Understanding development: Discourse, practice and power

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.