{"id":234,"date":"2018-11-14T09:52:53","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T08:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.p288574.webspaceconfig.de\/?p=234"},"modified":"2020-01-29T12:07:17","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T11:07:17","slug":"development-studies-matter-framing-an-evolving-field-of-study-in-changing-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/?p=234","title":{"rendered":"Development Studies Matter! Framing an Evolving Field of Study in Changing Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Susanne von Itter<\/em><\/p>\n<p>EADI has published a definition of Development Studies? Why yet another definition? Can such a broad field of studies be defined anyway? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eadi.org\/typo3\/fileadmin\/Documents\/Publications\/EADI_Definition_Development_Studies_2017.pdf\">EADI finds: Yes<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cDevelopment Studies (also known as \u2018international development studies\u2019 or \u2018international development\u2019) is a multi- and inter-disciplinary field of study rather than a single discipline. It seeks to understand the interplay between social, economic, political, technological, ecological, cultural and gendered aspects of societal change at the local, national, regional and global levels.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The definition not only explains EADI\u2019s understanding of development studies, but also formulates learning and teaching objectives, as well as learning objectives for students.<\/p>\n<p>The range of concerns &#8211; to name only a few &#8211; includes poverty, inequality and exclusion, environmental sustainability and climate change, global governance; armed conflict and violence, urbanization, rural development, land tenure and agrarian change, migrations, health, education, labour, and gender equity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Adapting to global challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As an association of development research institutes, we saw the need to reframe the definition of development studies, because important changes occurred in the past 15 years. On the one hand, the Bologna Declaration changed institutional frameworks in the world of education and research. On the other hand, Development Studies need to consider main changes in global development processes, such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A stronger role of cooperating regional powers in the developing world, for example the BRICS group of states (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa).<\/li>\n<li>The participation of new players, new sources of funds, new initiatives in the system of aid and development finance.<\/li>\n<li>The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and UN goal setting as a way to address global problems with global tools.<\/li>\n<li>The emergence of new economic and political power relations, and changes generated by globalisation \u2013 including the increase in migration, which makes marginalisation and deprivation manifest both in the South and the North.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Development studies is an evolving field of study and the range of concerns it addresses and the methods it uses evolve over time. Concrete examples are an increasing interplay between social and \u2018hard\u2019 sciences and the emergence of novel topics such as South-South cooperation, poverty and social exclusion in industrialized countries, technological innovation, and private sector actors in international development.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Practical use<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The new definition also serves as a guide to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eadi.org\/accreditation\/\">evaluation and accreditation<\/a> of Master programmes set up by institutes. It also inspires universities to create new Master programmes, and is used by institutes to argue for the need of development studies, to establish this field of study in a country, or to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eadi.org\/news-archive\/2018.10\/statement-of-solidarity-with-the-austrian-commission-for-development-research-kef\/\">defend programmes in danger.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Further reading<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The results of intensive discussions within EADI and further research on the topic will be published in a volume entitled \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.palgrave.com\/de\/book\/9783030040512#aboutBook\">Development Studies in the New Millennium<\/a>\u201d, forthcoming early 2019.<\/p>\n<p>This book brings together multiple critical assessments of the current state and future visions of global development studies. It examines how the field engages with new paradigms and narratives, methodologies and scientific impact, and perspectives from the Global South. The authors focus on social and democratic transformation, inclusive development and global environmental issues, and implications for research practices. Leading academics provide an excellent overview of recent insights for post-graduate students and scholars in these research areas.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The discussion goes on<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Please feel invited to comment on the definition and share your opinion with us on this blog!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Susanne von Itter<\/strong> is the Executive Secretary of EADI<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Susanne von Itter EADI has published a definition of Development Studies? Why yet another definition? Can such a broad field of studies be defined anyway? EADI finds: Yes! \u201cDevelopment Studies (also known as \u2018international development studies\u2019 or \u2018international development\u2019) is a multi- and inter-disciplinary field of study rather than a single discipline. It seeks &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/?p=234\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Development Studies Matter! Framing an Evolving Field of Study in Changing Times&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinionpieces","tag-knowledge"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Development-Studies-resized.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/papI3v-3M","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}