The background paper will attempt
to provide an overview of ‘Development Studies’ as understood
at the beginning of the 21st century.
- First, it will attempt to define the Development
Studies ‘community’ through a review of the types
of individuals and institutions who perceive themselves as belonging
to it.
- Second, since Development Studies cannot lay
claim to being a ‘discipline’ in itself, will be a
discussion of the nature of multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity.
- Third, the relationship between the type of
cross-discipline work involved within Development Studies and
bodies of theory and the desirability of analytical rigour will
be explored including reflections on the nature of research within
Development Studies in terms of special characteristics and limitations.
- Fourth, will be an assessment of the implications
of fact that if Development Studies has any claim to aiding the
process of structural change within and between complex societal
systems, it should have a relevance to developing countries, transition
countries, and developed market countries.
- Fifth, Area Studies and Development Studies
will be compared in terms of their overlapping and complementary
natures.
- Sixth, the sometimes bewildering plethora of
groupings and titles will be reviewed, emphasising the semantic
niceties of the distinction between Development Studies, International
Studies, International Development for example.
- Finally, the subtly different roles and natures
of Development Studies within research, teaching (including pre-undergraduate,
undergraduate and postgraduate levels), consultancy and media
work will be discussed.
Please note that the special conference parallel
session will be ‘connected’ to the conference theme
of ‘Bridging Research and Policy’. There will no problem
over having several papers circulated at the conference session.
However, the lead paper will not only represent the views of the
authors, but will also summarise some of the principal comments
on the earlier draft as well as main points from other papers received
in advance of the conference.
A full draft of the background paper will be ready
before the end of September so that it can be circulated (e.g. put
on to the DSA conference website) for comment before the 2004 conference.
Several people wish to contribute papers which will be tabled before
the conference – e.g. John Morton and Adrienne Martin (NRI,
Greenwich), Renee Prendergast (Queen’s University, Belfast),
Aaron Schneider (IDS, Sussex), and Alan Thomas (Swansea) that we
know of at this point. Others will be welcome.
At the present time the issues of a separate unit
of assessment within the Research Assessment Exercise and of ‘Benchmarking
Development Studies’ for degree courses are very current and
so this is a good time to take an initiative. The special parallel
session during the 2004 DSA Conference on the theme of “The
Nature of Development Studies” has been organised in order
to take this forward.
Convenors:
Andy Sumner (a.p.sumner@uel.ac.uk)
and Mike Tribe (m.a.tribe@bradford.ac.uk)
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Documents to download:
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