Development Studies is an established area of scholarly enquiry, which implies some consensus over what the study of development entails. Does such a consensus exist? This paper argues that although there is some common understanding on Development Studies being about ‘development’ and having an inter-disciplinary as well as normative orientation, there is a set of quite different approaches to, or constellations of, Development Studies.
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This explorative study was commissioned by EADI and conducted between October 2019 and July 2020. It aimed to assess from the perspective of academia facets of cooperation between development research and practice. This included identifying main groups of non-academic actors involved, analyzing motivations as well as enabling or disabling factors, and exploring ethical challenges of research-practice collaboration in development research. The study was conducted in the context of the rising attention paid to cooperation between research and practice in the context of sustainable development.
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This paper explores the concepts of development and development studies and their links to Agenda 2030. It revisits earlier efforts towards a new development paradigm and thereby looks beyond the SDGs. It examines the efforts towards sustainable development as a concept within an emancipatory discourse, which should be rooted in global solidarity, justice and human dignity. It thereby advocates an agenda, which aims at rather complementing if not transcending Agenda 2030, instead of being limited to full compliance within the confinement of the SDGs. This is motivated and guided by the interest to maintain ownership by scholars over development studies instead of surrendering the power of definition to the political and aid bureaucracy.
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