If you are interested in questioning the concepts of gender and development, and giving priority to issues and debates identified within specific countries – rather than relying on predominantly western literature – then this is the programme for you. It is an international, interdisciplinary and analytical course. It does not assume that development is about the ‘third world’ modelling itself on the west, nor about women modelling themselves on men.
Core modules
Gender, Analysis and Development Practice
This module will give experience in applying different concepts and theoretical perspectives to practical issues and problems in gender and development, as a means of learning how to undertake rigorous analysis. It will include focused sessions on the research literatures, followed by group work analysing case studies from different regions of the globe. The specific case studies used illustrate current debates in the literature and address key issues in contemporary development practice.
Gender, Imperialism and International Development
This module fosters comprehensive, critical and advanced knowledge of theoretical approaches to gender and development. It starts by locating gender and development within a history of colonialism, imperialism and orientalism, asking how gender relations have shaped and been shaped by colonialism; how contemporary forms of western imperialism invoke ideas about gender; and how far western feminism has been able to resist orientalist ideas about a ‘modern’ west and a ‘backward’ east. Then it looks critically at some of the measures of gendered development today, including the GDI, GEM, Millennium Development Goals and the replacement Sustainable Development Goals.
Dissertation (Year One full-time and Year Two part-time)
The dissertation module gives you the opportunity to complete an independent piece of research on a topic of your own choice with the support of your dissertation supervisor, plenary teaching, and other online resources. The aim is for you to creatively use the substantive and methodological training acquired in the earlier part of your course to critically analyse a research topic of sociological relevance.
Optional modules
You can take four optional modules, at least one from List (A) and one from List (B). Further modules can be taken from any list but no more than one outside option can normally be taken, from the list of Recommended Outside Options (List D) or, by agreement with the Course Convenor, one module offered by another Department or Centre within the Faculty of Social Sciences.
List A
- Market Life: Wealth and Poverty in Global Capitalism
- Social Research for Social Change
- The Sociology of Urban Life
- Postcolonial Theory and Politics
- Transnational Media Ecologies
- Feminist Pedagogy Feminist Activism
- Queering Sociology
- Indigenous and Global South Feminisms
List B
- Qualitative Methods in Social Research
- Quantitative Methods in Social Research
- Understanding Social Science
- Researching Inequality: Race, Class, Gender in Global Perspective
List C
- Politics and Social Theory
- Capitalism, State and Market
- State of the Art of Sociology
- Sociology of End Times
- Prisons, Punishment and Penal Policy: A Comparative Perspective
- Mastering Complex Real-World Data
List D
- Women’s Human Rights and Global Justice
