HIST471 - MEDICINE AND DEVELOPMENT

This course includes readings and research on how medicine relates to the process of development in resource-poor countries. The first eight weeks of the semester are taken up with a combination of readings and research planning. The remainder of the semester is given over to the development and projects. Students are expected not only to complete their own projects, but also to participate as consultants in the research of others. Readings will include studies of the relationship between poverty and health, studies of particular diseases and efforts to eradicate them, discussions of gender and health priorities, and debates over the proper balance between economic growth and health initiatives in poor countries. We will also look at searching critiques of the entire development process. James Ferguson, in The Anti-Politics Machine, for example, argues that the role of technical expertise in development planning is to remove fundamental political issues from the democratic process, and to make them technical questions that are outside politics. Students will have the opportunity to shape, develop, and complete their own research projects. Research methods, problems, and results, will be discussed in class all through the semester. This course meets the capstone research requirement in health and societies.