Development Policy & Practice in Faculty of Maths, Computing and Technology

Dr Giles Mohan

Development Policy and Practice
Faculty of Maths, Computing and Technology
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA

Phone number: + 44 (0) 1908 653654
Fax number: + 44 (0) 1908 654825
Email: Giles Mohan

Position: Reader in the Politics of International Development

Biography:

Giles is a human geographer who gained his PhD from Liverpool University in 1993. Since then he has taught geography and/or development studies at Liverpool University, the University of Central Lancashire, Portsmouth University and The Open University. He is a handling editor of the Review of African Political Economy and a member of the editorial boards of Political Geography, Geography Compass, and the International Development Planning Review.  Giles has also acted as consultant to recent Open University/BBC productions African School, Indian School, Comic Relief and the Reith Lectures.

Teaching:

Giles is currently course team chair for a revised version of TU870 Capacities for Managing Development, the postgraduate course on Capacities for Managing Development. He is deputy chair of TU871 Development: Context and Practice and also served recently on the level 2 geography course DD205 Living in a Globalised World.

Research interests:

Giles' work concerns:

  • The political economy of aid in Africa, focusing particularly on Chinese involvement and the politics of structural adjustment. In May 2007 Giles received an ESRC grant entitled The politics of Chinese engagement with African 'development': Case studies of Angola and Ghana worth £360,000 FEC. Click here for the blog.

  • The developmental impacts of the diaspora, based on both theoretical work and case studies of the Ghanaian diaspora in the UK and its linkages to Ghana.

  • Decentralised local development in the Third World, which is an on-going interest examining policy initiatives around good governance and devolution in sub-Saharan Africa.

  • The problems and potentials of participatory development, which started with a critique of participatory methodologies and grew into broader engagement with the politics of empowerment within development projects.
Selected publications:
Edited books:
  • Hickey, S. and Mohan, G. (2004) Towards participation as transformation, in Hickey, S. and Mohan, G. (eds),Participation: from tyranny to transformation?, Zed Books, London.

  • Mohan, G. and Zack-Williams, T. (2004) The Politics of Transition: state, democracy and economic development in Africa (a reader) James Currey, Oxford.
Chapters in books:
  • Mohan, G. (2008) ‘Participatory Development’, in Desai, V. and Potter, R. (eds) The Arnold Companion to Development Studies, Second Edition, Edward Arnold.

  • Mohan, G. and Stokke, K. (2007) ‘The politics of localization: From depoliticizing development to politicizing democracy’, in Cox, K., Low, M. and Robinson, J. (eds) The Handbook of Political Geography, Sage.

  • Mohan, G. (2006) ‘Community, cloth and other travelling objects’, in Clark, N., Massey, D. and Sarre, P. (eds) A World in the Making, The Open University, Milton Keynes. 267-309.

  • Hickey, S. and Mohan, G. (2004) Towards participation as transformation, in Hickey, S. and Mohan, G. (eds), Participation: from tyranny to transformation?, Zed Press.

  • Hickey, S. and Mohan, G. (2004) Relocating Participation within a Radical Politics of Development: Citizenship and Critical Modernism, in Hickey, S. and Mohan, G. (eds) Participation: from tyranny to transformation?, Zed Press.

  • Waddington, M. and Mohan, G. (2004) Failing Forward: going beyond imposed forms of participation’, in Hickey, S. and Mohan, G. (eds) Participation: from tyranny to transformation?, Zed Press.

  • Mohan, G. (2004) ‘The eyelashes came before the beard: The state, civil society and democratisation in Ghana’, in Williams, G. (ed) Democracy, Labour and Politics in Africa and Asia: Essays in honour of Bjorn Beckman, Centre for Research and Documentation, Kano, 173-200.

  • Yanacopulos, H. and Mohan, G. (2004) Networks of Power/the Power of Networks, in A World of Whose Making?, Bromley, S. and Brown, W. (eds), OU/Pluto Press.

  • Zack-Williams, A. and Mohan, G. (2004) Theories of the state/the state of theories, in Mohan, G. and Zack-Williams, A. (eds) The Politics of Transition: state, democracy and economic development in Africa (a reader), James Currey.

  • Mohan, G. (2002) Diaspora and development: The Black Atlantic and African Transformation, in Robinson, J. (ed) Development and Displacement, The Open University/OUP, 77-139.

  • Mohan, G. and Robinson, J.  (2002) Conclusion, in Robinson, J. (ed) Development and Displacement, The Open University/OUP, 246-259.

  • Mohan, G.  (2002) The underdevelopment of economic geography: rethinking institutions and embeddedness in a Third World context, in Mike Taylor and Simon Leonard (eds) Social capital and the embedded enterprise: international perspectives, Ashgate, 37-55.

  • Mohan, G. (2001) Beyond Participation: strategies for deeper empowerment, in Cooke, B. and Kothari, U. (eds) Participation: the New Tyranny, Zed Books, 153-167, 1-86549-794-1

  • Mohan, G. (2001) Participatory Development, in Desai, V. and Potter, R. (eds) The Arnold Companion to Development Studies,Edward Arnold, 49-54, 0-340-76050-8
Journal articles:
  • Mohan, G. (2008) Cosmopolitan states of development: Homelands, citizenships, and diasporic Ghanaian politics, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 26, 464-479. 

  • G. Mohan and Power, M. (2008) New African choices? The politics of Chinese engagement in Africa and the changing architecture of international development, Review of African Political Economy, 35, 1, 23—42.

  • G. Mohan (2008) China in Africa: A review essay , Review of African Political Economy, 35, 1, 155-173.

  • Hickey, S. and Mohan, G. (2008) Poverty reduction strategies, participation and the politics of accountability, Review of International Political Economy, 15, 2, 234—258. 

  • Mohan, G. (2007) ‘Participatory Development: From Epistemological Reversals to Active Citizenship, Geography Compass, http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/geography/article_view?article_id=geco_articles_bpl038, Blackwell. May. ISSN: 1749-8198

  • Mohan, G. (2006) 'Embedded cosmopolitanism and the politics of obligation: The Ghanaian diaspora and development', Environment and Planning A., 38(5), 867 – 883.

  • Mohan, G. and Wilson, G. (2005) 'The antagonistic relevance of development studies', Progress in Development Studies, 5, 4, 1-18.

  • Hickey, S. and Mohan, G. (2005) 'Relocating Participation within a Radical Politics of Development', Development and Change, 36, 2, 237-262.

  • Henry, L., Mohan, G. and Yanacopulos, H. (2004) Networks as Transnational Agents of Development, Third World Quarterly, 25, 5, 839-855.

  • Henry, L. and Mohan, G. (2003) Making homes: the Ghanaian diaspora, institutions and development, Journal of International Development, 15, 5, 611-622.

  • Mercer, C. Mohan, G. and Power, M. (2003) Towards a critical political geography of African Development, Geoforum, 34, 419-436, 0016-7185.

  • Mohan, G. and Mohan, J. (2002) Placing Social Capital, Progress in Human Geography, 26, 2, 191-210.

  • Mohan, G. and Zack-Williams, A. (2002) Globalisation From Below: Conceptualising the Role of the African Diasporas in Africa's Development, Review of African Political Economy, Issue 92, 211-237, 0305-6244.

  • Mohan, G. and Zack-Williams, A. (2002) Africa, the African Diaspora and Development, Review of African Political Economy, Issue 92, 205-210, 0305-6244.

  • Mohan, G. (2002) The Disappointments of Civil Society: NGOs, citizenship and institution building in Northern Ghana, Political Geography, 21, 1, 125-154.  (Appeared in a reader Moseley, W. (ed) (2006) Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial African Issues, McGraw Hill/Dushkin: Guilford, Conn., 63-73)

  • Mohan, G. and Holland, J. (2001) Human Rights and Development in Africa: moral intrusion or empowering opportunity, Review of African Political Economy, 88, 177-196, 0305-6244.

  • Mohan, G. and Stokke, K. (2001) The Convergence around Local Civil Society and the Dangers of Localism, Social Scientist, 29, 3-24.
Work in press:
  • Mohan, G. (2008) ‘Structural Adjustment’, in Kitchin, R. and Thrift, N. (eds)The International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Elsevier.