Ever have one
of those days that reminds you of why you’re in school? About why you care
about what you study? And in my case, of why you’re going to live and work in
Vietnam for eight months? I had one of those days a while ago, and it feels
pretty amazing. And it surprisingly happened thanks to social media.
An old
high-school friend of mine recently read my last blog post, and noticed that
I’m studying International Development. I hadn’t talked to this friend in
probably around 5 years until he sent me message asking me to define
development. It made me so happy that someone outside my “INDEV bubble” was
taking such interest in my field of study!
I had to ponder
his question for a while, which kind of made me concerned. I mean, I’ve been
“studying development” for 3 years. This is a question that I should be able
answer without even thinking about it. But of course, there is no one answer to
“What is development?”. In the end though, this is what I replied to him:
I haven't been asked
that question since first year, and it's one I'm still trying to figure out.
It's hard even for development students like me to define. In the most basic
sense, it's trying to create progress in reducing the vast inequalities between
the rich and poor of the world. That means it's a very multi-disciplinary
field, which tackles issues from human rights to climate change and everything
in between. And, of course, all these issues play into one another which makes
solving them even more complicated.
“I think all
development practitioners are driven by the general passion to see an end to
poverty. They care about making this world a little less screwed up, which is
probably why you find you talk like development students! As one of my friends
and fellow students says, development practitioners are working themselves out
of a job.
Another big aspect of
practicing development (in my opinion) is that we must always be humble,
adaptive, and open. We can't go into a developing country and expect our
Western ways to solve their problems. Change must be made by working with the
poor, not by telling them how they should be doing things.”
Creating this
definition reminded me that I really am working towards positive change. It
reminded me of the core reason I decided to go into International Development:
because I want to help people. I get to say that I’m trying to save the world
as a carrier… and that sounds like a pretty good job description to me.
I would probably answer "In an international context, development refers to the ever changing situations and needs of the planet- its the act of accounting for what the inhabitants of earth need for an appropriate level of survival, allowing the ability to flourish". Now, this is a pretty fluffy answer, but the only way to cover all of the aspects of development is to answer broadly. Development is not building a well, or reaching a MDG, development is a reference to a positive change over a course of time. What we do within that course of time that would be positive is something else. A project, a plan, a strategy, an action.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the outlet, Michelle*
Thanks for your insight Casey! I do agree with you that at it's essence, development is a positive change, movement forward. Your definition makes a lot of sense, especially because development is so multidisciplinary and encompasses literally all issues in all sectors!
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