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Naseer Ahmed Chandio · #1 Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Development studies

Development studies is the multi-disciplinary branch of social science which addresses issues of concern to developing nations.
The emergence of development studies as an academic discipline in the second half of the twentieth century is in large part due to increasing concern about economic prospects for the third world after decolonisation. While it originally emerged as a branch of economics, development economics, it has become an increasingly inter- and multi-disciplinary subject, encompassing politics, history, woman studies, sociology, geography, social anthropology and international relations.
Development studies is offered as a specialised Master's degree in a number of universities, and, less commonly, as an undergraduate degree.
Students of development studies often choose careers in international organisations such as United Nations, non-governmental organisations, the World Bank, and research centres.
The era of modern development is commonly deemed to have commenced with the inauguration speech of Harry S. Truman in 1949. In Point Four of his speech, with reference to Latin America and other poor nations, he said that "for the first time in history, humanity possess[ed] the knowledge and skill to relieve the suffering of these people.".[1] But for the purposes of development studies, also the former development experiences of western countries are of high relevancy.
Despite the orthodox view of Development as relating to the process of increasing the relative and absolute wealth of LDCs, usually through notions of increased output of either industrial or agricultural goods, many academics, e.g. Gilbert Rist and Stefan Andreasson, dispute that Development has any meaning within this context. They contend that Development of LDCs to the wealth levels of the richer OECD nations, using extractive production and trading processes similar to those of OECD nations, is untenable because of the ecological and environmental damage which would ensue.[2] The argument for a completely new paradigm of Development has validity for many observers and academics.
N.B. Exceptions:

Not all institutions recognize these fields as social sciences:

Communication, cultural studies and history may be classified as humanities depending on how they are taught, and in which country they are taught.
Psychology is a very broad science that is rarely tackled as a whole, major block. Although some subfields encompass a natural science base and a social science application, others can be clearly distinguished as having little to do with the social sciences or having a lot to do with the social sciences. For example, biological psychology is considered a natural science with a social scientific application (as is clinical medicine), social and occupational psychology are, generally speaking, purely social sciences, whereas neuropsychology is a natural science that lacks application out of the scientific tradition entirely. In British universities, emphasis on what tenet of psychology a student has studied and/or concentrated is communicated through the degree conferred: B.Psy. indicates a balance between natural and social sciences, B.Sc. indicates a strong (or entire) scientific concentration, whereas a B.A. underlines a majority of social science credits.
Some disciplines have characteristics of both the humanities, social and natural sciences: for example some subfields of anthropology, such as biological anthropology, are closely related to the natural sciences whereas archaeology and linguistics are social sciences.
Some fields also are considered to be applied sciences, such as education and law.
Law is often considered not to be a science at all, and labelled as one of the humanities. The main reason for this is that law is normative (see also norm (philosophy)). Legal discourse is closer in some respects to ethics, politics and interpretation (see also interpretivism). Law should not be confused with sociology of law or anthropology of law.
Geography traverses the natural and social sciences: geomorphology and historical geography are often taught in a college in a unified Department of Geography.
Some social sciences may converge with certain fields from the natural sciences, and become interdisciplinary. Examples of such fields include sociobiology -- an interdisciplinary field drawing on sociology and biology.