Postgraduate Course: Interpreting Development: Institutions and Practices (PGSP11296)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | International Development is a practice as much as a theory. How development is understood and practiced, both by organisations and individuals, depends upon the frameworks constructed to explain and legitimise particular goals, methodologies and values.
This course investigates what development means to different actors and how this affects the impacts development programming can have on the communities who experience 'development'. Assessing particular organisational approaches to development - from the United Nations to donor states to local NGOs - and sector-specific focuses - from humanitarian aid to health to religion - this course will survey the particular constraints and challenges faced in negotiating the bureaucracies of institutional development, and provide you with a clear understanding of how social science can help to scrutinise the construction and evolution of development perspectives from within. |
| Course description |
Weekly outline:
Week 1: Interpreting Development: introducing the course
Week 2: Multinational Corporations, Capitalism and Contested Development
Week 3: NGOs and the Place of Civil Society in Development
Week 4: DfID, Bilateral Aid and Global Financial Systems of Tax Avoidance
Week 5: Development, Institutions, Power and the Environment
NO LECTURE - Festival of Creative Learning Week
Week 6: Faith-Based Humanitarianism
Week 7: Shadow Aid? Local People, Volunteers and Refugees as First Responders
Week 8: Global health ¿crises¿ and Social Inequality
Week 9: Armed Helpers - Humanitarianism and the Military
Week 10: The Promise of Big Data for Humanitarianism
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2019/20, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 120 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 10,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 10,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Interpreting Development Short Essay/Blog: 25% of your grade will be awarded on the basis of a 1,000-word essay/blog. The question for this assignment will be released in Week 2. The feedback for this assessment will be given before the deadline for your essay.
Interpreting Development Long Essay: 75% of your grade will be awarded on the basis of a 3,000-word essay, chosen from a list that will be released in Week 5. |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- show a robust knowledge of diverse organisations involved in international development, their evolving mandates, policies and practice.
- a critical, analytical understanding of how knowledge is created and contested by a variety of organisations in international development.
- Possess an interdisciplinary understanding of how principles, ideals and ideas shape development practice, and are shaped by it.
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Reading List
Indicative Readings:
Apthorpe, Raymond. 2011. "With Alice in Aidland: A Seriously Satirical Allegory." Adventures in Aidland: The Anthropology of Professionals in International Development. New York: Berghahn. pp.199-220.
Barnett, M. N., & Finnemore, M. 1999. The politics, power, and pathologies of international organizations. International organization, 53(4). Pp. 699-732.
Das, Veena and Deborah Poole. 2004. Anthropology in the Margins of the State. School of American Research Press: Santa Fe. Pp.3-35. (Introduction).
Escobar, Arturo. 1991. "Anthropology and the development encounter: the making and marketing of development anthropology." American Ethnologist 18(4). Pp. 658-682.
Gottwald, M. 2010. Competing in the humanitarian marketplace: UNHCR's organizational culture and decision-making processes. New Issues in Refugee Research. No.190. http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4cb55c0ec.pdf
Mosse, David. 2013. "The Anthropology of International Development." Annual Review of Anthropology, 42. pp. 227-246.
Scott-Smith, Tom. 2014. "How projects rise and fall: the lifecycle of a dietary modernisation scheme." Development in Practice, 24 (7). Pp. 785-796. (particularly interesting for its talk of archives and institutional memory)
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Mr Samuel Spiegel
Tel:
Email: sam.spiegel@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Becky Guthrie
Tel: (0131 6)51 1659
Email: becky.guthrie@ed.ac.uk |
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