The course aims at analyzing the place of development practices and narratives in contemporary African societies, North and South of the Sahara.
First, it intends to provide theoretical and methodological instruments to analyze the interwoven sociopolitical, economic and cultural dynamics implied by development actions, emphasizing the articulations between the dynamics of the “above” and the “below”, the past and the present, the global and the local. By this approach, the course aims at making students aware of the plurality and complexity of the social processes underpinning development actions in practice.
Second the course will develop a critical perspective on development discourses and practices, which naturalize universal teleological representations of economic and social progress, and interpret African societies as exceptions. It will show that the institutional and expert perspectives may be fruitful objects to analyze the exercise of power. Using a historicized and comparative perspective, it will also help problematizing the changes of development policies and ideas and their effect.