I recommend these Danish PhD short courses to students. It is a format
that is common in Scandinavia and rare in the anglophone world. You get
to discuss your PhD intensively and the profs. also present their work
around a theme.
----
An open PhD seminar on:
The Discipline of Development
Graduate School of International Development Studies,
Roskilde University
Denmark
30-31 October 2003
Venue: Roskilde University
Organisers: Afonso Moreira and Kristen Nordhaug
http://www.ruc.dk/inst3/IDS/Graduate/PhD_courses/
The Discipline of Development
1. Power and Expertise in the Making and Managing of Subjectivities.
The history of our present has demanded an understanding of how
sciences, pseudo-sciences, quasi-sciences become cornerstones in the
ways we perceive ourselves, the others, and the surrounding world.
Along these lines, the word enlightenment comes to mind, bearing the
evergreen question in social and human sciences as to what extent the
principles established during the eighteenth century Europe are still
alive, or are just a vanishing sketch in the quicksand of contemporary
epistemologies. The belief in the commitment to the improvement of
human condition and to the realisation of the essential nature of
humanity drawing on the powers of liberty as an outcome of progress and
application of reason have worked as common denominators of ideals of
progress and welfare. How can we understand the spread of these
´enlightenmentalitites´ (Osborne 1998), their compatibility with, for
instance, metaphysical-religious systems of belief outside the western
geopolitical settings where they were originated? Or else, how have
´life sciences´ over flown from their original framework and become
components of grids of self-perception of individuals and populations
in an unproblematised, naturalised fashion? How has the study of
development, an enlightenment discipline par excellence, which claims
that its distinct object of study is ?late development? taken part
in this enlightenmentality ?project??
Through that which became known as development, namely, the activities,
calculations and plans of an increasing number of philanthropists,
social workers, policy makers, technocrats, hygienists and other
proliferating independent authorities, the so-called government at a
distance is harnessed into existence. In ´present societies´
scientific reasoning becomes cornerstones in the making and managing of
subjectivities, explicitly as part of the exercise of the liberal rule,
or subliminally as an element of self-fashioning. Techniques of
empowerment, emancipation and liberation are notorious dynamos
generating and spreading devices which enable populations and
individuals to account for themselves in a such a way that the
improvement of their ways of being and life conditions become a
tangible goal, even if hardly fully attainable. In this sense, we want
to enquire if and how the dream of the eighteenth century European
enlightenment goes on in everyday practices in so-called advanced
liberal societies and in the so-called Third World. This problematic
paves the way for the question on ´How segments of populations in the
so-called Third World ascribe to human technologies stemming from the
Enlightenment even when resisting to policies or rationalities which
they identify as threatening to their ways of living´?
This line of enquiry leads to issues regarding the suitability, in to
the so-called third world, of hegemonic models of development based on
the experience of industrialised society, which in many equalises
development with westernisation. Assessing patterns of resistance to
what is seen as predatory modernity in the form of cultural and
economic imperialism, gender oppression, and racialist strategies will
hopefully shed light on the effects of enlightenment rationalities.
Those effects are much more than a mere conflation of the latter with
sociological rationalism or rationalisms of any sort, and are not to be
tackled as an all embracing hegemonic ´westernising´ drive that is
bestowed upon non-westerners. Therefore, a question arises as to what
extent one can talk about those modes of resistance without falling
prey to a romanticisation of resistance, on behalf of an idealise
endogenous development, putting forward a crack on holistic and
hegemonic notions of welfare of individuals and populations.
2. Development studies past, present and future
A number of sub-disciplines related to study of that which those
disciplines themselves started conceptualising as ?developing
countries? emerged in the post-World War 2 period. Later
?development sociology?, ?development economics?,
?development geography?, ?political development?, etc. evolved
into a new discipline of ?development studies? with its own
university departments, research institutions and specialised academic
journals. The rise of the new discipline was related to de-colonisation
in Asia and Africa, the Cold War, the imagining of the ?three
worlds? and the emergence of international, governmental and
non-governmental donor organisations. ?Late development? was its
distinct object of study, it was normatively committed to the political
project of development and had close ties with the new ?donor
community?.
This young academic discipline has gone through much turmoil during its
brief history, for instance the clash between modernisation theory and
dependency in the 1960s. Yet these camps were mostly faithful to the
programme of studying late development in order to promote the
development project. The object of study ?late development? may
however have come under pressure from the late 1970s onward.
The international turn to neoliberalism in conjunction with the debt
crisis and structural adjustments of the 1980s promoted a turn in
economics towards positions that denied that late development required
academic disciplines on their own. Thus, ?development economics?
has become an endangered species in the academic world although the use
of general theories and methodologies of economics to study
?development issues? continues. From the opposite end of the
political spectrum ?classic? development studies and the new
?Washington Consensus? have both come under attack from
post-development approaches which view the very project of
?development? as Western imperialism.
The OECD area?s funding of development aid is declining. Furthermore
the collapsing of the so-called ?Second World? in 1989/91 has led
to the discovery of a new ?developing world? that previously was
studies through the lenses of traditional security studies, and
enhanced the competition for aid funds. These developments are likely
to change the field of development studies. There is much discussion
within the development research community as well as among its funders
about partial conversion to studies of security and globalisation.
These are agendas that possibly may lead to a move away from the core
area of ?late development?. Yet it is also likely that the study of
late development is expanded and becomes linked with extended concepts
of security, and a new sub-discipline within international relations
that specialise on developing countries, rather than being abandoned.
This might be faced as a revival if one looks back at the authoritarian
models for development and national security that were a must in most
parts of South and Central America in the 1960s and 1970s, and the
security-related Cold War context of studies of the so-called Third
World in the United States. Samuel Huntington?s Political Order in
Changing Societies from 1968 is a case in point. If along these lines
we assume that security has been more or less articulated with
development, we might as well interrogate what are the practical
consequences of these disciplinary recasts.
This two day seminar/workshop aims to cover issues dealing with the
constitution of development as a discipline and the relations of power
implicated in its dispersal in the governing of individuals and
populations in the third?world and in those societies that are now
considered advanced liberal. The range of suggested themes is:
? What are some of the specialised bodies of knowledge found in
development interventions ? and how to identify and analyse these?
? To what extent is the basic epistemology of development studies
linked with the historical and political setting of the Cold War
period?
? What are the implications for current development studies? Will the
growing impact of globalisation and security issues kick-start a
process of epistemological detachment from development? Or will there
rather be a re-defining and expansion of the field that do not affect
its epistemological core? What might be the consequences in political
and institutional terms from the research to practices?
? Should post-development be viewed as an epistemological detachment
from development studies, or rather as the self-reflection of a
maturing academic discipline?
Lecturers
Ann Anagnost, University of Washington
Afonso Moreira, Roskilde University
Adam David Morton, Lancaster University
Knut Nustad, University of Oslo
Peter Triantafillou, Roskilde University
Henrik Secher Marcussen, Roskilde University
Note for the Participants:
The seminar will run for two days. Presentations of papers by the
invited speakers will take place on the first day while presentations
by PhD researchers on the second day will take place in two or three
parallel workshops with the invited lecturers as discussants. The first
day will be open to the public, whereas the second day will be reserved
for PhD researchers and the invited lecturers.
PhD researchers are encouraged to present papers on theory, methodology
and/or empirical work related to the theme of the seminar. It is
possible to participate without submitting a paper, but the paper
presenters will be preferred in case too many people sign up for the
seminar. The deadline for submission is 21 October 2003.
Only PhD students will have to sign up for the course. Deadline for
applications is 22nd September 2003.
Participation is free. The seminar will take place at the Roskilde
University campus, and participants can buy lunch at the campus
cafeteria. Participants are responsible for their own accommodation.
Further information and correspondence: Inge Jensen ([log in to unmask])
--
Dr Simon Batterbury
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Geography and Regional Development
The University of Arizona
409 Harvill Building, Box #2
Tucson, AZ 85721-0076, USA
Phone: (520) 626-8054
Fax: (520) 621-2889
http://geog.arizona.edu/~web/faculty.htm
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