MSc Humanitarianism, Aid & Conflict

The dissertation module, which is taken by all Master’s students, provides them with the opportunity to identify, develop and produce a research based dissertation related to the thematic area of their programme of study. As well as receiving guidance from an academic supervisor, students will also benefit from regular dissertation meetings across the year in which they will receive teaching in the theory and practise of dissertation preparation.

This module is the first compulsory module for students in the MSc Humanitarianism, Aid and Conflict programme. The module provides the opportunity for students to build an in-depth understanding of the challenges and contradictions of humanitarian aid, its interaction with conflict and development aid, and new directions in the field. Students will gain knowledge of the history of the humanitarianism, key local, regional and international actors, and the theoretical, and conceptual debates that are shaping the field. Throughout the module students will critically analyse pressing questions of power, eurocentrism, politics, accountability, and security facing the humanitarian organisations, academics and local communities today. The module draws upon a wide range of voices, and sources from academic literature, including journals from the Global South to fiction, government documents, blogs, and crowd-sourced data.

This module is second compulsory module for students in the MSc Humanitarianism, Aid and Conflict. The module delves into the practicalities, policy dilemmas, and the political challenges of the global responses to conflict, disasters, and other emergencies. Students will develop knowledge the nuances and ethical tensions embedded in humanitarian assistance across a variety of sectors, including refugee regimes, mine action, humanitarian health, and protection. Alongside these challenges students will explore the emerging humanitarian innovations, in technology and finance, and the diverse range of critiques, including context-specific challenges and agendas from the Global South. This module draws on a range of literature, including the academic work on humanitarianism, and relevant reports from NGOs, humanitarian think tanks, datasets and UN bodies.

Migration and development are inextricably related, yet the understanding of this relationship is highly contested. This module introduces students to the so-called nexus between migration and development. The first part of the module explores different analytical understandings of this nexus (neoclassical, political economy, autonomist, feminist and decolonial). On these bases, the second part of the module explores and critically interrogates key policy perspectives concerned with harnessing this relationship. The main aim of this module is to tease out key differences and complementarities between these various understandings of the nexus.

The relationship between migration and development does not unfold in a vacuum, but it is always situated. This module complements the module Migration and Development: analytical and policy perspectives" and is concerned with studying this relationship as it unfolds in various (socio-spatial) contexts. As such, it inverts the perspective of the previous module by examining the so-called nexus between migration and development from the ground up. Each session develops grounded perspectives of the migrant experience as it is shaped by and as it shapes the various ‘contexts’ in which it unfolds."

This module provides a thorough analytical grounding in different social science approaches to violence and conflict, from civil wars to a range of other manifestations (e.g. systematic violence against women, large-scale urban violence, ethnic/religious pogroms and internationalist ‘terrorist’ violence) and their linkages to development problems. It presents ideas for understanding the origins, dimensions, dynamics, costs, and prevention of this broad range of violent conflicts, and tests ideas and approaches through a number of relevant case studies.

What distinguishes this module - one of two core modules of the MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development - from some others is that it approaches the study of violence (not only war) and political/social armed conflict from the perspective of development studies and the inter-disciplinary political economy of development. It challenges conventional wisdoms and engages with the world of practice and policy.

A particular feature of this module is the group case study presentation, accounting for 30% of the total module grade. Other assessments include an essay and a blog.

Students form groups of three or four and present an analytical case study on a place/theme as a video or animated powerpoint. Students attend a weekly lecture and participate in a weekly seminar group. Seminar sessions include student presentations and group discussion of assigned readings related to the lecture topics.

This module deepens knowledge and understanding, from an inter-disciplinary perspective, on the linkages between violence, violent conflict, and development. It focuses on particular dimensions of conflict and violence with powerful practical and policy implications - issues including climate change, land and borderlands, 'terrorism' and the war on terror, conflict resolution, post-conflict reconstruction, and knowledge production in the field of conflict/development. It ends with a panel discussion with invited policy officials/practitioners.
Like the other core module of the MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development this module has a distinctive development studies/political economy of development perspective on issues of conflict and violence. It challenges conventional wisdoms and engages with the world of practice and policy. A particular feature of this module is the assessed group case study presentation. The other assessed element of this module is a blog.

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 debates in gender and development and to introduce new ways of conceptualising the field, critiquing the concept of gender as generally applied in development, and also development itself. We will study issues relevant to gender and development not usually included within the development paradigm, like the coloniality of gender. We will also discuss how the gender binaries came to be so pervasive globally. Gender here is viewed as a set of normative behavioural prescriptions that apply to men as much as to women and men and masculinities will be treated as an integral part of the field alongside women and femininities. Gender is also understood not simply as an issue of individual male-female relationships but as inherently political.

This module provides an introduction to development practice. It examines some of the key challenges and constraints faced by development practitioners in the light of trends in development theory and policy, as well as some of the tools and frameworks commonly used in the world of development practice.

This module questions and investigates the way that forced migration takes place, is represented and is responded to at the international and national level. It uses multidisciplinary approaches, drawing on anthropological, legal, sociological and developmental perspectives to interrogate the causes and consequences of forced migration, the labelling and control of forced migrant populations, the international legal and policy frameworks that contextualize protection and other responses to them. Drawing particularly on examples from sub–Saharan Africa, it asks what options are open to displaced people in the context of political, humanitarian and developmental responses to them.

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.

This course aims to provide a critical, historically informed and empirically grounded perspective on war to peace transitions. It looks at the historical experience of countries emerging from war as well as contemporary examples. It explores the continuities between war and peace, as well as the moments of rupture, and asks how an appreciation of these continuities and transformations can inform policies and strategies in countries emerging from conflict. It also examines through case study material how liberal peacebuilding is ‘translated’ on the ground as it gets implemented (and resisted) through multiple, state, non state and private actors.

This module aims at providing a basic knowledge of the main predicaments facing development in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA, encompassing all members of the League of Arab States, with Iran and Turkey for comparative purposes). It follows the sequence of historical development: an assessment of the key features of pre-industrial society in the area and of the impact of European imperial domination sets the scene for contrasting responses to the challenge of modernity in the 20th century. The major ideological undercurrents produced by this confrontation are examined: adaptation to vs. rejection of ‘Western’ modernity within Islam; the rise of populist nationalism and the ‘socialist’ radicalisation of ‘developmentalist’ regimes. Against the background of the ‘oil shocks’, MENA experienced economic liberalisation, with limited political liberalisation occasionally. The post-Cold War U.S. war drive turned the region into the central arena of the so-called ‘clash of civilisations’. The region’s overall anaemic long-term growth performance—except Turkey—points to massive structural problems that constitute the main factors in the Arab uprising that unfolded in 2011. The dynamics of this ongoing regional upheaval will be thoroughly examined.

Whether we think about migration, development, geopolitics, or citizenship, all questions of our time seem to revolve around the conceptualisation, functions and effects of borders and bordering processes. Borders are central to processes of social change, and the course identifies different approaches to studying borders’ significance in such processes. Borders have also become a key site of policy and political intervention, and the course explores border management practices related to fostering, preventing or channelling the circulation of commodities and people. Finally, the course reflects on the relation between borders, border management and inequalities. Borders are gendered, racialised and power laden. Yet, they are also sites of agency, resistance and subversion. Borders are privileged sites of analytical enquiry, as they render concrete and reproduce selective opportunities, inequalities and contestations.

This course examines global supply chain capitalism and maps its implications for development, with emphasis on the realms of work, gender, poverty, mobility, social reproduction, and labour standards. The course examines the structure of different ‘global commodity chains’ (GCCs), ‘global value chains’ (GVCs) and/or ‘global production networks’ (GPNs), including those organising labour-intensive manufacturing like sweatshops, agro-food production like coffee, or the digital/platform economy. It highlights linkages between the current structure of global production and that characterising the colonial/imperial era. It explores debates on labour informalisation and feminisation; examines the global reorganisation of social reproduction at work in global chains; explains the relevance of labour mobility and forced labour; and analyses global labour standards and ‘modern slavery’ debates, mapping links between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the new ‘abolitionist industrial complex’.

The aim of this module is to enable students to understand and evaluate major policy debates on the role of agriculture in development. To do so, the course will consider in some depth the relevant theoretical and empirical literature on: the necessary for structural change in agriculture-dependant societies; the operation of agricultural factor and commodity markets, including international markets; the nature of rural societies and the characterisation of farmers; the nature of food markets and the role of agriculture in improving welfare. Both mainstream and heterodox approaches will be investigated.

This team-taught course aims to provide an understanding of how aid and aid institutions have impacted on developmental prospects and practice. It explores the role, purpose, and complexities of aid in development through an examination of what forms ‘aid’ takes, and how this contributes to development; the role of specific types of organizations involved in delivering aid; the contexts in which aid is distributed; and the complexities and challenges involved. Thematically, the course is divided into three main areas: firstly and exploration of key ideas and themes in aid and development; secondly, an examination of aid at differing organizational levels; and thirdly, an exploration of aid delivery and practice in specific contexts. It will draw on experiences from a variety of contexts to provide a grounding in how aid and development are linked, and how ‘aid organizations’ function.

In this module we explore a wide range of policy processes around the world that shape the dynamics and impacts of international migration. 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. In particular, we consider debates and initiatives relating to international labour migration and migrants’ rights; education, skills and mobility; various forms of economic and political transnationalism; and refugee movements. Students investigate the positions taken by a variety of stakeholders, from migrant associations, NGOs, employers and trade unions, to emigration states, destination states, regional bodies and international organisations.

In this module, we are aiming for a participatory and intellectually stimulating learning experience. The module engages with theories and approaches that are applied in the study of the working poor in the Global South - and to a lesser extent the Global North - and their collective agency and activism through labour movements, social movements and struggles grounded in both productive and reproductive sites of contention. We begin with an exploration of the main approaches to labour and development in an historical context. We then move on to analyse how neoliberalism and globalisation have incorporated the labouring classes of the South through processes such as informalisation and feminisation of work. The module homes in on the strategies and campaigns of trade unions, labour organisations, social movements and environmental campaigns.

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 extractivism and energy transitions. Adopting a multi-disciplinary 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 module is to introduce varieties of thought and practice in governing the environmental consequences of global development. The starting point in this endeavour is to present predominant understandings of environmental governance as portrayed in the predominant literature. We then turn to look at critical understandings of governance, leading to the central question of the module: do we govern environment-development relations, or do they govern us? The module will draw on a range of case studies, from the international climate negotiations, to the governance of common and forests.

This module explores global health in relation to global development. It considers the links between health, illness and poverty; the ways in which poverty, insecurity and inequalities create particular risks and challenges for individuals and communities; the challenges of responding to health crises and issues; and how global health fits within global development discourses, debates and issues. It does so through a focus on three areas. (1) The place of global health within global development, and key social factors impacting on health. (2) Health systems for global health and development. (3) Key issues in global heath.

The growth of cities is a key features of our times. Today more than half of the world population lives in cities, and developing countries have sustained decades of rapid urbanisation. This module will explore the key academic debates on the relationship between cities and development; the key factors driving the growth of cities in developing countries, from colonial times to the present and its implications for development. The module, taught through a weekly 1 hour lecture and 1 hour tutorialin term 1, will expose students to a number of theoretical approaches to the “urban” in developing countries, including political economy and postcolonial narratives. Such theoretical debates will be used to make sense of a range of urban themes/sectors such as housing, crime, informal employment, transport, digital technology and migration.

This course explores feminist and gendered approaches to the study of global political economy. First, the course explores feminist contributions to the study of the world economy and its intersecting inequalities, including during COVID-19 times, and illustrates feminist analyses of the global assembly line. Second, it introduces social reproduction theorizations and illustrates processes of commodification of social reproduction under neoliberalism, by examining the rise and features of global care and reproductive chains. Third, the course explores links between accumulation, gender, and race, by introducing gendered approaches to racial capitalism, coloniality, and indigeneity. It analyses feminist intersectional, anti-racist and decolonial political movements including BLM; and introduces debates on abolition feminism and reproductive justice. Finally, the course illustrates gendered approaches to agrarian change, food, and the ecology. 

This module encourages students to explore the various pathways to peace that scholars, practitioners, communities and people have proposed and realized. The class provides students with A solid theoretical and historical basis to critical peace and conflict studies and moves from the individual, community, national and international level. This class is an experiential and highly participatory module , however, that moves beyond abstract and distant discussions of peace, war and justice. Each week we consider A different motivation, movement and challenge to understanding peace and achieving justice.

The International Development Placement Module delivers a virtual placement with an organisation working on aspects of development. The core activity is centred on students working in groups with development-orientated partner organisations (POs). Each student will enter into a Placement Agreement with a partner organisation consisting of 40 hours of work spread over February and March in term 2. Students will be allocated to Partner Organisations in teams varying in size from 2-9 students.

This module is collaboratively designed and delivered by SOAS (Dept of Development Studies) and the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance (NMSPG) in Cape Town. Students at each institution will convene in a classroom and lectures will be presented in person in one institution while the students at the other join remotely. The module examines the historical performance of, constraints on, and prospects for African economic development and structural change, within the context of climate change and shifting global geo-politics. It highlights the importance of unevenness and variation in policy and performance, within and between African countries. It looks at inter-sectoral linkages, industrial policy, trade, and financing levels and mechanisms. The module also examines social inequalities, labour, and health & education from a structural change perspective.
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.