I am very excited to be teaching this course this semester. The preparations for the course began during the summer and I have worked diligently to put together a rigorous, yet interesting syllabus of material that will hopefully challenge the students to think critically about democracy, governance and development both in an African context and in their own context here in Metro Detroit.
The course will consist of two foci, both related to the broader context of democratization and citizen participation in governance: HIV/AIDS and sustainable development. Students will commence with a series of readings that are focused on preparing them to think critically about these subjects. Over the Spring Break in early to mid-March students will actually travel to Botswana to gain actual on the ground experience that will augment their in class work. Finally, upon return to Metro Detroit they will make connections between their classroom experience, their trip to Botswana, and Metro Detroit, working with a number of service organizations in the local (Detroit) area to make their learning experience 'glocal' connecting the global and local, the experiential and textbook aspects of learning.
If the experiences of the first class are anything to go by we can expect an exciting and fulfilling semester. The students were very actively engaged in discussing the readings for the week. We covered the issues of democracy and sustainable development in relationship to the core issues of the class.
Students were very engaged in a number of important discussions including the (im)possibility of defining democracy. Is democracy simply a Western import? Is it a catchphrase used to further impose western definitions onto African realities? Or is there something universal about democracy particularly as it is practiced in the west that is beneficial and necessary for guaranteeing citizen participation and civil liberties and freedoms for the members of society? While there was certainly no one consensus answer, and the debate was lively and productive I was struck by how critical the students were about western conceptualizations and definitions of democracy and how these particular definitions may work to the detriment of sustainability, economic growth, and civic participation on the African continent. There seemed to be some interest in thinking about indigenous structures that while not 'democratic' in the western sense may have guaranteed the forms of good governance and citizen participation that many students seemed to believe were essential components of contemporary nation-states.
Concerning sustainability, there seemed to be an equal consensus that sustainability in an African or developing country context needed to be linked to the forms of overconsumption endemic to western (particularly American) lifestyles. Would there be any way to create policy to encourage more sustainable forms of consumption in the American context? Without this, the call for sustainability in an African context seemed hollow and somewhat hypocritical, particularly as the United States exports its consumer based lifestyle of hyper-consumption as an 'ideal' lifestyle.
Less time was spent talking about Detroit, although there were a few comments from class participants about the power of images to create impressions about those who are different from you. I saw this as an opportunity to remind students that an important component of the course will be the images they capture while in Botswana and to be mindful of the fact that these images do have power to create impressions about the country and the people that can have effects (both intended and unintended) on the people that students will be working with. We also spoke briefly about the role of urban redevelopment projects and the ways in which many of these projects were instrumental in destroying communities and did not succeed in creating 'development' in urban space.
Overall I was very impressed with the first class and the level of discussion engaged in by the students. I am hoping that students will understand the role of social inequality on both a local and global scale in producing many of the "crises" of economics, health, and social welfare both in the United States and abroad.
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