POSTGRADUATE PROSPECTUS

DEPARTMENT OFDEVELOPMENT STUDIESThe Department of Development Studies wasestablished in 1996 to provide innovative andchallenging teaching in the field of developmentstudies and to foster high quality research on thedevelopment of poorer countries. It offers highlysuccessful Masters programmes that attract studentsfrom around the world and a dynamic researchstudent (MPhil/PhD) programme.NUMBER OF STAFF 18RAE 4DEPARTMENT WEBSITEwww.soas.ac.uk/developmentFACULTY Law and Social SciencesTAUGHT MASTERS DEGREESMSC DEVELOPMENT STUDIESMSC DEVELOPMENT STUDIESWITH SPECIAL REFERENCETO CENTRAL ASIAMSC GLOBALISATION ANDDEVELOPMENTMSC VIOLENCE, CONFLICT ANDDEVELOPMENT63The Department’s MAs are taught through astrong interdisciplinary social science approach,incorporating key elements of Economics, PoliticalEconomy, Politics, Social Anthropology, andSociology. These are not ‘vocational’ programmesin the sense that some MAs in development are(for example, in Development Management orProject Planning). Rather, they provide studentswith the intellectual capacity in developmentissues they can apply to make their own analyticaljudgments in a range of development contexts andin relation to diverse development interventions.Teaching is also informed by the wide range ofexperience of the Department’s staff in research andin applied work undertaken for most of the leadingUN and other international organisations, bilateralaid donors, Asian and African governments, andAsian and African as well as international NGOs.RESEARCHThe Department currently has 25 research students,working on a range of research topics in many partsof Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.We are particularly interested in potential researchstudents who wish to work in one of the threemain research clusters of the Department, namely:agrarian political economy, rural labour markets,rural inequality and rural development, foodcommodity chains; globalisation, neoliberalism,governance and institutions and violence, warand forced migration.Research students are encouraged to attend weeklytraining sessions to introduce them to a number ofpractical techniques and vocational skills utilisedwithin the development profession; fortnightlyseminars on topics relevant to Development Studiesand, where appropriate, post-experience workshops.STRUCTUREMSc programmes are comprised of two corecourses, two options and a dissertation of 10,000words on an approved topic. The programmestructure permits students to choose one of theoptional courses from an approved list of optionsin the various social science or languages andcultures departments at SOAS. This provides theopportunity to take advantage of the wide rangeof thematic and regional expertise of Departmentstaff and of staff in other SOAS departments.Options can be chosen from courses offered by thefive departments of languages and cultures in 25modern languages and in the literatures and culturesof Africa, East Asia, South East Asia, South Asiaand the Near and Middle East; and from coursesoffered by other social science and humanitiesdepartments covering Politics, History, Economics,Law, Study of Religions, Art and Archaeology,Social Anthropology, and Music. In the case of theMSc Development Studies with Special Referenceto Central Asia, the optional course(s) and thedissertation must be taken in Central Asian topics.In all cases optional courses must be chosen fromthe approved list (see overleaf) and in consultationwith course tutors and approved by convenors ofMSc programmes. For some options it is necessaryto have previous training in a relevant disciplineand/or the permission of the academic departmentoffering the course. A student choosing half courseoptions must select two, of which one must be inTerm 1 and the other in Term 2.DEVELOPMENT STUDIES