Description
This track addresses the complex relationships between development and processes of social change and differentiation in Africa. The notion of development is rooted in European Enlightenment thinking and an expression of the idea that specific forms of social change, often labelled as ‘modernization’ or ‘progress’, are advantageous and can be promoted through planned interventions. The track interprets ‘development’ as an important element in the process of on-going social change in Africa.
However, in the course it is stressed that ‘development’ is only one (and relatively new) factor among many at work in the long-term processes of social change in African societies. Another point of departure emphasizes the paradox that right from the beginning the central values behind development – emancipation, freedom, and modernization – have been communicated and implemented in contexts characterized by extreme political, economic and social inequality. This paradox requires a critical scrutiny of the relationship between discourse and implicit political agendas of institutions (international, national and local) and individual agents, between planning and implementation, and between proclaimed goals and covert interests. Consequently, development is regarded as an on-going process of social change in which negotiation and conflict between institutions and individuals have a central place. Hence, development is also a scientific and social space where different and contesting ideas from Africa and the North meet and where different worldviews and ideas about ‘progress’ are debated.
Timetable
Mondays and Thursdays: Check on Blackboard
Method of Instruction
The course runs for three months, from January until March, consisting of three modules of four weekly blocks. A block consists of a presentation by one or more lecturers on the Monday (13.30- 17.00) after which precise assignments are handed out to students who have the time to work on them till the workshop meetings (13.30-17.00) on Thursday. They will draft a text of about three pages that serves as an aid-memoir for their presentation. Compulsory reading: 150 pages per week, supplemented with recommended reading that can be used for the assignments and the preparation for the individual research project.The course ends with presentations of the draft of the research proposal to a team of senior researchers.
Course objectives
Students become aware of the historicity of development thinking from the colonial period up to now and are able to unravel various schools in development thinking in development analysis and policies put forward by various international donor agencies. Students learn how to situate these policies in specific social contexts and interactions and to focus on African perspectives, responses and forms of appropriation. Moreover, students build up their own thematic specialization allowing them to prepare and formulate their future research project to be carried out in the third semester. The course prepares the students for the writing of research proposals.
Required reading
To be announced on Blackboard.
Examination
Weekly assignments, paper and draft of the research proposal
Blackboard
Information to be provided at the start of the course.