ITRL 110: Introduction to International Development

Number of Sections: 1 | Day and Time: Monday & Wednesday (9:15-10:45 AM ICT)

Course Description

This interdisciplinary course will explore international development as a socioeconomic and political relationship between the global South and global North, as an enabling discourse for neoliberal policy, and as a broader epistemological project that reproduces the centrality of Western/Northern ways of knowing and governing. A range of theories will be used to critically analyze the discourses, policies, and realities of international development. These will include feminist theory, decolonial theory, and postdevelopment theory. 

The beginning of the course will examine the colonial origins of development. This will segue to the neoliberal turn in development and its reworking of colonial projects such as modernization, racialization, natural resource extraction, and plantation agriculture. Similarly, the rise of export-oriented industrialization will be traced to neoliberal policy diffusion.

Towards the end of the course, we will address various problematics relating to gender and development, including microfinance, environmental degradation, and rural development. The course will conclude by identifying pathways towards alternatives to neoliberal development.