This experiential learning course allows students to experience first hand the realities, challenges, and opportunities of working with development organizations in Africa. The goal is to allow students to actively engage in research, decision-making, problem solving, partnership building, and fundraising, processes that are the key elements of development work.
Same as AFSA03H3

Introduces students to major development problems, focusing on international economic and political economy factors. Examines trade, aid, international institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. Examines both conventional economic perspectives as well as critiques of these perspectives. This course can be counted for credit in ECM Programs.

The environmental consequences of development activities with emphasis on tropical countries. Environmental change in urban, rainforest, semi-arid, wetland, and mountainous systems. The influences of development on the global environment; species extinction, loss of productive land, reduced access to resources, declining water quality and quantity, and climate change.

This course offers an introduction to the political, institutional, social, economic, epidemiological, and ideological forces in the field of international/global health. While considerable reference will be made to “high-income” countries, major emphasis will be placed on the health conditions of “low- and middle-income” countries – and their interaction with the development “aid” milieu. After setting the historical and political economy context, the course explores key topics and themes in global health including: international/global health agencies and activities; data on health; epidemiology and the global distribution of health and disease; the societal determinants of health and health equity; health economics and the organization of health care systems in comparative perspective; globalization, trade, work, and health; health humanitarianism in the context of crisis, health and the environment; the ingredients of healthy societies across the world; and social justice approaches to global health.

What constitutes equitable, ethical as well as socially and environmentally just processes and outcomes of development? This course explores these questions with particular emphasis on their philosophical and ideological foundations and on the challenges of negotiating global differences in cultural, political and environmental values in international development.

This course offers students an in-depth survey of the role race and racism plays in Development of Thought and Practice across the globe. Students will learn the multiple ways colonial imaginaries and classificatory schemes continue to shape International Development and Development Studies. A variety of conceptual frameworks for examining race, racism and racialization will also be introduced.

Examines in-depth the roles of information and communication technology (ICT) in knowledge production and their impact on development. Do new forms of social media make communication more effective, equitable, or productive in the globalized world? How has network media changed governance, advocacy, and information flow and knowledge exchange and what do these mean for development?

This course will focus on the importance of historical, socio-economic, and political context in understanding the varying development experiences of different parts of the Global South. In addition to an introductory and concluding lecture, the course will be organized around two-week modules unpacking the development experience in four different regions of the Global South – Latin America/Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and South/South East Asia.

Examines research design and methods appropriate to development fieldwork. Provides `hands on' advice (practical, personal and ethical) to those preparing to enter "the field"; or pursuing development work as a career. Students will prepare a research proposal as their main course assignment.

The role science plays in informing environmental policy is sometimes unclear. Students in this interdisciplinary class will examine key elements associated with generating scientific environmental knowledge, and learn how this understanding can be used to inform and critique environmental policy. Discussions of contemporary domestic and international examples are used to highlight concepts and applications.

Studies the phases of the project management cycle with emphasis on situational analysis and identification of needs, project implementation, project monitoring and evaluation. Examines basic organizational development, the role of Canadian non-governmental organizations engaged in the delivery of development assistance as well as with CIDA's policies and practices.

This Directed Readings course is designed for students who already have an ongoing working relationship with a Canadian Development institution (both non-government organizations and private agencies). The course will run parallel to the work experience. Students interested in this course must contact and obtain permission from the CCDS Associate Director prior to the beginning of term.

A case study approach building on Project Management I. Examines: the art of effective communication and negotiation, visioning, participatory and rapid rural appraisal; survey design and implementation; advanced financial management and budgeting; basic bookkeeping and spreadsheet design; results based management; environmental impact assessments; cross-cultural effectiveness; and gender and development.

Critical perspectives on the effects of traditional and 'new' media on development policy and practice. The course examines the increasingly significant role the media plays in the development process, the ways in which media-generated images of development and developing countries affect development policy and the potential of 'new' media for those who are marginalized from the development process.

Contents to be determined by instructor.

Key global and international health issues are explored in-depth in three learning phases. We begin with a reading and discussion seminar on international/global health policy and politics. (Exact topic changes each year based on student interest and developments in the field). Next, students develop group projects designed to raise awareness around particular global and international health problems, culminating in UTSC International Health Week in the Meeting Place. The third phase --which unfolds throughout the course-- involves individual research projects and class presentations.

Considers the role of micro- and small/medium enterprise in the development process, as compared to the larger firms. Identifies the role of smaller enterprises in employment creation and a more equitable distribution of income. Examines policies which can contribute to these outcomes, including micro-credit. This course can be counted for credit in ECM Programs.

The state has proven to be one of the key factors paving the way for some countries in the Global South to escape conditions of underdevelopment and launch successful development programs over time. But, why have effective states emerged in some countries in the Global South and not in others? This course seeks to answer this question by investigating processes of "state formation" using a comparative historical approach.

The course will begin by introducing students to theories of state formation. These theories will raise important questions about state formation processes that include: What is a modern, "rational-legal" state in theory? What do states look like in practice? What is state capacity and what are its components? What is the infrastructural power of the state and how does it differ from the despotic power of a state? How do state efforts to extend infrastructural power ignite political battles for social control at both elite and popular sector levels of society? Finally, how do processes of state formation unfold over time? The course, then, dives into comparative examinations of state formation using examples from across the Global South – from Central and South America to Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia.

Examines how institutions and power relations shape the production and distribution of food, particularly in the global South. The course evaluates competing theories of hunger and malnutrition. It also explores the historical evolution of contemporary food provisioning and evaluates the viability and development potential of alternative food practices.

The topics presented in this course will represent a range of issues in international development studies. Topics will vary by instructor and term.

The rise of populism has been widespread and often linked to processes of economic globalization. This course explores the historical and more recent economic and social factors shaping populist movements and leaderships in the Global South.

Explores the question of citizenship through theories of citizen participation and action in dialogue with a wide range of recent empirical case studies from the global south. Going beyond formal rights and status, the course looks at deeper forms of political inclusion and direct participation in decision-making on political and policy issues.

This course examines the growing role of the emerging powers - the BRICS countries grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - in international development. The course examines recent development initiatives by these actors in Africa, Latin America and Asia. It also explores the question of whether BRICS-led development programs and practices challenge the top-down, expert led stances of past development interventions – from colonialism to the western aid era.

This course introduces students to alternative business institutions (including cooperatives, credit unions, worker-owned firms, mutual aid, and social enterprises) to challenge development. It investigates the history and theories of the solidarity economy as well as its potential contributions to local, regional and international socio-economic development. There will be strong experiential education aspects in the course to debate issues. Students analyze case studies with attention paid to Africa and its diaspora to combat exclusion through cooperative structures.

Same as AFSC19H3

This course focuses on critical approaches to community engagement in international development. The first half of the course traces the history of critical and participatory approaches to community engagement in development. In the second half of the course students are trained in critical and ethical approaches to participatory community-engaged research. Student’s learning will be guided by an iterative pedagogical approach aimed at facilitating dialogue between theory, practice and experience. Students taking this course will learn about the challenges faced by communities in their interactions with a range of development actors, including international development agencies, local NGOs, state actors and universities.

The course introduces students to the history and ethics of community-based research in development. We will focus on critical debates in Action Research (AR), Participatory Action Research (PAR), and Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR). Cases will be used to illustrate the politics of community-based research.

The rise of both political and climate instability across the world has led to global instability and conflict. Millions have been displaced by wars that have erupted across and within national borders. In the Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza, entire communities have been forced to flee their homes as a result of military conflict. The climate crisis is linked to, and will continue to intersect with, such conflict. Climate migration, precipitated by extreme weather events, highlights the need for transformative responses to humanitarian crises. These conflicts are increasingly posing new challenges for globally “just” approaches to humanitarian aid (Redfield, 2020), food insecurity (Wingfield, 2024), human rights and gender violence. In this course, students will collaborate with students from South Africa and Sweden, and engage with leading academics, civil society leaders and activists to learn more about new approaches to global justice through a humanitarian lens. Drawing from insights from a global learning project named the Global Classroom for Democracy Innovation, students will engage in a learning environment which is designed around international and intercultural engagement, to work on and co-design around "borderless" problems. Questions around the widespread undermining and erosion of democracy, and (inter)national responses to increasing humanitarian crises, will be at the center of student engagements, allowing them to think from particular localities while also working across local/national/planetary scales.

Normal enrolment in this course will be made up of IDS students who have completed their work placement. Each student will give at least one seminar dealing with their research project and/or placement. The research paper will be the major written requirement for the course, to be submitted no later than mid-March. The course will also include seminars by practicing professionals on a variety of development topics.

An advanced seminar in critical development studies with an emphasis on perspectives and theories from the global South. The main purpose of the course is to help prepare students theoretically and methodologically for the writing of a major research paper based on secondary data collection. The theoretical focus on the course will depend on the interests of the faculty member teaching it.