autumn 2018 SPL-3010 Culture, Politics and Planning - 10 ECTS
Admission requirements
Bachelor degree in a social science subject is required as a general rule.
The minimum average grade requirement is:
- C - for bachelor¿s degree or equivalent issued in Europe, Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand
- B - for bachelor¿s degree or equivalent issued in all other countries
The course requires solid competence in reading and writing English.
Application code: 9371.
Course content
In this course we emphasise important aspects of culture and knowledge production as perspectives, but also how these aspects add to the tools of planning. The course gives an overview of concepts like situated meanings, values and local cultural processes and how these and other culture related concepts interrelate with planning processes and can be made relevant in understanding development. Traditionally, planning involves making decisions about alternative ways of realising certain predetermined goals. Its basic tool is scientific knowledge, which standardises reality. In development policy-making, where power unevenness characterise donor-beneficiary relationships, a culturally aware or multi-knowledge approach has the capacity to temper the one-size-fit-all interventions that hardly serve the purposes of improving well-being. The thematic issues for the lectures/seminars include: meanings of culture and modes of knowledge production; planning and development; ethnicity; gender and household dynamics; social capital, NGOs and micro-level inputs to policy-making. Illustrative cases will be drawn from both the South and the North.Objectives of the course
Students who have successfully completed the course should have achieved the following learning outcomes:
Knowledge
- A basic theoretical insight in challenges of development and North-South relations with special emphasis on aspects of culture and planning and the interfaces of culture and planning.
Analytical understanding
- Abilities to make sense of historical and current perspectives on culture, knowledge production, social capital, gender and planning with relevance for development and NGOs.
Skills and competences
- Competent application of theoretical and analytical concepts relevant to culture, planning and development
Assessment
Coursework requirements:
Obligatory attendance in 75 per cent of the lectures must be documented. Presentation of an article at a seminar.
The assessment method will consist of a 8-10-page (approximately 3500-4000 words) essay, to be written during home exam. Duration home exam: 1 week.
The Grade-scale goes from A (tope score) to E (pass) and F (fail). A re-sit exam will be arranged for this course
Recommended reading/syllabus
This section briefly introduces theoretical approaches to the concept of culture from anthropology, cultural studies and cognitive science. It provides basic insights into different theoretical foundations for understanding the concept pf culture in general and in Norwegian public debate. This section provides an important basis for the following sections on culture and development and culture and planning theory.
Fornäs, J. (2017). Introduction: ¿Which Culture?¿, in Defending Culture: Conceptual Foundations and Contemporary Debate. Springer International Publishing, pp. 1-7 (7 p) Downloadable Oria
Gullestad, Marianne (2005) "Normalizing racial boundaries. The Norwegian dispute about the term neger", in Social Anthropology, Vol 13 (1), pp. 27-46 (19p)
Wikan, Unni (1999) Culture: A new concept of race¿, in Social Anthropology, Vol 7 (1), pp. 57-64 (7p). Downloadable Oria
Wolf R. Eric, 1999. Chapter 2 ¿Contested Concepts¿. In E.R. Wolf: Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis. University of California Press. pp. 21-67 (46p); ISBN: 9780520215368
Pinker Steven 2002. ¿The Blank Slate, the Noble Savage and the Gost Machine¿, Chapters 1, 2 and 3, in S. Pinker: The Blank Slate and the modern denial of human nature. pp.1-58 (58p); ISBN: 0-717-99256-5
THEORIES OF CULTURE AND DEVELOPMENT
This section presents a selection of ¿classics¿, influential articles from the ¿development era¿ addressing how to conceptualize culture in development from different disciplinary, interdisciplinary and thematic angels
Appadurai, A (2004) "The Capacity to Aspire: Culture and the Terms of Recognition" Rao, V. & Walton, M. Culture and Public Action. Stanford: Stanford University Press. pp. 59-84 (25p); ISBN: 9780804747875
Crush, J. (2003) " Introduction: Imagining Development" in Crush, J. (ed.) Power of Development. New York: Routledge, pp. 1-26 (26p); ISBN: 978415111768
Ishemo, S. "Culture, liberation and development"; in Eade, D. (2002) Development and Culture: Selected Essays from Development in Practice. Oxford: Oxfam pp 25-37 (13 p); ISBN: 0855984724
Henkel, H. and R. Stirrat (2002) Participation as Spiritual Duty, Empowerment as Secular Subjection. In B. Cooke and U. Kothari Participation: the new tyranny? London/NY: Zed books. pp. 168-184 (16p); ISBN: 1-85649-794
David Mosse 2005. ¿The Social Production of Development Success¿ in Cultivating Development. London: Pluto. pp157-184. (27 pages)
Robertson, A. F. 1984. ¿Structures and Processes¿. In People and the state. CUP. pp 85-139. (54p); ISBN: 052131948X
Øyhus, Arne Olav (2016) ¿ Religion and Development: the Norwegian Aid Discourse. The Review of Faith and International Affairs pp.73-80 (7p) Downloadable Oria
URBAN AND RURAL TRANSFORMATIONS, PLANNING CULTURES AND PRACTICES
This section presents comparative perspectives on urban and rural transformations and planning challenges in the global south and Norway in the context of influential planning theory and practices
Young, G. (2008) "The Culturization of Planning", in Planning Theory Vol 7 (1), pp. 71-91, (20p)
Sanyal, B. (2005) "Hybrid planning cultures: The search for the global cultural commons", Chapter 1 in Sanyal (ed.) Comparative Planning Cultures, Routledge. pp 3-25. (22 p); ISBN: 0-415-95134-8
Friedman, J. (2005) "Planning cultures in transition", Chapter 2 in Sanyal (ed.) Comparative Planning Cultures, Routledge. pp. 29-44. (16 p)
Cowherd, R. (2005) "Does planning culture matter? Dutch and American models in Indonesian Urban Transformation", Chapter 8 in Sanyal (ed.) Comparative Planning Cultures, Routledge. pp 165-192. (28 p)
Brox, O. (2006) "Out of poverty", in The political economy of rural development. Eburon, pp. 15-23. (9p), ISBN: 9789059720862
Vike, Halvard. Egalitarisme og byråkratisk individualisme (2013), I Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift, Vol 24, No 3-4. pp. 181-193 (12p) Downloadable Oria
Watson, Vanessa. (2003) "Conflicting Rationalities: Implications for Planning Theory and Ethics, Planning Theory and Practice. Vol 4 (4), 395-407, (12p)
Watson Vanessa (2016). Shifting Approaches to Planning Theory: Global North and South. Urban Planning, Vol. 1 (1), pp. 32-41- (9p) Downloadable Oria
UN Habitat and UN ESCAP (2015). The State of Asian and Pacific Cities 2015, chapters: 1 Population and Urbanization (pp.9-20), 2 The Urban Economy (pp. 56-79), 3 Urban Societies in Transition (pp.90-108), 4 The Urban Environment and Climate Challenges (pp. 120-150), 5 Urban Governance (pp. 160-159) (total 139p) Downloadable Oria
Total: approximately 700 pages
(This online full curriculum list includes both the compendium texts and all downloadable entries through our university library¿s system. Students are expected to download all texts during the first week of the course or earlier)
Error rendering component
- About the course
- Campus: Tromsø |
- ECTS: 10
- Course code: SPL-3010
- Responsible unit
- Institutt for samfunnsvitenskap