This is the second Online Guest Lecture by members of the SCID Panel of Experts. Dr David Chuter presents a lecture entitled ‘Conflict, Security and Development: Do We Know What We Mean?’.

The main theme of the lecture is that security, conflict and development can be seen as a struggle between discourses to impose a normative view, and to mark out political territory on behalf of governments, donors, international organisations and other interested actors. This leads to a high degree of confusion on the ground, as different interest groups battle to impose a view of what the particular crisis is “about”, with none of them able to dominate totally. Drawing on Gramsci and Foucault, in the first half of David’s lecture it is argued that this helps to explain the inconsistency and confusion of donor approaches, both within and between crises. The second half of the lecture focuses on the application of the concepts in practice, endeavouring to identify the main contradictions and uncertainties of donor approaches and explain where they come from.

Click on the link below to access David’s Lecture (it is large so it will take a while to download). Please submit any questions or comments within the next two weeks for David’s attention and/or discussion by other SCID Panel members, students and staff.

David Chuter Guest Lecture – presentation