Quick heads up. I’m teaching a two week ‘summer school’ (actually more of a winter school) on How Change Happens at the University of Cape Town from
Like this, only colder
17-28th July. Details and registration here. The course will combine a basic intro to the themes of the book with lots of engagement with Cape Town based activists (local Oxfam stars Allan Moolman and Ronald Wesso are helping set up everything from speakers from social movements to visits to interesting ‘sites of struggle’). Brian Levy, governance guru and Academic Director of the UCT Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice, is coming in to talk about how education reform takes place in South Africa, and one of his star students, Chris Nkwatsibwe, will be discussing his experience working with civil society movements in Uganda. And yes, I know this is all male, so we will be making sure of a gender balance when it all goes ahead!
As part of the course, students will be asked to develop a proposal for a particular change process that they would like to see take place. Then we will use the lectures and guest speakers to help refine their proposals and have some kind of Dragon’s Den/X factor competition for the best proposal at the end (with prizes, natch)
Here’s the initial day breakdown (subject to change in a suitably iterative, adaptive kind of way)
Day 1: Interdisciplinary approaches to change and evidence.
Day 2: The nature and implications of Complex Systems.
Day 3: Power, culture and social norms – global, national, local
Day 4: Unpacking the state. Recognising the realities of public authority in African contexts.
Day 5: The roles of Political Parties and the rule of law.
Day 6: The international system and the role of large corporations.
Day 7: Civil society and activism.
Day 8: Advocacy, Campaigning and Leadership.
Day 9: Putting it all together to do development differently.
Day 10: Project presentations, discussions and X factor competition to choose the winner.
Interested? Know someone else who might be? If so, please register/forward the link. Maybe see you in Cape Town.