What We Do

Supporting the Teaching of Development Studies  

Development is a dynamic, multi-sectoral arena, where graduate opportunities and sectoral priorities are continually shifting. Such a context presents challenges and opportunities for pedagogy and curriculum design, which must be continually reconsidered and renegotiated to meet student and sectoral needs. Through the sharing of ideas and evidence on development futures, Development Studies educators facilitate the learning of practitioners, scholars and policy makers.

The DSAA will build upon the work of the Critical Pedagogies network. In 2017, the first symposium ‘Rethinking Development Pedagogies and Practice’ took place at James Cook University, Cairns, with a second symposium ‘Pedagogy in Practice’ at Murdoch University, Perth, in 2018. From these discussions, a special issue ‘Teaching Development Studies in times of change’ has been published in Asia Pacific Viewpoint (Issue 59, Vol. 2, 2018), as well as the first RDI Network report ‘Development Studies in  Australia Today: Reviews and Recommendations’. DSAA will support our members through special panels at conferences, the sharing of teaching resources, and other activities such as online symposia.

Supporting Researchers of Development Studies

Development Studies research covers a diverse range of concerns. These include: policy and practice, participation, inequality, marginalisation, injustice, health, sustainability and environments, human rights, gender and women’s empowerment, technical processes, institutions and power, as well as development measures, such as goals and indicators, and so on. Research in Development Studies is published in a range of academic and practice-oriented journals, for instance: Development and Change, Development in Practice, Development Policy Review, Gender and Development,Third World Quarterly, World Development, IDS Bulletin and many others. Development Studies research is often collaborative and policy- and practice-oriented drawing on a mix of quantitative, qualitative and participatory methods.

Reflecting the breadth of academic research in Development Studies in Australia, much of this research is distributed across a number of Field of Research (FoR) codes in the divisions of Environmental Sciences, Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences, Medical and Health Sciences, Economics, Studies in Human Society and more. One of the ambitions of the DSAA is to better capture the contribution of Development Studies to knowledge by building the case for a discrete ‘Development Studies’ FoR code.