MSc Global Development with Placement Year

This module provides a grounding in the Sociology and Politics of development, which is complementary to the module Political Economy of Development in the MSc Development Studies, exploring theoretical ideas and debates about development, with a historical perspective.

The aim of this course is to develop an understanding of what is involved in the political economy of development: does this have a clear meaning on which everyone agrees? What is the relationship between development economics and economics? How might political economy differ from much economics or from much development economics? What are the key concepts, issues, and questions at the heart of the political economy of development and how does this matter for policy-making? It introduces debates and it focuses on the relationship of economics to politics and power as well as focusing on the issue of distribution of income and wealth.

This module provides a grounding in the Sociology and Politics of development, which is complementary to the module Political Economy of Development in the MSc Development Studies, exploring theoretical ideas and debates about development, with a historical perspective.

The aim of this course is to develop an understanding of what is involved in the political economy of development: does this have a clear meaning on which everyone agrees? What is the relationship between development economics and economics? How might political economy differ from much economics or from much development economics? What are the key concepts, issues, and questions at the heart of the political economy of development and how does this matter for policy-making? It introduces debates and it focuses on the relationship of economics to politics and power as well as focusing on the issue of distribution of income and wealth.

The purpose of this module is to familiarise students with the main analytic debates in the field of gender and development. Four institutional domains (households, family and kinship, the market, the community and the state) through which gender relations are both defined and transformed receive separate attention.

Students will survey the major theoretical approaches to global labour and labour activism, including the historical patterns of labour migration and the role it has played in forming the modern world; contemporary patterns and drivers of labour relations; the relationship between labour, migration and globalisation; the institutional and political dynamics that shape these flows; and the policy implications – and subsequent debates – that have arisen around them.

This course focuses attention to social movements in relation to civil society and to the development project itself. It examines some current positions on theorising 'civil society' and 'new social movements'.

The purpose of this module is to familiarise students with the main analytic debates in the field of gender and development. Four institutional domains (households, family and kinship, the market, the community and the state) through which gender relations are both defined and transformed receive separate attention.

This module provides an introduction to development practice by examining some of the key challenges and constraints faced by development practitioners in the light of trends in development theory and policy. It is divided into three subject areas. First, a range of planning and management tools and frameworks employed by governments, donor agencies and NGOs are examined. These include tools associated with project cycle management including log frame analysis, participative planning and management, monitoring and evaluation frameworks. Second, the module examines the organisational challenges for improved development practice. This involves analysis of capacity building challenges including those relating to management, culture, leadership and learning. Finally how development agencies relate to one another, and approaches to coordinated action, are examined with a particular focus on managing external relations, building alliances and advocacy.

This module provides an introduction to the study of forced migration in the developing world, and aims to provide students with a broad understanding of various types of forced migration, the causes and consequences of displacement, and key contemporary questions in the field. The module draws on a range of theoretical approaches to understand the structural, historical, and political nature of forced migration, and highlights the relationship between underdevelopment and forced migration.

The module will offer an overview of the main research designs and techniques used in development research. It will put emphasis on both the use of secondary sources (text, numbers, images, audio, etc.) and the process of collecting primary empirical material for analysis.

The module aims to give students the analytical tools and case study knowledge to be able to make informed assessments of experiences and policy proposals for war to peace transitions and post-conflict reconstruction. It aims to be intellectually challenging and also to give students knowledge that will help them in the labour market-especially given the increasing significance in recent years of post-conflict reconstruction programmes and interventions.

The module on Security examines the meanings and agents of security, acknowledging shifts from the traditional notion of national security, to forms of security located from the individual to the global. Security is conceptualised in this module as a pattern of relations designed to manage risk through collaboration, competition and compromise; its opposites are vulnerability, insecurity and terror. The module investigates processes and phenomena that pose direct threats to groups of people and, in doing so, potentially destabilise or aggravate situations. Famine, financial volatility and AIDS undermine people physically, politically and psychologically, and on occasions result in further forms of insecurity as people resist, retaliate or take advantage of the situation.

Almost all questions of our time revolve around the conceptualisation, functions and effects of boundaries and of bordering processes. Development is no exception and the module, at its broadest, draws from the vast body of literature concerned with these issues to study the relation between borders and the development process.

The module is taught across ten sessions, each dealing with a different aspect of aid and development. Thematically, the module deals with three main areas: firstly an exploration of key ideas and themes in aid and development; secondly, and examination of how aid functions at different levels; and thirdly, aid in specific contexts.

The module provides students with the opportunity to engage critically with the complex configurations of institutions, politics and normative claims that underpin migration-related policy (with an emphasis on contemporary policy developments, although these are situated in an historical perspective). It also challenges students to explore alternative policy approaches.

Students will survey the major theoretical approaches to global labour and labour activism, including the historical patterns of labour migration and the role it has played in forming the modern world; contemporary patterns and drivers of labour relations; the relationship between labour, migration and globalisation; the institutional and political dynamics that shape these flows; and the policy implications – and subsequent debates – that have arisen around them.

This course is intended for students interested in analysing how climate change, especially the discourse and policies around it, might be leading to a new global configuration of social forces around extractive industries and renewable energy. Adopting a political economy approach, this course will focus on how different actors, notably from the fossil fuel sector (oil, gas, and coal), agribusiness, nation-states from the South and the North, as well as civil society organisations and social movements, are trying to influence and navigate the changing global discourse on climate change and energy transition in order to push their agendas and understandings of sustainable development.

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the major debates surrounding environment and development, and to provide a broader understanding of the North-South dimensions of environmental governance. In this course students will be engaged in the debates about governing the environment at various scales, and how they interlink with dynamics of development. The environment is an ideal arena to examine this because of the transboundary nature of environmental change, which necessarily implies policies that link the local and the global through a series of networks ranging from states to NGOs to international organisations.

This course fills a gap in the subjects offered under the Development Studies (and other Departmental) programme(s). Health and disease has been a major feature of development policy, both in the recent period (Millennium Development Goals), and historically (since the world’s first aid Act sanctioned, in 1929, improving health as a legitimate use of foreign aid).

The growth of cities is one of the key features of our times. Today more than half of the world population lives in cities, and developing countries have sustained decades of rapid and sustained urbanisation. This course will explore a) the key academic debates on the relationship between cities and development; b) the key factors driving the growth of cities in developing countries, from colonial times to the present and c) its implications for development.

This course explores feminist and gendered approaches to political economy and globalisation. It analyses key insights on gender and globalisation, highlighting feminist contributions to the study of inequality, trade, and poverty, and illustrates feminist analyses of the global assembly line.

This module crtically examines the conceptualization of peace and the practice of various peace processes and peace building projects by global, regional, national and local actors. Students will receive a solid historical and theoretical introduction to critical peace studies scholarship, and engage in key debates in the field.

The placements will be with organisations engaged in development work; some placements will be online (enabling students to work in organisations elsewhere in the world), others will be in the UK. The placement involves students participating in development-related NGOs. These may specialise in research, campaigning, para-legal work, policy, aid, gender, racial justice, labour etc. The aim is to allow students' prior academic studies to inform and enrich their experience of professional practice, and the exposure to professional practice will in turn inform and enrich their analysis of development practices and processes. The placement will also provide invaluable experience as they embark on careers after graduating.

Structural Change and Economic Development in Africa (SCEDA) is a pioneering module that is a product of the partnership between SOAS (Department of Development Studies, CODEF) in London and the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance (NMSPG) in Cape Town. The module has been designed by and will be delivered by staff in both institutions. Delivery is hybrid: each week a lecturer in one institution will give an on campus lecture while students (and a staff moderator) at the other institution will attend remotely, in a virtual classroom.

Students will be exposed to the leading scholarly expertise and practitioner experience at SOAS and the NMSPG. Students will not merely listen to lectures presented in both institutions but engage actively in group discussions with students in both classrooms, in Cape Town and London.

The module examines the historical performance of, constraints on, and prospects for African economic development and structural change, taking particular note of the context of climate change and shifting global geo-politics. It engages critically with prominent narratives of the impossibility of industrialization on the continent and it highlights how unevenness and variation in policy and performance, within and between African countries, helps shed light on the scope of the possible. It looks at inter-sectoral linkages, industrial policy, trade and the balance of payments, and financing levels and mechanisms. The module also examines social inequalities, labour, health & education, and poverty reduction from a structural change perspective. 

This course focuses attention to social movements in relation to civil society and to the development project itself. It examines some current positions on theorising 'civil society' and 'new social movements'.

The placements will be with organisations engaged in development work; some placements will be online (enabling students to work in organisations elsewhere in the world), others will be in the UK. The placement involves students participating in development-related NGOs. These may specialise in research, campaigning, para-legal work, policy, aid, gender, racial justice, labour etc. The aim is to allow students' prior academic studies to inform and enrich their experience of professional practice, and the exposure to professional practice will in turn inform and enrich their analysis of development practices and processes. The placement will also provide invaluable experience as they embark on careers after graduating.

The purpose of this module is to familiarise students with the main analytic debates in the field of gender and development. Four institutional domains (households, family and kinship, the market, the community and the state) through which gender relations are both defined and transformed receive separate attention.

This module provides an introduction to development practice by examining some of the key challenges and constraints faced by development practitioners in the light of trends in development theory and policy. It is divided into three subject areas. First, a range of planning and management tools and frameworks employed by governments, donor agencies and NGOs are examined. These include tools associated with project cycle management including log frame analysis, participative planning and management, monitoring and evaluation frameworks. Second, the module examines the organisational challenges for improved development practice. This involves analysis of capacity building challenges including those relating to management, culture, leadership and learning. Finally how development agencies relate to one another, and approaches to coordinated action, are examined with a particular focus on managing external relations, building alliances and advocacy.

This module provides an introduction to the study of forced migration in the developing world, and aims to provide students with a broad understanding of various types of forced migration, the causes and consequences of displacement, and key contemporary questions in the field. The module draws on a range of theoretical approaches to understand the structural, historical, and political nature of forced migration, and highlights the relationship between underdevelopment and forced migration.

The module will offer an overview of the main research designs and techniques used in development research. It will put emphasis on both the use of secondary sources (text, numbers, images, audio, etc.) and the process of collecting primary empirical material for analysis.

The module aims to give students the analytical tools and case study knowledge to be able to make informed assessments of experiences and policy proposals for war to peace transitions and post-conflict reconstruction. It aims to be intellectually challenging and also to give students knowledge that will help them in the labour market-especially given the increasing significance in recent years of post-conflict reconstruction programmes and interventions.

The module on Security examines the meanings and agents of security, acknowledging shifts from the traditional notion of national security, to forms of security located from the individual to the global. Security is conceptualised in this module as a pattern of relations designed to manage risk through collaboration, competition and compromise; its opposites are vulnerability, insecurity and terror. The module investigates processes and phenomena that pose direct threats to groups of people and, in doing so, potentially destabilise or aggravate situations. Famine, financial volatility and AIDS undermine people physically, politically and psychologically, and on occasions result in further forms of insecurity as people resist, retaliate or take advantage of the situation.

Almost all questions of our time revolve around the conceptualisation, functions and effects of boundaries and of bordering processes. Development is no exception and the module, at its broadest, draws from the vast body of literature concerned with these issues to study the relation between borders and the development process.

The module is taught across ten sessions, each dealing with a different aspect of aid and development. Thematically, the module deals with three main areas: firstly an exploration of key ideas and themes in aid and development; secondly, and examination of how aid functions at different levels; and thirdly, aid in specific contexts.

The module provides students with the opportunity to engage critically with the complex configurations of institutions, politics and normative claims that underpin migration-related policy (with an emphasis on contemporary policy developments, although these are situated in an historical perspective). It also challenges students to explore alternative policy approaches.

This course is intended for students interested in analysing how climate change, especially the discourse and policies around it, might be leading to a new global configuration of social forces around extractive industries and renewable energy. Adopting a political economy approach, this course will focus on how different actors, notably from the fossil fuel sector (oil, gas, and coal), agribusiness, nation-states from the South and the North, as well as civil society organisations and social movements, are trying to influence and navigate the changing global discourse on climate change and energy transition in order to push their agendas and understandings of sustainable development.

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the major debates surrounding environment and development, and to provide a broader understanding of the North-South dimensions of environmental governance. In this course students will be engaged in the debates about governing the environment at various scales, and how they interlink with dynamics of development. The environment is an ideal arena to examine this because of the transboundary nature of environmental change, which necessarily implies policies that link the local and the global through a series of networks ranging from states to NGOs to international organisations.

This course fills a gap in the subjects offered under the Development Studies (and other Departmental) programme(s). Health and disease has been a major feature of development policy, both in the recent period (Millennium Development Goals), and historically (since the world’s first aid Act sanctioned, in 1929, improving health as a legitimate use of foreign aid).

The growth of cities is one of the key features of our times. Today more than half of the world population lives in cities, and developing countries have sustained decades of rapid and sustained urbanisation. This course will explore a) the key academic debates on the relationship between cities and development; b) the key factors driving the growth of cities in developing countries, from colonial times to the present and c) its implications for development.

This course explores feminist and gendered approaches to political economy and globalisation. It analyses key insights on gender and globalisation, highlighting feminist contributions to the study of inequality, trade, and poverty, and illustrates feminist analyses of the global assembly line.

This module crtically examines the conceptualization of peace and the practice of various peace processes and peace building projects by global, regional, national and local actors. Students will receive a solid historical and theoretical introduction to critical peace studies scholarship, and engage in key debates in the field.

Structural Change and Economic Development in Africa (SCEDA) is a pioneering module that is a product of the partnership between SOAS (Department of Development Studies, CODEF) in London and the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance (NMSPG) in Cape Town. The module has been designed by and will be delivered by staff in both institutions. Delivery is hybrid: each week a lecturer in one institution will give an on campus lecture while students (and a staff moderator) at the other institution will attend remotely, in a virtual classroom.

Students will be exposed to the leading scholarly expertise and practitioner experience at SOAS and the NMSPG. Students will not merely listen to lectures presented in both institutions but engage actively in group discussions with students in both classrooms, in Cape Town and London.

The module examines the historical performance of, constraints on, and prospects for African economic development and structural change, taking particular note of the context of climate change and shifting global geo-politics. It engages critically with prominent narratives of the impossibility of industrialization on the continent and it highlights how unevenness and variation in policy and performance, within and between African countries, helps shed light on the scope of the possible. It looks at inter-sectoral linkages, industrial policy, trade and the balance of payments, and financing levels and mechanisms. The module also examines social inequalities, labour, health & education, and poverty reduction from a structural change perspective. 

This module provides a grounding in the Sociology and Politics of development, which is complementary to the module Political Economy of Development in the MSc Development Studies, exploring theoretical ideas and debates about development, with a historical perspective.

The aim of this course is to develop an understanding of what is involved in the political economy of development: does this have a clear meaning on which everyone agrees? What is the relationship between development economics and economics? How might political economy differ from much economics or from much development economics? What are the key concepts, issues, and questions at the heart of the political economy of development and how does this matter for policy-making? It introduces debates and it focuses on the relationship of economics to politics and power as well as focusing on the issue of distribution of income and wealth.

This course focuses attention to social movements in relation to civil society and to the development project itself. It examines some current positions on theorising 'civil society' and 'new social movements'.

The purpose of this module is to familiarise students with the main analytic debates in the field of gender and development. Four institutional domains (households, family and kinship, the market, the community and the state) through which gender relations are both defined and transformed receive separate attention.

This module provides an introduction to development practice by examining some of the key challenges and constraints faced by development practitioners in the light of trends in development theory and policy. It is divided into three subject areas. First, a range of planning and management tools and frameworks employed by governments, donor agencies and NGOs are examined. These include tools associated with project cycle management including log frame analysis, participative planning and management, monitoring and evaluation frameworks. Second, the module examines the organisational challenges for improved development practice. This involves analysis of capacity building challenges including those relating to management, culture, leadership and learning. Finally how development agencies relate to one another, and approaches to coordinated action, are examined with a particular focus on managing external relations, building alliances and advocacy.

This module provides an introduction to the study of forced migration in the developing world, and aims to provide students with a broad understanding of various types of forced migration, the causes and consequences of displacement, and key contemporary questions in the field. The module draws on a range of theoretical approaches to understand the structural, historical, and political nature of forced migration, and highlights the relationship between underdevelopment and forced migration.

The module will offer an overview of the main research designs and techniques used in development research. It will put emphasis on both the use of secondary sources (text, numbers, images, audio, etc.) and the process of collecting primary empirical material for analysis.

The module aims to give students the analytical tools and case study knowledge to be able to make informed assessments of experiences and policy proposals for war to peace transitions and post-conflict reconstruction. It aims to be intellectually challenging and also to give students knowledge that will help them in the labour market-especially given the increasing significance in recent years of post-conflict reconstruction programmes and interventions.

The module on Security examines the meanings and agents of security, acknowledging shifts from the traditional notion of national security, to forms of security located from the individual to the global. Security is conceptualised in this module as a pattern of relations designed to manage risk through collaboration, competition and compromise; its opposites are vulnerability, insecurity and terror. The module investigates processes and phenomena that pose direct threats to groups of people and, in doing so, potentially destabilise or aggravate situations. Famine, financial volatility and AIDS undermine people physically, politically and psychologically, and on occasions result in further forms of insecurity as people resist, retaliate or take advantage of the situation.

Almost all questions of our time revolve around the conceptualisation, functions and effects of boundaries and of bordering processes. Development is no exception and the module, at its broadest, draws from the vast body of literature concerned with these issues to study the relation between borders and the development process.

The module is taught across ten sessions, each dealing with a different aspect of aid and development. Thematically, the module deals with three main areas: firstly an exploration of key ideas and themes in aid and development; secondly, and examination of how aid functions at different levels; and thirdly, aid in specific contexts.

The module provides students with the opportunity to engage critically with the complex configurations of institutions, politics and normative claims that underpin migration-related policy (with an emphasis on contemporary policy developments, although these are situated in an historical perspective). It also challenges students to explore alternative policy approaches.

Students will survey the major theoretical approaches to global labour and labour activism, including the historical patterns of labour migration and the role it has played in forming the modern world; contemporary patterns and drivers of labour relations; the relationship between labour, migration and globalisation; the institutional and political dynamics that shape these flows; and the policy implications – and subsequent debates – that have arisen around them.

This course is intended for students interested in analysing how climate change, especially the discourse and policies around it, might be leading to a new global configuration of social forces around extractive industries and renewable energy. Adopting a political economy approach, this course will focus on how different actors, notably from the fossil fuel sector (oil, gas, and coal), agribusiness, nation-states from the South and the North, as well as civil society organisations and social movements, are trying to influence and navigate the changing global discourse on climate change and energy transition in order to push their agendas and understandings of sustainable development.

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the major debates surrounding environment and development, and to provide a broader understanding of the North-South dimensions of environmental governance. In this course students will be engaged in the debates about governing the environment at various scales, and how they interlink with dynamics of development. The environment is an ideal arena to examine this because of the transboundary nature of environmental change, which necessarily implies policies that link the local and the global through a series of networks ranging from states to NGOs to international organisations.

This course fills a gap in the subjects offered under the Development Studies (and other Departmental) programme(s). Health and disease has been a major feature of development policy, both in the recent period (Millennium Development Goals), and historically (since the world’s first aid Act sanctioned, in 1929, improving health as a legitimate use of foreign aid).

The growth of cities is one of the key features of our times. Today more than half of the world population lives in cities, and developing countries have sustained decades of rapid and sustained urbanisation. This course will explore a) the key academic debates on the relationship between cities and development; b) the key factors driving the growth of cities in developing countries, from colonial times to the present and c) its implications for development.

This course explores feminist and gendered approaches to political economy and globalisation. It analyses key insights on gender and globalisation, highlighting feminist contributions to the study of inequality, trade, and poverty, and illustrates feminist analyses of the global assembly line.

This module crtically examines the conceptualization of peace and the practice of various peace processes and peace building projects by global, regional, national and local actors. Students will receive a solid historical and theoretical introduction to critical peace studies scholarship, and engage in key debates in the field.

The placements will be with organisations engaged in development work; some placements will be online (enabling students to work in organisations elsewhere in the world), others will be in the UK. The placement involves students participating in development-related NGOs. These may specialise in research, campaigning, para-legal work, policy, aid, gender, racial justice, labour etc. The aim is to allow students' prior academic studies to inform and enrich their experience of professional practice, and the exposure to professional practice will in turn inform and enrich their analysis of development practices and processes. The placement will also provide invaluable experience as they embark on careers after graduating.

Structural Change and Economic Development in Africa (SCEDA) is a pioneering module that is a product of the partnership between SOAS (Department of Development Studies, CODEF) in London and the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance (NMSPG) in Cape Town. The module has been designed by and will be delivered by staff in both institutions. Delivery is hybrid: each week a lecturer in one institution will give an on campus lecture while students (and a staff moderator) at the other institution will attend remotely, in a virtual classroom.

Students will be exposed to the leading scholarly expertise and practitioner experience at SOAS and the NMSPG. Students will not merely listen to lectures presented in both institutions but engage actively in group discussions with students in both classrooms, in Cape Town and London.

The module examines the historical performance of, constraints on, and prospects for African economic development and structural change, taking particular note of the context of climate change and shifting global geo-politics. It engages critically with prominent narratives of the impossibility of industrialization on the continent and it highlights how unevenness and variation in policy and performance, within and between African countries, helps shed light on the scope of the possible. It looks at inter-sectoral linkages, industrial policy, trade and the balance of payments, and financing levels and mechanisms. The module also examines social inequalities, labour, health & education, and poverty reduction from a structural change perspective. 

This course explores feminist and gendered approaches to political economy and globalisation. It analyses key insights on gender and globalisation, highlighting feminist contributions to the study of inequality, trade, and poverty, and illustrates feminist analyses of the global assembly line.

This interdisciplinary module approaches gender and sexual dynamics in the modern Middle East through the lens of political unrest, protest, and revolution. Through a study of critical moments in Middle Eastern history characterised by rupture, flux, and upheaval, students will explore how norms of gender and sexuality in the region emerge, develop, sediment, evolve, and get disrupted.

Migration and diaspora are - like gender – not descriptive, objective categories, but analytical tools to name positions of power. In this course we discuss what gendering, diaspora and migration can imply as analytical (not descriptive) categories and how they are constructed interdependently by power relations. We will engage with a range of approaches to gender, migrations and diasporas and will address the social and political dimensions of migration and diasporas as well as politics related to constructions of non/belonging, cultural productions and imaginations.

This course is intended to provide both an introduction to queer theory, as well as to engage with the question of its relevance in contemporary Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. This course will use struggles for sexual self-determination as a prism through which to consider broader questions about the constitution of modernity, the proliferation of identities, rights and claims for justice, the consolidation and deconstruction of postcolonial national identities, the aspirations and anxieties of postcolonial elites, etc. These questions will be studied contextually, with topics in many weeks focusing on a single area case study, or a comparison of two or more country-contexts.

The module aims to show in which ways trans and crip perspectives are relevant for scholarship and activism on gender and sexuality and foregrounds a critical perspective on racism, nationalism and colonialism in its overall approach. Moreover, it provides reflections on cultural and media studies methodologies, including how to deal with difficult/shocking content, trigger warnings, spectatorship, language use and questions of access/non-access to visual/audio material.