Development Studies

This course offers a dynamic and comprehensive introduction to the systems and politics of global health in low and middle-income countries. Students examine critical challenges, including pandemics, ageing populations, pharmaceutical innovation, and the climate crisis, alongside the key determinants of health and their consequences for development. Students explore policies designed to improve health and development, the barriers to their implementation, and practical strategies to overcome these obstacles. Topics include global health governance, universal health coverage, health system strengthening, and the politics of disease burdens. The course also considers the impacts of migration, conflict, and climate change on health.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course focuses on the global challenges that the planet's population has been facing since the second half of the twentieth century. Among these, the critical relation with natural resources and with the concept of development and, above all, climate change, with its connections to territorial development, ecological risk, food security and the consumption of natural resources. At the end of the course, the students have acquired the theoretical and empirical tools to critically analyze the global strategies of climate resilience and cooperation and the relation between climate change and tourism. They also have acquired the ability to work in groups and develop class discussions. They are able to communicate both in expert and non-expert groups the global dynamics connected to climate change, globalization, poverty, development and tourism. Climate change offers the opportunity for a multidisciplinary analysis and, during the course, the many topics connected to the phenomenon are discussed, using mainly a geographical approach which means having a focus on territorial impacts, policies, and responses. The course concentrates on three main aspects of the phenomenon. PART 1 introduces climate change as a global phenomenon, with its natural and anthropogenic root causes, positioning it inside the wider perspective of environmental degradation and pollution and analyzing the global debate between climate change activists and deniers. In this respect, several activities are carried out, such as group work, presentation, and class discussion. PART 2 analyzes the Kyoto Protocol and the Post Kyoto adaptation and mitigation strategies, with a focus on the policy-making process but also trying to include it in a theoretical framework of adaptation, PART 3 covers climate change and mobility, including the connections between climate change and environmental crisis with migration and tourism.

This course explores the institutions and practices of international aid through the lens of development and humanitarian expertise. The course is structured around a visit in the last lecture from aid practitioners such as from the British Red Cross who discusses their work and how to get into the profession of development, humanitarianism, and other related careers. Students work in groups throughout the semester to prepare for this event, ultimately producing blog entries that showcase what they think anthropology can offer to understand humanitarian and development issues. 

This course explores how anthropologists have evaluated, criticized, and contributed to development. Focusing on both "Big D" development (schemes of improvement or projects) and "little d" development (change which occurs as the result of economic growth or modernization) the course shows how anthropological insights have been used to change practices from within as well as critique development from the outside. From anthropological work which seeks pragmatic engagement to that which deconstructs development as an oppressive and power laden discourse, the course gives students a broad background to the field. Topics covered include the role of the state, participation and farmer first approaches; gender and development; development as discourse and "aidnography"; neo liberalism and global capital; corporate social responsibility; markets and micro credit; and the relationship between "tradition" and modernity. 

This course is designed for students wishing to clarify and advance their career goals through an 8-week internship in Thailand. It provides a structured learning environment to help students make the most of their internship experience. While there are no regularly scheduled class meetings, internships are conducted under the close academic supervision of the School of Global Studies at Thammasat University. An assigned internship coordinator provides oversight and guidance for the duration of the internship. The course requires a minimum of 288 total work hours. 

This course covers the history, theories, institutions, and policies of economic development. It begins by considering development from classical Western perspectives (liberalism, neoliberalism, and the Washington Consensus), burgeoning Eastern perspectives (the “East Asian model,” the Beijing Consensus), as well as various heterodox traditions (postcolonialism, Marxism). The course then explores the doers of development in today's global economy and international system: the Bretton Woods and multilateral institutions, the private sector and private philanthropists, as well as individual countries such as the United States and China. Finally, the course dives deep into the particular problems and policies that define global development in low-income countries today: how they meet their domestic energy needs and attain a clean energy transition; how they meet their domestic food needs and maximize their agricultural export revenues; how they build the infrastructure they require for their rapidly growing populations and economies; and how they attract or create good jobs and high wages to ensure stable and equitable growth.

This course provides an overview of the level and changes of socio-economic conditions (income, poverty, education, health) in the global south. These conditions are put in perspective in presentations and discussions of the major trends in classical and contemporary thinking about economic development. General textbook material and selected articles on the subject form the core of the readings. The range of topics covered include theories of development, micro- and macroeconomic issues, economic analysis, as well as key policy issues and recommendations.

This course examines issues of environment and uneven development through the historical geography of empire. The course educates students on: 1) interdisciplinary theoretical approaches to empire in the social sciences and humanities, 2) the study of empire and environment (especially natural resources) within the subfields of political geography, historical geography, development geography, and political ecology, and 3) the complex natures, spatialities, and identities produced in the wake of European empires in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Specific topics include the spatiality of sovereignty, racialized labor regimes (including slavery, coolies, and peasants), imperial modes of water and forest development, imperial systems of food and agriculture, state responses to disease and disaster, and the contradictory political geographies of settlement, incorporation, exploitation, and decolonization. The course concludes with a reflection on struggles to ‘decolonize’ imperial knowledge systems, political economies, and social relations in the contemporary era.