What Counts as Development Research?

Humble, Darryl; Smith, Matt Baillie

doi:10.1016/s1042-3192(06)08002-5

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Nevertheless, despite these agendas, interest in international volunteering across geography subdisciplines has been patchy. Noteworthy is its sparse coverage by development geography, which like development studies more generally has tended to focus on the global South rather than on relational aspects of development such as development education in the North (Humble and Smith 2007) and North–South volunteering. Through youth (Hopkins et al 2010; Simpson 2005), tourism (Carnaffan 2010; Khé 2010) and environmental citizenship (Lorimer 2010), however, social, cultural and political geography have been more engaged.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

International volunteering and development: global citizenship and neoliberal professionalisation today

Smith¹,

Laurie

2011

Trans Inst British Geog

164

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International volunteering occupies a popular place in contemporary UK public imaginations. It is supported by a range of stakeholders, including the state, the corporate sector and non‐government organisations (NGOs), which increasingly share a narrative emphasising international volunteering’s capacity to develop volunteers whose impacts on global equity or their professional identities emerge on their return as much as during their stay overseas. This paper explores discourses and practices of citizenship, professionalisation and partnership as they produce and are produced through contemporary international volunteering. We do this through interrogating the overlapping genealogies of international volunteering and development. Our analysis explores the ways in which international volunteering seems to both exemplify neoliberal ideas of individual autonomy, improvement and responsibility and at the same time allies itself to notions of collective global citizenship, solidarity, development and activism. To illustrate our argument we examine two sets of volunteering partnerships, those that support the Department for International Development’s £10 million, 3‐year programme focused on sending young, British disadvantaged people as international volunteers, and the corporate citizenship volunteer programmes supported by VSO and the international consulting firm, Accenture. Interrogating contemporary state, corporate and civil society promotion of international volunteering allows us to examine how notions of professionalisation and global and neoliberal citizenship are produced through development imaginaries, and are negotiated and constructed among and by new volunteering populations and sectors at a moment when, particularly due to the credit crunch, economic and career futures are fragile and uncertain.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

International volunteering and development: global citizenship and neoliberal professionalisation today

Smith¹,

Laurie

2011

Trans Inst British Geog

164

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“…Development education is a highly contested term, not least due to a limited and fragmented body of research addressing it, particularly within development scholarship (Humble and Smith 2007). While normative accounts and mission statements can offer useful templates and ideals (such as those historically promoted by what was the representative body of development education in the UK, the Development Education Association (DEA)), there remains limited critical evidence of what this means in practice.…”

Section: Case Study: Development Education and Development Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At certain points and in particular contexts, development education and development studies have shared political languages, spaces and struggles, but this is no longer the case in the UK (Humble and Smith 2007). Responding to the processes of decolonisation and engaging explicitly with the work of Paulo Freire, development education shared its structural analyses with leading development scholarship in the 1970s: "educationalists talked about empowerment, structural causation, political change and social justice" (Cohen 2001, 179).…”

Section: Case Study: Development Education and Development Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The mainstreaming of development education also needs to be understood in relation to changing historical and contemporary constructions of what counts as development scholarship (Humble and Smith 2007). Development studies can be distinguished from area studies through a conceptual and normative orientation (Sumner 2006, 46) rather than a geographical one, an idea further emphasised by Sumner and Tribe (2008, 19), who note arguments for extending the scope of development studies to include engagement with issues of poverty and development in the Global North.…”

Section: Case Study: Development Education and Development Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Public imaginaries of development and complex subjectivities: the challenge for development studies

Smith

2013

Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne d'étud

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This paper argues that Development Studies has offered limited critical engagement with the complex ways in which development shapes the subjectivities of citizens in the Global North. Campaigns and experiences such as Make Poverty History, the "gap year" and the mainstreaming of fair trade all shape the ways in which Northern publics understand and respond to development issues. This is significant as established ideas of rich and poor are challenged and reinforced through austerity in the Global North, discourses around the "rising powers" and the closing of spaces for critical public debate on development. Research with the NGO CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development) illustrates the ways social relations and identities interweave with development imaginaries in the Global North. A drawing together of postcolonial and cosmopolitan perspectives provides a starting point for rethinking scholarship and curricula in this area.RÉSUMÉ Les études du développement ont offert peu d'engagement critique vis-à-vis les manières complexes dont le développement influence les subjectivités des citoyens du Nord global. Ce point est pertinent comme les définitions et les notions de « riche » et de « pauvre » sont remises en question à la lumière des politiques d'austérité dans le Nord, la montée des discours sur les « pouvoirs émergents » et la disparition des espaces publiques pour les discussions critiques sur le développement. Le programme Connect2 de la Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), basée au Royaume-Uni, qui met en relation des paroisses britanniques avec des communautés du Sud, illustre bien à quel point les identités et les rapports sociaux s'entrecroisent avec les imaginaires du développement. L'auteur fait appel à une combinaison des perspectives postcoloniale et cosmopolite comme point de départ pour interpréter cette initiative et pour repenser, de manière critique, la recherche et la pédagogie en études du développement.

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“…As Humble and Smith (2007) write, what counts as research in Development Studies is almost entirely defined in terms of working in and on the 'South', 'developing' or 'Third World', terms that act as a shorthand for global distinctions between people and places. The project of development is founded upon these politically charged identities and the industry, that is becoming increasingly professionalised, relies for its survival on setting up boundaries around its experts, organisations and approaches.…”

Section: Making the Field: The Time Place And Subject Of Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geographies and Histories of Development

Kothari

2007

Journal Für Entwicklungspolitik

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What Counts as Development Research?

Cited by 6 publications

References 9 publications

International volunteering and development: global citizenship and neoliberal professionalisation today

International volunteering and development: global citizenship and neoliberal professionalisation today

Public imaginaries of development and complex subjectivities: the challenge for development studies

Geographies and Histories of Development

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