BA Honours in Development Studies - Core Courses
SOSS 4034A: Research Essay (Semester 1)
The course examines the foundations of social research, its underlying assumptions, and methodologies, and will combine theoretical discussions with the practical application of research tools. The final product will be a complete research proposal, with some empirical components, that could be used to conduct research in other courses or for degree purposes.
POLS 4012A: Development Theories, Issues, Problems and Strategies (Semester 1)
The aim of this course is to introduce students to the major social, economic, and political, assumptions underpinning ‘development studies’, and, most importantly, to the strategies that might best be adopted to ‘promote’ or ‘manage’ development.
CON 4038A: History of Economic Thought (Semester 2)
In this course we trace economic thought from the time of Aristotle to the present, discovering progression but also significant breaks and ruptures especially in the methodology of economics.
SOCL 4009A: Development as Ideology and Practice (Semester 2)
In the first half of the course, critiques of mainstream development are scrutinised. In the second half, we engage with different theories and critiques that have emerged about development as ideology and discourse. We do so by focusing on theories and practices of industrialisation and development in several regions of the world namely, Western Europe, Southern Africa, East Asia, China & Russia, and Latin America.
- Students must choose between POLS 4012A and SOCL 4009A as a third core course
- Students must select three electives from the list at the bottom of this section.
BA Joint Honours in Development Studies and International Relations - Core Courses
POLS 4052A: Research Methods and Ethics in Political Studies (Semester 1)
POLS 4012A: Development Theories, Issues, Problems and Strategies (Semester 1)
The aim of this course is to introduce students to the major social, economic, and political, assumptions underpinning ‘development studies’, and, most importantly, to the strategies that might best be adopted to ‘promote’ or ‘manage’ development.
ECON 4038A: History of Economic Thought (Semester 2)
In this course we trace economic thought from the time of Aristotle to the present, discovering progression but also significant breaks and ruptures especially in the methodology of economics.
POLS 4026: Research Essay
- Students must select two electives from the list at the bottom of this section.
BA Joint Honours in Development Studies and Political Studies - Core Courses
POLS 4052A: Research Methods and Ethics in Political Studies (Semester 1)
POLS 4012A: Development Theories, Issues, Problems and Strategies (Semester 1)
The aim of this course is to introduce students to the major social, economic, and political, assumptions underpinning ‘development studies’, and, most importantly, to the strategies that might best be adopted to ‘promote’ or ‘manage’ development.
ECON 4038A: History of Economic Thought (Semester 2)
In this course we trace economic thought from the time of Aristotle to the present, discovering progression but also significant breaks and ruptures especially in the methodology of economics.
POLS 4026: Research Essay
- Students must select two electives from the list below
Electives
HIST4001 Capitalism and the South African Countryside
In this course theories of rural development and comparative perspectives will be used to illuminate processes of rural transformation in South Africa. The course will highlight a range of themes including migrant labour, rural resistance, state intervention, forms of accumulation, labour regimes, land reform, gender, generation, stratification, chieftainship, local government and the role of markets.
INTR4044A The International Political Economy of Development
This unit focuses on the international political economy of development. It examines challenges posed to developing countries by the international system. Topics include multilateral institutions (IMF, World Bank, and WTO), development aid and debt relief, regional economic initiatives, and the interplay between world markets and domestic political institutions.
INTR4053A Empire and the Crisis of Civilization
This course explores the historical and contemporary understandings of ‘Empire’ in the social sciences. Drawing on critical theory this course will assess how Empire relates to territoriality, power, culture and economic accumulation. These dimensions of Empire will be located within a historicised perspective to provide a critical understanding of the relationship between Empire and contemporary capitalism.
POLS4012 Development Theories, Issues, Problems and Strategies
The aim of this course is to introduce students to the major social, economic, and political, assumptions underpinning ‘development studies’, and, most importantly, to the strategies that might best be adopted to ‘promote’ or ‘manage’ development. In this way, the ‘problem of development’ in three loosely defined and interconnected areas of social life—the market, the state, and the community— is placed into sharper relief.
POLS4049 Political Thought: Freedom in the Decolonizing Republic
SOSS4022A Labour & Development
This course analyses the role of labour in the development process both historically and in the current epoch of globalisation. A focus is placed on labour and development in Southern Africa and the Global South.
SOCL4015A Environmental Sociology: The Political Economy of Nature And Development
The course will illuminate a number of global, regional, national and local environmental issues, through a political economy and sociological lens, drawing on a wide range of theorists. The rise of a global environmental social movement will be traced, including the environmental justice movements in South Africa and elsewhere. Students will be encouraged to address a particular environmental problem as part of their written contribution to the course. This course is also relevant to students of Geography, International Relations, Politics, Town and Regional Planning, and the Natural Sciences.
SOSS4034A / SOCL4028A Research Essay
The course examines the foundations of social research, its underlying assumptions and methodologies. It combines theoretical discussions with the practical application of research tools.
ANTH4018 South African Ethnography
This course addresses the most significant authors, issues, debates, intellectual moments, and classic works in the discipline in this country. The idea is to expose students, as prospective anthropologists, to major works by some of our most successful and distinguished authors in the South African field. The course will take the form of a reading group.
ARPL4024 Politics, Governance and the City
Theories of urban regimes, urban governance, participation, social movements and political mobilization will be presented and their relevance for cities of the South debated through different case studies. The course includes a project based on field work in a local neighbourhood in Johannesburg.
ECON4038A History of Economic Thought
In this course we trace economic thought from the time of Aristotle to the present, discovering progression but also significant breaks and ruptures especially in the methodology of economics.
INTR4005A African Human Security in an International Context
The course explores the structures, institutions and substantive issues related to Human Security, particularly in Africa.
INTR4031 African Conflict
The course unit will offer important insights into new forms of multilateral conflict prevention, which includes human rights protection and political compromise within states.
A case study approach will be adopted to deal in greater depth with conflicts in Somalia, Rwanda, the Congo and West Africa. The role of the regional, sub-regional and non-state actors, recent changes in the UN and AU's conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms, and the current capabilities and potential for sub-regional security mechanisms in the SADC and ECOWAS will be assessed and compared.
POLS4033 The State in Africa: Democratisation and Crisis
This course takes as its starting point debates about the genesis and the development of the African state.
This unit will explore the tensions which exist between those views of the state in Africa that perceive it to be inherently authoritarian and moreover disengaged from society and those arguments which support the adoption by African countries of liberal democratic constitutions derived from advanced industrial societies.
SOCL4030A Social Transition
Social Transitions is an intensive critical theory seminar. The first half of the course lays a foundation from which to think about ‘Theory’. During this time we explore four questions: Whose theory is Sociological Theory? Where is ‘the sociological imagination’ located? What is the ‘dark side’ of this imagination? Which other sociological imaginations are available to us as scholars? The second half of the course explores these relationships between theory and power through the lens of theories about 'race' in modernity.
SOCL4009A Development as Ideology and Practice
This course examines different ways in which “development” has been theorised and attempted to be attained in practice. The first half examines critiques of mainstream development. The second half engages with different theories and critiques that have emerged about development as ideology and discourse. We do so by focusing on theories and practices of industrialisation and development in several regions of the world namely, Western Europe, Southern Africa, East Asia, China & Russia and Latin America.
SOCL4029A Feminist Theory
Feminist Theory shall introduce students to key and cutting edge debates in Women's and Gender Studies and Feminist Theory and Politics today particularly from a postcolonial perspective, such as transnational feminism, governance feminism, African and Islamic feminism, to name but a few. It shall equally interrogate key concepts like Ethics, Politics and subjectivity from a feminist perspective.
SOSS4051A HIV/AIDS, Sexual and Reproductive Health in Social Context
This course adopts a multi-disciplinary approach in exploring the social and historical context relevant to HIV/AIDS as a global pandemic. The aim of the course is to equip you with the skills and the insights to better understand the complexity of the epidemic in order to be able to make a meaningful contribution to the efforts to combat its devastating effects.
HIST4013 The Making of Urban South Africa
The course explores the social, political and economic history of urbanisation in South Africa from the late 19th to the late 20th centuries. Its central focus is the Witwatersrand, but it also examines parallel and especially divergent processes in Cape Town, Durban, East London, Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth and Pretoria.