300633 What development and in which environment? Moving beyond sustainable development (30-M25 Transnationalisierung und Migration) (S) (WiSe 2023/2024)

The concept of development has originated in a time of colonialism. Therefore, it has never fully managed to rid itself from the power structures and dependencies it was derived from. Yet, former colonies and international organizations have since taken up the concept with their own agency, changing it throughout the decades. With multiple environmental crises looming over humanity, the latest major re-shuffle of the development concept has been the introduction of sustainable development that has been informing international politics through the UN Sustainable Development Goals, among others. This course will critically debate the concept of sustainable development and will be separated in 3 major parts:
First, we will have look into the theory of development (including for example literature by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, K. Sivaramakrishnan, William Easterly).
Secondly, we will focus on the theory and practice of sustainable development more deeply (e.g. Tania Li, Anna Tsing, Artuoro Escobar).
Lastly, we will use a major part of the course to discuss alternative concepts to sustainable development (for example climate justice, ecological civilization, indigenous concepts,...). The course will require a presentation throughout the semester and an essay at the end as examination.