Post-Conflict Development and Difference

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2016:

170 hours

Completion of 50 points at Level 1 subjects.

This subject is a level 2 subject designed for students who have experience in writing essays of up to 1,000 words at University level. It is recommended that students have successfully completed at least 25 points of level 1 or level 2 subjects that include essay based assessment.

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

Post-conflict nation states are entangled with a diverse range of historically contingent and differently understood forms of social, economic and environmental governance. This creates new challenges and very often new conflict. This subject draws on critical geographies of development to examine the significance of difference to post-conflict development processes in the Asia Pacific region, including East Timor, Cambodia and The Philippines. It asks how ideas of social and cultural difference are deployed and experienced by a range of actors, and explores how these ideas are (re)negotiated as a result of social and political change and power. This subject provides students with a variety of theoretical lenses with which to analyze post-conflict development and social and cultural difference in the region. Difference and its relationship to development in post-conflict settings will be investigated through case studies of ethnicity and race, population mobility, material culture, urban development, justice and accountability mechanisms, and livelihood, conservation and resource exploitation conflicts.

At the completion of this subject, students will have achieved the following:

• A broad knowledge of development geography’s major concepts, theoretical perspectives and key debates
• An understanding of the dynamic and complex connections between post-conflict societies, development processes, agents and environments, across a variety of scales
• Research skills to enable the investigation of post-conflict development processes and problems
• Understanding of some country-specific experiences of conflict and post-conflict development

A research essay of 1500 words due in week 5 (40%). Tutorial presentations and participation equivalent to 500 words due between weeks 2 and 11 (15%). A take home exam of 2000 words due in the examination period (45%)

This subject potentially can be taken as a breadth subject component for the following courses:

• Bachelor of Biomedicine
• Bachelor of Commerce
• Bachelor of Environments
• Bachelor of Music
• Bachelor of Science

You should visit learn more about breadth subjects and read the breadth requirements for your degree, and should discuss your choice with your student adviser, before deciding on your subjects.

Upon successful completion of this subject, students will have skills in:

• reading, writing and speaking in theoretical terms
• conducting library searches for relevant, critical literatures
• using a case study approach to explore larger processes and problems