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Unit of study_
DVST6901: The Global Politics of Development
2026 unit information
The 21st century world is far from the postwar vision of modernisation under the aegis of a liberal international order. What does development mean in a world that has never been more divided and unequal? When people, money, microbes, and coastlines move - and borders are drawn and redrawn - what do powerful, wealthy societies owe the global majority? Can guest workers, squatters, and First Nations do what green revolutions couldn't? This class examines how the focus of development has shifted from growth to health, and expanded to include women and other marginalised groups, and in so doing also set in motion new kinds of politics and new ideas of progress.
Unit details and rules
Managing faculty or University school:
Arts and Social Sciences
| Study level | Postgraduate |
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| Academic unit | Anthropology |
| Credit points | 6 |
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Prerequisites:
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None |
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Corequisites:
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None |
| Prohibitions:
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SSCP6900 |
| Assumed knowledge:
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None |
At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:
- LO1. Understand the roots of the contemporary global politics of development in the ideologies and institutions of European colonialism as an international system, Cold War power struggles, and ethnocentric concepts of modernity and change.
- LO2. Identify the contested and contradictory aspects of modernity, progress, and change in contemporary forms of development policy and practice.
- LO3. Explain experiences with and practices of development intervention in terms of unanticipated outcomes and unintended byproducts of its techniques, knowledge, and assumptions.
- LO4. Formulate a position and develop an argument for reading contemporary cases of development policy and practice in terms of the history of political struggles over the nature and expression of state power, the role of scientific and technical expertise, and the distribution of cultural and symbolic authority.
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