International Development Studies

Zacatecas  Course, Summer 2008

Welcome to the International Development Studies (IDS) program. This site provides more extensive information than that found in the IDS Program’s entry in the Saint Mary’s University Academic Calendar.*  We especially encourage you to have a look at this year’s IDS Handbook, and to explore the various links we have provided for your interest and use.

International Development Studies (IDS) enjoys an international reputation as Saint Mary’s University’s flagship interdisciplinary program leading the university’s commitment to a relevant and internationalized undergraduate and graduate curriculum. IDS serves as a major institutional location for teaching and research for faculty members wishing to focus their professional academic work on the perspectives, policies and practices of international development.

Degrees and Faculty  

IDS offers a bachelor of arts degree (major, minor, concentration, dual major, and honours), a master of arts degree (thesis), a graduate diploma (coursework only), and is preparing a proposal to offer a doctoral degree in international development studies.  Linkages with universities, research institutes, and civil society organizations around the globe provide both undergraduate and graduate students with many opportunities to receive credit for studies abroad. The large number of adjunct faculty and Program associates provides students with a wide spectrum of thesis and directed reading supervision. Student numbers are kept at a level which allows individual attention and substantial academic support by faculty members.

SMU-IDS full-time, part-time, associate and adjunct faculty bring both scholarship and practical field experience to their respective research areas. Many faculty have well-established international reputations as both development scholars and development practitioners. The IDS Program is home to the Canada Research Chair in International Development Studies, currently held by Dr. Saturnino Borras, Jr. 

With the very generous support of Dr. J. Colin Dodds, President of Saint Mary’s University, the International Development Studies Program is pleased to be able to appoint each year an distinguished researcher and public intellectual of international reputation as Distinguished Visiting Professor in International Development Studies.

Areas of Specialization

Saint Mary’s IDS Program offers major supervisory and curricular concentration in the following areas:

• Political Economy of Development (analysis of the economic, social, political and cultural concepts and perspectives underlying global development dynamics and policies);
• Labour and Development (labour’s contribution to change and development; new international division of labour; corporate social responsibility; work and industrial reorganisation; labour conditions and movements);
• Rural Development and Social Movements (local and international peasant movements; land tenure; rural civil society; rural resource management; integrated rural development);
• Environment and Local Development (political economy of natural resource management; ecological economics; rural livelihood strategies; the political economy of food and hunger).
• Transnational Migration and Development (social, economic and political impacts and implications for development of transnational population movements and transnational communities).

The IDS Program encourages and expects students to pursue variations on these major areas of specialization. For example, the Program can provide support and supervision for study and research based on:

• political economy perspectives,
• gendered perspectives, enterprise and private sector-led perspectives, and
• asset-based community development perspectives,

(among others) in these general areas of specialization. Students should also be aware that Saint Mary’s IDS also offers supervision and seminars in,

• Latin American literature of social change,
• religion and development,
• history and politics of developing areas,
• project management, and education and development,

through Saint Mary’s departmental faculty participating in the interdisciplinary IDS Program.

Research Focus

Prospective MA students should note that Saint Mary’s IDS supports research focused on the so-called global South. Graduate students are asked to relate their research to development issues in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East (to mention the

major regional concentrations).

SMU-IDS and Employment

Our program of study will provide you with a solid education for employment in national, international, and civil society organizations for which a thorough understanding of local, regional, national and international development perspectives and policies is required. Such organizations include many departments, ministries and agencies of the federal government of Canada (CIDA, External Affairs) and those of other national governments, multilateral development agencies (e.g., the United Nations, World Bank Group, OECD, WTO) , refugee and immigration services, non-governmental organizations (e.g., Oxfam, CUSO, IUCN) and professions such as teaching, journalism, development planning, administration, and enterprise development, especially within less-developed regions. Please see the section of our IDS Handbook, "Where They Are Now", for a brief look at where many of our students have found employment after their SMU-IDS education.

We hope you will find the academic and personal opportunities provided by our interdisciplinary program exciting and challenging, and that you will consider a career in the very rewarding field of international development. Working in international development can provide you with employment combining international travel with the satisfaction of bringing together the thinking of analysis and explanation with the doing of everyday practice, all focused on improving rights, social justice and the creation of effective, workable solutions to improve the living conditions of all global citizens without exception.

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Initiatives in Critical Agrarian Studies (ICAS)

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Students are encouraged to become members of the Canadian Associaion for the Study of International Development (http://www.casid-acedi.ca).

To view an article describing the success of the Fourth Annual CASID/Atlantic Region Graduate Student, please click here.

Academics for Higher Education and Development Universitaires pour l'éducation supérieure et le développement

<http://www.ahed-upesed.org/>

If, after carefully reviewing the information on this site, you require additional information or clarification, please contact:

Coordinator
tel: 1-902-420-5768;
fax 1-902-491-8622;
E-mail

Ms. Jenny Kaulback, Program Secretary
tel: 1-902-420-5768;
fax 1-902-491-8622;
E-mail

* If there is a discrepancy between any of the information provided by this site and the Saint Mary’s University Academic Calendar, the latter shall be considered correct.