MSc Global Development
16 Month Full Time | January Start

You will learn about the physical, social, political, economic, cultural and environmental aspects of health and well-being associated with immediate crises and longer-term health burdens. This lays foundations for comparing and contrasting strategic policy for preparedness and responses to emergent health hazards, complex political disasters, resilient health care and ways of looking at communities and the socio-economic, political, and environmental characteristics they exhibit. This agenda responds to a need to understand the nature and context of changes in human health and well-being in relation to local and global crises. It provides grounding in applied principles and practices of health and well-being centred disaster risk reduction and health care relative to conceptions of health and well-being in emergency, including bottom-up capabilities, leadership and hopes from inside and outside a community. Critical issues in both minority and majority worlds are examined in terms of health hazards, vulnerability, resilience, coping, individual and institutional health care and societal responses. These central themes are explored in relation to key aspects of health and wellbeing, including infectious disease, nutrition, WASH, primary and emergency health care systems, and other integrated well-being perspectives. Students from varied backgrounds will be equipped to contribute to policy and practice debates on health disaster avoidance, survivability and sustainable well-being.

You will learn about the foundations (research theories), advantages and limitations of a range of advanced standard social science research methodologies. You will thus be in a better position to design a research strategy and operationalise this, particularly for your research project assessment, but also for future employment in knowledge societies and research-rich or informed careers and professions. You will also be better prepared to scrutinise other people’s / organisations’ research, and evaluate to what extent it is appropriate, robust and meaningful – particularly the connection between research objectives, questions and methods and interpretation of findings.

Research methods covered will include a range of methods and techniques to explore issues in disaster and development studies, and global development from a human / societal / social processes / organisations / communities perspective. Particular attention will be devoted to evidence-based policy making and “wicked issues”. “Natural” environmental processes will be within the scope of the module as far as a social science-based exploration of “produced nature” is fruitful and necessary.

Topics can include, but are not limited to: Approaching Research Methods, Designing Your Research Process, Ethics and Risk Assessment, Fieldwork Research Issues, Stakeholder issues, Case study research or Participatory methods.

This module aims to provide you with a critical understanding of key debates shaping Global Development Futures. The module examines cutting edge developments in the sector, in the context of demands for innovative responses to issues such as climate change and adaptation, equitable resource management, and decolonising development, including nascent technical fixes and conceptual frameworks disrupting the contemporary development landscape. The module uses the lenses of ‘infrastructures’, ‘economies’ and ‘communities’ to develop an in-depth understanding of innovations across a range of scales, which are re-shaping local and global economies, and the way development is practiced. Practical exercises will help you apply your critical understanding to real-world case studies.

This module aims to provide you with a critical understanding of the key contemporary experiences, policies and debates that characterize development in a time of significant geopolitical change and shifting relationships. The module will enable you to develop cutting edge and nuanced analyses of the changing landscape of global development, and to locate a range of important actors in the global development arena. The module critically debates historical relationships between aid and development, and the predominance of western development agendas and approaches; the emergence of new state and non-state actors, and with this new forms of development cooperation that may transcend the traditional and hierarchical North-South aid relationship; and the implications for development theory and practice. Practical exercises will apply your understanding of geopolitical change and its impacts, to real-world case studies.

How can we explain the continued presence of poverty in many parts of the world? How does development happen? What does development actually mean? This module will critically debate theories of development and the roles of key actors including international organisations, the state, transnational civil society, NGOs and local communities. This will include the different and often contrasting and contradictory roles these actors play, and the ways in which this is captured in different approaches to development theory.

The module will begin by examining debates within development theory and the different propositions that were made to overcome the ‘development impasse’ between state and market led approaches, and post-colonial critiques of traditional development theories espoused after World War II (modernisation theory, dependency theory and World Systems Theory). The module then goes on to explore the meaning of development and ideas of Orientalism, before examining the mainstream neoliberal development project. The module will then engage with a range of critical responses to development, including postcolonialism, the work of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum and the capabilities approach; alter-globalization; cosmopolitanism; and feminist approaches to theorising development, as well as alternative theoretical approaches coming from the Global South.

What are some of the key problems in global development? How can we provide solutions for poverty, hunger, environmental degradation, health and sanitation? This module provides you with an opportunity to explore contemporary global challenges and to develop problem solving skills around real world issues.

The module will bring together the theory and methods part of the programme. Topics you will explore include – but are not limited to – poverty and inequality, hunger, health, sanitation or environmental degradation. You will learn about conflicting theories of solving these problems, contested debates about what poverty and inequality mean and how they are produced and who produces them, and what the best ways are to combat widespread problems such as hunger or environmental pollution.

This is an innovative experiential module that will involve you preparing for, taking part in and reflecting on an overseas study visit. Visits will take place in various locations and will draw on the expertise, partnership, and experiences of the teaching staff. You may visit India, Indonesia, Peru, Uganda or other countries where teaching staff maintain well-established research projects and professional relationships. The location of each study visit will be advertised in advance.

Through this module you will (a) seek to develop a sound knowledge and understanding of the development trajectory of the country/region you are visiting, (b) engage with key civil society development actors and educational partners in that context, (c) deepen your understanding of development practice, (d) develop key transferrable fieldwork skills and (e) develop a critical appreciation of the importance of experiential learning in your own personal and academic development.

The central part of this module will be your experiences whilst overseas in which you will be supported through a range of activities to engage with development practitioners and development challenges as well as the cultural life of the location visited. In order to prepare you for this, workshop will focus on cultural awareness training, the development of core fieldwork skills and planning for enhanced group work activities.

You will develop your understanding of academic conventions in UK higher education aligned to your level of study, including expectations around critical analysis, structure, argumentation, evidencing, and referencing. The module focuses on developing communication strategies that will help you express your ideas clearly and coherently in written assignments and spoken activities. You will also reflect on your current academic and language skills and develop strategies for development ahead of your assessments.