Development Studies University of Johannesburg

Overview

The Bachelor of Arts in Development Studies at University of Johannesburg's ethos in research, teaching and activism is based upon a deep recognition of the tensions between development as aspiration to  create a better world, and as a normative and powerful (state or non-state) process of intervention into people’s lives. Here idealism and practicality meet. Even as our ideological commitments mean that we maintain an eye on people’s long-term futures, we insist on engaging with immediate realities and the need to deliver prompt, meaningful change through services, resources and opportunities. 

Understanding how contemporary transformation is predicated upon earlier regimes of planned social intervention (both colonial and post-colonial) is crucial. 

Development scholars and practitioners inevitably confront the widespread persistence of gross inequalities and precarity, despite decades of global, regional and state interventions. 

Such interventions target measures such as:

• GDP

• poverty

• life expectancy

• health care and human rights

• democratization

• governance

• participation.

Possible careers include:

• Practitioners in a wide range of development, philanthropic, or humanitarian organisations and social change programmes. 
• Researchers in development-related fields. 
• Activists who struggle and campaign for change in social, political and/or economic systems locally, nationally or globally. 
• Journalism, foreign service, enterprise, eco-tourism and organisational development (these may require supplementary training).