Rethinking Development
INTL 31919
Department of Anthropology, Gender Studies, and International Studies, City College of New York (CCNY), City University of New York (CUNY).
Spring 2020, Spring 2021.
Stuart Wright
Course description: Rethinking Development will introduce students to a range of perspectives on theories, discourses, and practices of “development” – from the fundamentals (the relationship between economic growth and development), to the contemporary global development agenda encapsulated in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, as well as critical alternative perspectives (Marxist, socialist, poststructuralist, and feminist). The course will include four case studies that draw on ethnographic research. The first concerns development policies aimed at ethnic minorities in Yunnan Province, southwest China. The second focuses on the international “education for development” agenda. The third will look at the “development industry” in Africa and China’s growing presence on the African continent. The fourth will consider global health and the political consequences of the fight against AIDS in Lesotho, southern Africa.
1. Introduction: Rethinking Development
2. What is “Development”?
3-4. Classical and Neoclassical Economics
5-6. From Keynesian Economics to Neoliberalism
7. Development as Modernization
8. Marxism, Socialism, and Development (part 1)
9. Marxism, Socialism, and Development (part 2)
10. Development into the 21st Century: The View from Anthropology
11-12. Radical Histories and Perspectives (part 1)
13-14. Ethnography and the Anthropology of Development
15. Development as a Gift? Charity, Reciprocity, and Indebtedness Engineering
16. China’s New Socialist Countryside
17. Education for Transformation
18. Migration from the Margins
19. Goals and Targets 1: The Global Development Agenda
20. Celebrity Advocacy in International Development
21. Goals and Targets 2: The Global “Education for Development” Regime
22. Is “Development” an “Anti-Politics Machine”?
23. Radical Histories and Perspectives (Part 2)
24. Feminist Theories of Development
25. “The Chinese are Our Friends” – China in Africa
26. Chinese Road Builders in Ethiopia
27a: The Political Consequences of Global Health as Development
27b. The Politics of AIDS in Lesotho
28. Social Transformations, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Humanitarian Consumption