MSc Econ Postcolonial Politics

This degree provides students with a specialist introduction to the advanced study of Postcolonial politics. It seeks to move beyond traditional International Relations and Third World Studies by abandoning the dichotomy between industrialised and underdeveloped countries. In particular, the programme is designed to facilitate the development of a critical awareness of the state of theory and practice in the field of Postcolonial Studies. The issues and debates explored in the programme include:

• The processes and relationships that connect the developed and underdeveloped world
• A focus on identity, subjectivity, and modernity that goes beyond the confines of traditional IR
• To bring previously marginalised peoples, places and identities to the fore of analysis.
• The policy responses that dominate traditional thinking about relations between developed and underdeveloped states, and the alternatives to them
• The programme deals with complex issues and debates at the cutting-edge of Postcolonial Studies, seeking to ensure that students can think both systematically about them, and communicate their conclusions clearly to specialist and non-specialist audiences alike.

This degree provides opportunities for students to develop and demonstrate knowledge, understanding, qualities, skills and other attributes in the following areas:

• The assumptions, theories and practices that have defined traditional studies of relations between developed and underdeveloped states
• The assumptions and theories that underpin Postcolonial Studies
• Knowledge and understanding of key concepts such as postcolonialism, hybridity, power and resistance
• Relate general theoretical issues and debates of postcolonialism to particular case studies and conditions
• The policy responses that follow from an adoption of a postcolonial perspectives on world politics