MPHIL DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE; AMBEDKAR UNIVERSITY, DELHI

[Gurpreet Kaur]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYqj3yLDisE

The MPhil Programme in Development Practice at Ambedkar University, Delhi has been started in collaboration with a developmental sector organisation called PRADAN. It is an innovative experiment where a University and a development sector agent have come together to join hands and re-think the regular structure of 'development' courses and 'discourses' imparted through rural management, development studies, social work etc. The idea here is to get to understand the 'rural' in the real and deep sense, where the students stay in the households of villages, articulate a self-hood within and for the 'margins' and 'excluded', in ways where it is encouraged to be a thought-through process, through taught academic courses and a regular, intensive and consistent field 'immersion' for 11 months. Where a development practitioner not only lives in the 'rural' but also feels and thinks for the 'rural' in all its dimensions, whether it be caste, gender, livelihood, land, identity etc. 

The forum can hereby generate insights on the working of this collaboration, what can this collaboration bring forth with it, as challenging; with one agent who has 'worked' for 30 years in the 'village' and another partner deemed for imparting academic and theoretical excellence, coming up with 'different and newer' spaces and ideas for social sciences. How does one deal or define the theory and practice question? What would then be an 'evaluative' framework here?

Attached is also a small video clip about the programme where the students recently back from the field narrate their experiences. This blog is also to generate awareness about the programme and also take in feedback, comments, questions towards this collaboration.

Warmly

Gurpreet

Project TEAM (MPhil Development Practice, AUD)