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Historical Aspects of Development - SIMP38

15 CREDITS | SPRING TERM

From a critical perspective the course focuses on the historical foundation of the problems of development and its manifestations in various locations and over time until the present. As a student you will have the opportunity to interpret a range of important political, economic, social and cultural conditions and processes including their origin and consequences from various theoretical perspectives, and at multiple analytical levels and scales.

Overview

About the Course

The course will introduce you to a broad historical view of colonial processes in three continents followed by a wide-ranging critical theoretical discussion of colonial and imperialist history. This is followed by a critical discussion of development strategies in independent and decolonised countries. Proceeding from the historical struggles for political control and the exploitation and control of natural resources in colonial Africa, Asia, and Latin America the course traces, analyses and compares various development paths and strategies in the three continents, as well as in specific countries. The analysis will search out internal and external driving forces of the processes and assess their outcomes. You will have the chance to critically examine feminist critique of colonialism, images created by the West of the East (orientalism) and by the East of the West (occidentalism) through the lenses of post-modern and post colonial theory.

From the Course Coordinator

"At the core of the teacher team there are teachers from Sustainability science and Human geography, all of us work in the interdisciplinary field of development studies. Our ambition is also to bring in visiting teachers each time the course is given. These teachers complement us with experiences from other disciplines and from their field works.

It is great fun to teach this course as the students have always been very engaged in the course topics. The students bring a variety of experiences from all over the World, from different disciplines and empoyments. It is a lot of reading in the course and the student put a lot of efforts into it which makes the discussions in class and in seminars fruitful and constructive for both students and teachers. I have been part of the teacher team since 2012 and been the course coordinator since 2014."

Online course platform

This course uses Canvas as the online course platform. The course platform will be opened two weeks before the course begins to all students who were accepted. Here you will be able to access literature, assignments, announcements, as well as participate in discussions and communicate with teachers. 

Schedule

The course schedule can be found under the course information on the right. Please note that the final version of the schedule will be made available four weeks before the course begins, and changes may occur until that point. A more detailed schedule will be available on the course platform on Canvas.

About the course

Next course period: 
2025-01-20 to 2025-03-21

Course schedule:
List view | Calendar view

Course syllabus

Course literature