ARTS 1750 Reflective Essay: Development Studies & Today's Challenges

This essay reflects on the relevance of studying development, emphasizing its role in understanding present political conditions through the examination of historical origins, theories, and practices. It highlights the importance of development studies in enabling politicians, academics, and organizations to formulate effective plans for the future. The essay explores core concepts within development studies, focusing on addressing issues faced by developing economies and alleviating poverty. Furthermore, it discusses how learning from past and present theories, models, and practices aids in comprehending current global challenges, using climate change as an example. By examining historical perspectives and scientific advancements, the essay underscores the significance of studying development in addressing complex global issues. This student contributed the assignment to Desklib, a platform offering study tools for students.

Essay

Essay topic: What is the relevance of studying “development”? How does learning
about theory and practice, in the past and present, and in different contexts, contribute
to understanding one or more of today’s major challenges?
Articulating about developmental studies, as per my opinion it is all about
comprehension of the present political conditions and situations through examination of their
origins, theories and practice which further allows the politicians, academicians as well as
world charity organizations in making enhanced and useful plans for the future. I think that
developmental studies is considerably a young area of academic study within the social
sciences and I feel honoured that I am one of the people studying the same. As per my
opinion, studying development involves acquisition of essential tools for grappling with the
challenges integral in the tremendously multifaceted nevertheless gratifying efforts of
modifying our world for enhanced future (Attia and Edge, 2017). In addition to this, it makes
efforts to comprehend the nature of differentiation as well as inequalities that exists in the
globe. In my point of view, studying development has offered me a detailed academic
foundation above and beyond introducing discussions, arguments as well as producing real-
world perspectives and that is where I feel contended. Being a sub-section of searching
suitable resolutions to the issues that came up with the rural –urban dynamic environment.
Thus, it can be said that studying development proposes to learn about the enhancement in
the people of lives. According to me, there are different core concepts which are important in
studying development and the most important among them is that it look at the development
all across the globe with the main emphasis on the nations which are at the developing
nations. Development studies also has a sole aim to manage the important issues being faced
by the development economies and helps in evolution of the strategies for alleviating poverty
(Eyben, 2014). Consequently, I think that studying in relation with the development is a
crucial field of study in any topic, problem or issue, as it takes into account the inequality that
exists in the present world and makes efforts to search for the answers to these problems for
making improvement in the lives of the people in the developing nations.
Moving further, it is also quite obvious that learning theories, models and practices in
the past and the present and in varied backgrounds provides supports in comprehending one
or more than one key challenges and issues of the present time. For example, considering the
current issues related to climate change, it can be said that because of the rising level of
consumption of fossil fuels and alteration in the land surface, there has been augmentation in
the greenhouse gas emission. It has been predicted that if activities of the humans that emits
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greenhouse gases is not clogged in the near future than it has been predicted that the global
warming will continue in the upcoming years and thus, there is a requirement of effectively
managing the environment in a sustainably way (Dressler and et.al, 2018). According to me,
this important current global issue can better be understood through exploring different
theories, models and practices in the past and present. For illustration, if I look into the past
practices, from the primordial eras people assumed that the climate of a particular region
might later over the course of centuries. Such as, it has been told by Theophrastus who is a
pupil of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in the 4th century BC that the ways of draining
of marshes had prepared a specified area vulnerable to freezing and wondered that the land
will become warmer when there will be clearing of forests as they will then more exposed to
the light of the sun. Other than this, in the year 1859 it has been determined by John Tyndall
that coal gas is a mixture of methane as well as other gases, powerfully engrossed ultraviolet
radioactivity. In 1948, Methane was consequently noticed in the troposphere and in the year
1980, different researchers comprehended that human radiations were having a considerable
influence. Most of the ancient work in relation with the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) has
emphasized on their part in the depletion of ozone, and researcher in 1985 have made a
conclusion that chlorofluorocarbons combined with methane and many other gases might
have approximately an important impact on the change of climate due to augmentation in
carbon dioxide (Neumann, 1985). Therefore, it can be said that if someone learns about the
past theories, practices and models then it might have help them in comprehending the
current issues related to climate change, as numerous ancient work has been done in regards
with this issues by different scientists. Furthermore, as per my opinion studying
developmental studies is quite relevant.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Attia, M. and Edge, J., 2017. Becoming a reflexive researcher: a developmental approach to
research methodology. Open Review of Educational Research, 4(1), pp.33-45.
Dressler, R., Becker, S., Kawalilak, C. and Arthur, N., 2018. The cross-cultural reflective
model for post-sojourn debriefing. Reflective Practice, 19(4), pp.490-504.
Eyben, R., 2014. International Aid and the Making of a Better World: Reflexive Practice.
1sted. Routledge.
Neumann, J., 1985. Climatic Change as a Topic in the Classical Greek and Roman Literature.
Climatic Change, 7(4), pp. 441–454.
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