Rethinking Development
Venue
Conference Center
Göteborg
What kind of ‘development’ is wanted for today’s world? The idea, study, and policy field of ‘development’ emerged in the 1940s, in a time of decolonization, the Cold War, and Euro-centric high modernism.
Seventy years later the scene is one of new emerging economies, migration crises, multiculturalism, climate change, and new patterns of infectious and chronic diseases. Given such profound transformations, do we need, again, to rethink ‘development’?
Development can be rethought in terms of concepts, issues, methods and policies. For example, does it still make sense to speak of a ‘North’ and a ‘South’? Do the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) go far enough in redefining the research and policy agenda? Do we need to redirect research attention to new and re-emerging issues such as diasporas, digitization, food security, religion, intellectual property, and health surveillance; or is an older agenda of trade, democracy and conflict resolution as vital as ever? Do we need to ‘rethink’ the migration-development nexus in global development research and policymaking? etc.