APG5628 · Understanding development: Discourse, practice and power

Overview

This unit unpacks the meaning of development as a discourse that conceptualises system of power, resources and social transformation across the globe. It questions development in practice, how it is understood in different cultural contexts, as well as analyses the effects of programs designed according to contemporary institutional ideas of development. .This unit unravels the conceptual and practical pillars of development, and interrogates interrelated concepts such as economic growth, progress, and modernisation. It tracks development discourse through early theorisations, to examine the current institutionalised set of practices that perpetuate unequal nature of contemporary development As an important aspect of this conversation, the unit explores the diverse in-practice development alternatives; the ways that social groups reclaim ‘development’ to attain more autonomous pathways to well-being. Finally, this unit asks whether development theories corelate with development-in-practice and whether the current development institution should be deconstructed and reimagined.

Areas of study: International development practice International sustainable tourism management International development and environment International relations Journalism Tourism

Offerings

Assessment

The Handbook does not list a final examination among the assessment items. That is not a guarantee there is none.

Within semester assessment: 100%

Assessment details may change. Please refer to the assessment information in Moodle closer to the start of the teaching period.

Requisites

The Handbook lists no prerequisite, corequisite or prohibition for this unit.

Learning outcomes

1. critically assess contributions to the academic field of development, exploring and analysing the history of development thinking and the spatial patterns of development in practice;
2. articulate different approaches to and practices of development with reference to in-practice examples, and to evaluate various alternatives in light of the most recent scholarly work on contemporary uneven development;
3. argue for or against the contemporary development paradigm as we know it particularly in the context of in-practice development alternatives, with an appropriate degree of personal and socio-political reflection.

Workload

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Student experience, not official rules. Nothing here changes what the Handbook says.