SAY의 영국 개발학 시리즈 1, What is 'Development Studies'?_ 개발학이란?

안녕하세요,

세이입니다.

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코로나로 세계적으로 모두 힘든 시간을 보내고 있긴 하지만,

이럴 때일수록 그간 바쁜 대외 일정으로 인해 불가능했던 학습을 시도해 보거나, 미뤄뒀던 리서치 등을 함으로써 오히려 생산적인 시간을 보낼 수도 있을 겁니다.

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그래서 준비해 봤습니다:)

바로 ‘영국 개발학 집중탐구‘ 시리즈인데요. 아직까지도 영국의 개발학 유학은 꾸준한 인기를 유지하고 있습니다.

저희 세이를 통해서 매년 LSE, UCL, Sussex, Bristol, SOAS 등으로 많은 분들이 입학하시고 계시지요.

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다양한 백그라운드의 분들이 석사레벨부터 시도하는 개발학!

세이는 앞으로 여러 횟수에 걸쳐 개발학에 대해 아래와 같은 토픽으로 정리해 올려드릴 예정입니다.

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1) What is ‘Development Studies’?

2) The Global North (The First World) versus the Global South (The Third World)

3) What about South Korea?

4) Why do we study ‘Development’?

5) Career opportunities & paths for ‘Development Studies’

6) What are CSOs and NGOs?

7) How to join a CSO/NGO?

8) What is life of a Professional NGO worker like?

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Are You Considering DEVELOPMENT STUDIES for your next degree? What can you do with a degree in DEVELOPMENT STUDIES? 다음 학위로 개발학을 고려하고 있습니까? 개발학 학위로 어떤 일을 할 수 있을까요?

1) What is ‘Development Studies’?

Many degree programmes in the social sciences offered in UK universities and around the world including, the Netherlands (www.iss.nl), Germany, USA, etc. have components on or related to ‘Development Studies’, as well as Master’s or Ph.D. degree programmes in Development Studies.

‘Development’ as an idea or concept emerged after World War II when most parts of Europe and Asia were recovering from the ravages of war. The concern was to rebuild the economy and revive people’s livelihood, as quickly as possible. Hence, government financial aid for ‘development’ i.e. development aid was poured into war-torn countries including, Korea either as grants with no repayment required or loans without conditions and/or interest-free. In the case of South Korea, much of this ‘development aid’ came from the United States of America and Japan. After the Korean War (1950 -53), with the urgent need to re-build the Korean economy and re-construct Korea’s infrastructure almost from ‘ground-zer’, rapid development was needed to put ‘Korea back on track’, so to speak so that the country can be incorporated into the world economy.

Hong Kong, Taiwan, as well as Singapore underwent similar development pathways, which led to their emergence, collectively known as ‘The Four Asian Dragons’ in the 1980s – 1990s or Newly Industrialising Countries (NICs). Several Latin American countries, for instance, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc., had undergone similar processes of government-controlled, aid-driven, rapid industrialisation and export-oriented economic development but more than a decade earlier than East Asia.

Following that, many Southeast Asian countries, such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia also became recipients of international development aid, from the European Union, DIFID (UK Development Aid) and USAID (US Development Aid), just to name a few. Such foreign aid was mainly used for infrastructure development, rural development, industrialisation, and so on.

Thus, for ‘development’ to take place successfully, a body of theoretical knowledge and professional expertise need to be built to promote and smooth the process. Countries in Asia, for instance, need knowledgeable and trained personnel to implement developmental processes across all sectors of the economy, such as education, healthcare, housing, urban planning, rural development, manufacturing, harbours/ports and shipbuilding and so on.

Therefore, ‘Development Studies’ became a very important field of studies in the Social Sciences, not only for ‘developing’ countries like in most parts of Asia, as recipients of development aid but also for the ‘developed’ countries, like in most parts of Western Europe, Scandinavia and North America, as donors of development aid. It is both a theoretical, and practical discipline that produces not only theoreticians but also on-the-ground and front-line professionals that implement development policies and projects; nationally and internationally.

Development aid can come in different forms, from monetary grants or loans to technical/know-how support (e.g. engineering), technological transfer (e.g. Information Communication Technology, ICT), Research and Development (R & D), sharing or exchange of scientific and scholarly knowledge. Hence, ‘Development Studies’ is broad and wide-ranging. It can cover applications of bio-technology and artificial intelligence; manufacturing, finance, agriculture, urban planning and re-generation, education, employment, gender relations, social and economic disparity and mobility, changing political structures and family patterns, politics and policies, public health, environment, migration and, even international relations and diplomacy. In other words, any field of knowledge or a composite of disciplines that examines changes in societies and the world, with the perspective of improving people’s lives and livelihood concerns ‘Development Studies’.

Thus, for one to engage in ‘Development Studies’, one needs to be interested in people, curious about economic, social and political processes and willing to learn how to analyse economic, social, political and cultural relationships critically. In ‘Development Studies’, social scientists are always looking out for new and alternative ways of understanding the society and solving new or emerging problems, such as COVID-19. For instance, the rapid spread of COVID-19 around the world is a public health issue, as much as a ‘developmental issue’ (public health can be a component of ‘Development Studies’ and vice versa) whereby, profit-oriented globalisation and consumption lifestyles are prioritised over and above the long-term development of a strong and alert public health system that can readily cope with sudden emergence of unknown diseases, such as COVID-19.

Thus, ‘Development Studies’ is multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary; it can combine with different disciplines and fit into different types of professions and job categories. A ‘Development Studies’ scholar, professional or specialist, needs to be open-minded and creative, able to think ‘out of the box’, so to speak. That means, students of ‘Development Studies’ can learn from scholars from different fields or disciplines i.e. History, Geography, Economics, Politics, Sociology, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Global/International Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, and International Relations, etc.

You may want to read the works of these well-known scholars: Andre Gunder Frank, Emmanuel Wallenstein, Vaclav Havel, Arturo Escobar, Walden Bello, Ivan Illich, Ranjini Kothari, Vandana Shiva, Majid Rahnema, Thanh-Dam Truong, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Maria Mies, Susan George, Peter Waterman, Patrick Bond, Samir Amin, James Petras, Wolfgang Sachs, James C. Scott, Benedict Anderson, Jeremy Brecher, David McNally, Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Ton van Naerssen, Ernst Spaan, etc.

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