About the lecture

In this module, we think about the rise of global development from the mid-20th century. We focus on: (i) key actors in the global development community, including national governments and the private sector, and their core goal of reducing/eliminating poverty across the world; (ii) US President Harry S. Truman’s 1949 Inaugural Address as a key moment in the emergence of global development, and in the articulation of some its key priorities, such as its emphasis on free trade and economic growth; (iii) how the context of the mid-20th century, particularly decolonisation in the Global South and the advent of the Cold War, shaped Truman’s ideas and, notably, made modernisation theory the ideological underpinning of the global development agenda; (iv) ambiguities in the concept and definition of global development, and different scholarly perspectives on the consequences of this vagueness for development policy.

About the lecturer

Dr Dinah Rajak is a Reader in Anthropology and Development at the University of Sussex. Her research focuses on the role of corporations in global development and the concept of corporate social responsibility. She is author of In Good Company: An Anatomy of Corporate Social Responsibility (2011) and co-editor of The Anthropology of Corporate Social Responsibility (2016).