Development Studies – Page 3 – Debating Development Research

06/08/202407/08/2024

The Future of Development Studies: Unity in Diversity?

By Caroline Cornier

The idea of progress falls under what anthropologist Anna Tsing designates as ‘unity’, a ‘unified coordination of time’, a singular beat. The recent workshop “Unity in Diversity – The Future of Development Studies” raised questions whether the discipline should move on to study the world’s consonant ‘global challenges’ or rather continue focusing on the specific rhythms and trajectories of ‘late developers’.

30/04/2024

EADI at Fifty: Time for Looking Back and Understanding the Sea Change of World History

By Jürgen Wiemann

This year, 2024, global peace, prosperity and the environment are threatened by a cumulation of geopolitical crises, and we do not know yet whether this will lead to a final breakdown of international cooperation and more wars, or whether it will be possible to turn history around towards a brighter future. Looking back at the half century since EADI’s foundation in 1974 may help us to understand how we have arrived at this dramatic moment.

05/03/202429/04/2024

The Crisis of Development and Development Studies and Possibilities for Transformation

By Sebeka Richard Plaatjie

Development requires human persons to exist. On this basis it is reasonable to suggest that human life or the preservation thereof, is the foremost condition for development to declare and to recognize itself. Basic physiological needs for the survival of human beings such as food, water, clothing, and health care as suggested by Maslow must therefore be met. Beyond preservation of human life, which is also recognized by the United Nations, development merely functions an ideology, as proven aptly by standpoint theory. Standpoint theory postulates that human beings speak, read, and make sense of the world from the geo-political and body-political location of the subject who speaks.

26/09/2023

Common Challenges for All?

By Jörg Wiegratz, Pritish Behuria, Christina Laskaridis, Lebohang Liepollo Pheko, Ben Radley, and Sara Stevano

Traditionally, Development Studies has been centred around a demarcation between the global North (Europe and North America) and the global South (Asia, Africa, and Latin America). In recent years, there has been growing clamour to throw out this North-South framework – held as outdated – in favour of a new ‘global’ outlook. It sounds harmless enough, but in our recent open access article published in Development and Change, we map out our concerns.

30/08/2023

Reflections on Development in Development Studies

By Henning Melber

There is a history to Developmentalism long before the US-American President Truman’s interpretation in his inaugural address of 1949. He then advocated development as an integral part of Western policy embracing the emerging independent states through aid in support of sovereign governance. An embracement, which often turned out to be more of a strangulation than a provision of oxygen to breathe the winds of change as signs of freedom and self-determination to make own choices.