Subject Area: Development Studies

Using a rights based approach, which considers development as an entitlement, the course examines the nature of community development in an international and national context, drawing on a range of theoretical and case studies in four distinct areas. These are refugees and internally displaced peoples, post disaster, climate change and response, and working in fragile states. The course covers a brief history of community development; the changing nature of community work, the concepts of culture in relation to community work in developing societies, and the dynamics of communication, including cross cultural communication and working with interpreters. Different ideological approaches to community work are examined and an analysis of the impacts and outcomes that these approaches might have on communities is explored. Various critiques of the Human Rights Framework are examined, and the application of Human Rights conventions to development is explored.