Prof Katy Gardner

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Anthropology and Development. This course is available on the MRes/PhD in Anthropology, MSc in China in Comparative Perspective, MSc in Culture, Justice, and Environment, MSc in Human Rights, MSc in Human Rights and Politics, MSc in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies, MSc in Political Science (Conflict Studies and Comparative Politics), MSc in Social Anthropology and MSc in Social Anthropology (Religion in the Contemporary World). This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course explores anthropological perspectives on ‘development’, both in terms of formal schemes of improvement and broader economic transformations and modernisation in the Global South and beyond. Starting with state led schemes in the colonial and post colonial period, we examine the simplifications of development plans and the complexities of bureaucracy and power relations ‘on the ground’. Based around ethnographic case studies, the course provides students with the conceptual tools to understand processes of dispossession and extraction, as well as contemporary neo liberal schemes in which the poor are implored to ‘help themselves’. Topics covered include markets and microcredit, ‘empowerment’, corporate social responsibility and mining, precarity and platform labour and development as ‘anti politics’.

10 hours of lectures and 15 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

Essay (1500 words).

Students will have the opportunity to submit one formative essay of up to 1500 words during the course.

Students taking AN436 as an optional course will be informed of their formative submission deadline by email by the end of Week 4 of term. These students will receive feedback on their formative essays from the course teacher.

Students on the MSc Anthropology and Development programme, for whom AN436 is a core course, will be informed of their submission deadline by their academic mentor early in term. These students will receive feedback on their formative essays from their academic mentor. 

Gardner and Lewis 2015, Anthropology and Development: Twenty First Century Challenges;

Ferguson, J. 1990, The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticisation and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho; Cambridge University Press;

Li, T, 2014 Land's End: Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier;

Karim, L., 2011 Micro-Finance and its Discontents: Women and Debt in Bangladesh;

Elyachar, J. 2005; Markets of Dispossession: NGOs, the Market and the State in Cairo;

Scherz, C. 2014. Having People, Having Heart: Charity, Sustainable Development, and Problems of Dependence in Central Uganda;

Scott; J. 1998, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed.

Detailed reading lists are provided at the beginning of the course.

Essay (100%, 3500 words) in Winter Term Week 4.

To ensure the integrity of our programmes, students taking AN436 may be required to take part in an interview. The interviews will take place after the essay is submitted, and students will be asked about the process of researching and writing their essay. The expectation is that approximately 10% of students, or a minimum of five students, will be required to attend an interview. This requirement applies to any student enrolled on the course whether or not it is the core course for their degree programme. Students who are selected for interview will need to make themselves available before their results can be confirmed.