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Building Development Studies for the New Millennium

This book brings together multiple critical assessments of the current state and future visions of global development studies. It examines how the field engages with new paradigms and narratives, methodologies and scientific impact, and perspectives from the Global South. The authors focus on social and democratic transformation, inclusive development and global environmental issues, and implications for research practices. Leading academics provide an excellent overview of recent insights for post-graduate students and scholars in these research areas.

  • Contributes to debates on current state and future visions of international development studies (IDS)
  • Presents contributions of Anglophone, Francophone and Spanish-language social science traditions and academic communities in the global South by leading scholars in the field
  • Discusses recent epistemological and ontological discussions on knowledges and qualities of engaged research

Editors:

Isa Baud is Emeritus Professor of International Development Studies at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Elisabetta Basile is Professor of Development Economics at the University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy.

Tiina Kontinen is Senior Lecturer at the Master Degree Programme in Development and International Cooperation, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Susanne von Itter is Executive Director of EADI, Germany.

Read more on the publisher's website

Read our blog posts by chapter authors

What does a gender lens bring to development studies?

Gender in development studies
Wendy Harcourt -
Gender is a familiar term now in development studies. It is one of those obligatory checks to critical work that look at inequalities, poverty and power relations. I have been ‘doing’ gender in development studies now for three decades – as a feminist advocate and more recently as a professor – engaging in the different debates that have led to the visibility of gender as something to be understood, studied and practiced.
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How Francophone Scholarship Deepened our Understanding of Democracy and Social Change

Christine Lutringer -
What do Alfred Sauvy, Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan and Frantz Fanon have in common? Their works were all written in French and have made considerable contributions to our understanding of democracy and social change, whatever is the context. I explored this theme in a chapter of the upcoming book Building Development Studies for the New Millennium (Palgrave Macmillan), which analyses how Francophone academic literature played an important role in building development studies.
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Development Studies in Spanish: Critical, Constructive and Peripheral

Rogelio Madrueño Aguilar & Pablo José Martínez Oses -
While Development Studies in Spanish (DSS) has remained to some extent side-lined from the mainstream development discourse, one should not minimise its importance and tradition in development thinking and practice. It can be argued that DSS, from conception to implementation, is substantially peripheral and heterodox. More importantly, DSS can be perceived as a response framework to Western ideas of progress and development from a wide range of disciplines and traditions of thought. In particular, we would like to emphasize four key ideas here.
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Watch our Virtual Dialogues with the contributors of the book

Our webinar series provides the unique opportunity to directly engage with the contributors of the book, to learn more about the research behind and to challenge and discuss!

#11 "Building Development Studies for the New Millennium"-  Isa Baud and Elisabetta Basile give an introduction to the book and outline how and why the field of development studies needs to engage with new paradigms and narratives, methodologies and perspectives from the Global South.

#13 "Engaged Excellence in Development Studies" - Melissa Leach and John Gaventa share their reflections and experiences in seeking to promote positive transformative change that is strategically informed by research and knowledge.

#15 "Knowledge Production, Ownership and the Power of Definition" - Henning Melber reflects on knowledge production (in development studies), countering power divides and using the power of privilege.