 1 - Introduction to course/historical overview
Week 2 - Economic development
Week 3 - Political struggles
Week 4 ¿ The rise and fall of the pink tide
Week 5 - Environmental politics
Week 6 ¿ Identity politics
Week 7 - Indigenizing development
Week 8 - Media and communication for development
Week 9 ¿ Film Screening: A Little Bit of So Much Truth
Week 10 - Decolonial option I
Week 11 - Decolonial option II and course wrap up
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Additional Costs None
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesNone
High Demand Course? Yes
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2017/18, Available to all students (SV1) Quota:  40
Course Start Semester 1
Course Start Date 18/09/2017
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Lecture Hours 22, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 174 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) Written Exam: 0%, Course Work: 100 %, Practical Exam: 0%.

Comparative critique and review 30%, 1500 words, due Monday 12 noon (Week 5)

Decolonial option essay 70%, 2500 words, due Friday 12 noon (Week 12)
Feedback Written feedback on written work, verbal feedback in class and during office hours.
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Have a knowledge of key theoretical perspectives in Latin American development and be able to critically evaluate their significance
  2. Be able to recognise, analyse, interpret and critique development discourses related to Latin American development
  3. Have a sense of the ways in which the cultural, the economic, the political and the social are entangled in Latin American development practice and theory
  4. Understand the importance of everyday media geographies in Latin America in representing, making and contesting development
  5. Have an in-depth understanding of the modernity/coloniality/decoloniality research paradigm and be able to apply it to specific development issues
Reading List
1. Cupples, J. (2013) Latin American Development. London: Routledge

2. Special issue of Cultural Studies on Globalization and the De-colonial Option 21(2-3), 2007

4. Broek S and Junker C (eds) (2015) Postcoloniality-Decoloniality-Black Critique: Joints and Fissures. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag

5. Chant S and Craske N. (2003) Gender in Latin America. London: Latin America Bureau.

6. del Sarto A, Ríos A and Trigo A. (eds) The Latin American Cultural Studies Reader. Durham: Duke University Press.

7. De Sousa Santos B (2007) Beyond abyssal thinking: From global lines to ecologies of knowledges. Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 30(1): 45¿89

8. De Sousa Santos B (2014) Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers

9. De Sousa Santos B (2015) If God Were a Human Rights Activist. Stanford: Stanford University Press

10. Dinerstein A C (2015) The Politics of Autonomy in Latin America: The Art of Organizing Hope. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

11. Escobar A (1995) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton : Princeton University Press.

12. Escobar A (2008) Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes. Durham: Duke University Press.

13. Escobar A (2010) Latin America at a crossroads: Alternative modernizations, post-liberalism, or post-development? Cultural Studies 24(1): 1-65.

14. Franko P (2007) The Puzzle of Latin American Economic Development. 3rd ed. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield

15. Galeano E (1973) Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. New York: Monthly Review Press

16. Grosfoguel R (2006) World-systems analysis in the context of transmodernity, border thinking, and global coloniality. Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 29(2): 167-187

17. Grosfoguel R (2011) Decolonizing post-colonial studies and paradigms of political-economy: Transmodernity, decolonial thinking, and global coloniality. Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World 1(1): np http://escholarship.org/uc/item/21k6t3fq

18. Grosfoguel R (2012) Decolonizing Western Uni-versalisms: Decolonial Pluri-versalism from Aimé Césaire to the Zapatistas. Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World 1(3): 88-104

19. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/01w7163v

20. Harcourt W (ed) (2015) The Palgrave Handbook of Gender and Development: Critical Engagements in Feminist Theory and Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (Chapters 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3)

21. Knippers Black J (ed) (1998) Latin America: Its Problems and Its Promise: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. London: Westview Press.

22. Kusch R (2010[1970]) Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América. Durham: Duke University Press.

23. Lugones M (2003) Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition Against Multiple Oppressions. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield

24. Lugones M (2007) Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System. Hypatia 22(1): 186¿209

25. Lugones M (2010) Toward a decolonial feminism. Hypatia 25(4): 742-759

26. Mignolo W D (2000) Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

27. Mignolo W D (2000) The geopolitics of knowledge and the colonial difference. South Atlantic Quarterly 101(1): 57¿96

28. Mignolo W D (2005) The Idea of Latin America. Malden: Blackwell.

29. Mignolo W D (2011) The Darker Side of Western Modernity : Global futures, Decolonial Options. Durham: Duke University Press

30. Munck R (2013) Rethinking Latin America: Development, Hegemony, and Social Transformation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

31. Muteba R (eds) (2012) Black Social Movements in Latin America: From Monocultural Mestizaje to Multiculturalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

32. Panizza F (2009) Contemporary Latin America: Development and Democracy Beyond the Washington Consensus. London: Zed Books

33. Quijano A (2005) The challenge of the ¿indigenous movement¿ in Latin America. Socialism and Democracy 19(3):55¿78.

34. Reid M (2009) Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America's Soul. New Haven: Yale University Press.

35. Rivera Cusicanqui S (2012) Ch¿ixinakax utwixa: A reflection on the practices and discourses of decolonization. South Atlantic Quarterly 111(1): 95-109

36. Sanjinés J (2013) Embers of the Past: Essays in Times of Decolonization. Durham: Duke University Press.

37. Schiwy F (2003) Descolonizar las tecnologías del conocimiento: Video y epistemología indígena (Decolonizing the technologies of knowledge: Video and indigenous epistemology). In C Walsh (ed) Estudios Culturales Latinoamericanos: Retos Desde y Sobre La Región Andina. Quito: Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar and Ediciones Abya Yala. Available in English at: https://globalstudies.trinity.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/SCHIWY.DECOLONIZING.pdf

38. Schiwy F (2009) Indianizing Film: Decolonization, the Andes, and the Question of Technology. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press

39. Vianello A y Mañé B (eds) (2011) Formas-Otras: Saber, Nombrar, Hacer, Narrar. Barcelona: CIDOB

40. Wade P (1997) Race and Ethnicity in Latin America. London: Pluto Press

41. Walsh C (2010) Development as Buen Vivir: Institutional arrangements and (de)colonial entanglements. Development 53(1): 15¿21

42. Williamson E (2009) The Penguin History of Latin America. London: Penguin

43. Zibechi R (2012) Territories In Resistance: A Cartography of Latin American Social Movements. Oakland: AK Press
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Reading, writing, analysing, communicating, group work
KeywordsLatin America,development decolonisation,gender,media,environment,neoliberalism,indigeneity,s
Contacts
Course organiserDr Julie Cupples
Tel: (0131 6)51 4315
Email: Julie.Cupples@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Kirsty Allan
Tel: (0131 6)50 9847
Email: Kirsty.Allan@ed.ac.uk
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