Time Schedule:
Matthew Sparke
JSIS 498
Seattle Campus
Reading and discussion of selected works of major importance in interdisciplinary international studies. Restricted to majors in International Studies.
Class description
Global Health and Philanthrocapitalism:-
This class will examine a set of readings aimed at examining how global health policies, programs and practices have been shaped by the rise of philanthrocapitalism. We will explore first the legacies of structural adjustment programs in the Global South as they relate to the societal determinants of health, including the impact of Washington Consensus ideas that ‘wealthier is healthier’. We will then turn to look in much more detail at the rise of a new Washington State Consensus that reverses the terms of the old DC consensus, suggesting instead that ‘healthier is wealthier’. Involving a new set of initiatives promoted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the new consensus would seem to address many of the destructive legacies of the old consensus articulated by John Williamson and other DC-based advocates of neoliberalization. However, we will also read and reflect on a set of readings that suggest that the new consensus is also neoliberal in its own biopolitical way: replacing the macro-economic neoliberalism of the old Washington Consensus with a new concern for micro-market making, micro-biological innovation and micro-savings. What then, we will ask, are the implications for global health and global citizenship when it is reconceptualized through these new norms and practices of global governmentality?
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Seminar discussions of readings
Recommended preparation
JSIS 123 and/or JSIS B 180
Class assignments and grading
Student leading of discussion of particular readings
Term paper on the topic of the class
