October 29, 2013
Never, had I thought of the term “development” neither difficult nor complex to understand.
GRS 290 certainly changed that; in a good way. Just as the course name reads, GRS 290/390/490 brings “Global Issues in Cultural Context” into the core of each lecture and discussion. It provokes critical thought and prods one to question many questions: “what is being discussed here?”, “why is this important?”, “what does…mean?”, “how is it being measured?”…
Prior, my view on development was contrived of misconceptions, biased disjointed pieces of information. Actually, I never questioned what “development” was before. Having a chance to listen in on fellow GRS students, it always becomes a time full of insight and more questions!
All may have a preconception of what development is; however, it is certain that development is not static. It is a continuous progress, but of what? It must be holistic in nature and address everyone and everything and not a select few.  It should be integrated with its surroundings, but how? We agree that the result of development should lead to “human development” where the well-being of people improves: would this then be called “good development?”.
It has been done in the past and highly likely to continue in the future, the designing and delivering of development projects. The general consensus was that we may not yet know what “good development” looks like but the important factors are to look long term and take care in how the development project is designed and delivered. So that, what is delivered is not “foreign”, in that something is familiar to us but may not be so for the recipient. Rather, development should be tailored to an individual nation and having a focus on community while “we”, the delivers of the development project, take on a role as a “facilitator” than a “do-er”. For such development to be fostered, it may require qualities of which are immaterial (i.e. not made of matter) and altruistic—respect and empowerment.