CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Teaching Assistant Positions
Department of Global Development Studies
Queen’s University, Kingston, ON CAN K7L 3N6
In accordance with the collective agreement between Ӱֱ and Teaching Assistants (PSAC Local 901) applications are invited from qualified individuals for teaching assistant positions.
Responsibilities
Teaching assistant duties include but are not limited to grading assignments, attending lectures and tutorials in person, office hours with students, and answering emails. More specific expectations will be covered at the beginning of the term.
DEVS 101-001 Development Studies in Global Perspective
Fall Term ON CAMPUS
Explores the relationships between global economic integration, technological change, environmental sustainability, political systems, and cultural diversity. Introduces essential interdisciplinary perspectives for complex global challenges from poverty to climate change and builds the foundations for ethical cross-cultural engagement.
DEVS 101-700 Development Studies in Global Perspective
Winter Term ONLINE
Explores the relationships between global economic integration, technological change, environmental sustainability, political systems, and cultural diversity. Introduces essential interdisciplinary perspectives for complex global challenges from poverty to climate change and builds the foundations for ethical cross-cultural engagement.
DEVS 102-001 Canada in the World
Winter Term ON CAMPUS
Canada in the World will help students build knowledge and analytical capacities in global development, with a focus on Canada. The course examines how processes of global development are differentiated across borders and axes of gender, racialization, and colonization. Students will explore applications of theories of global change.
DEVS 221-700 Indigenous Studies II
Fall Term ONLINE
Indigenous Studies II highlights the resilience and resistance of Indigenous communities as they grapple with gendered settler colonialism. The course examines Indigenous knowledge and governance within the settler nation state and the re-building of Indigenous communities. Topics include contemporary issues in Indigenous healing, art, teaching and learning, Indigenous activism, and socio-political life. Students engage in work that centers the voices of Indigenous peoples.
DEVS 230-001 The Global Political Economy of Development
Fall Term ON CAMPUS
This course introduces students to important debates, concepts and themes in the global political economy of development. Using a political economy perspective, we examine how different types of power relations are formed around the production, distribution and consumption of goods across local, national and international settings. We also examine how these power relations structure the institutions, processes and outcomes of global development. The course proceeds historically starting with an examination of the ways in which post-colonial countries were integrated into the world economy in the decades following the Second World War. Subsequently, we use this as a basis to examine more contemporary issues including good governance, free trade, and corporate social responsibility. No prior study of economics is needed for this course – we will be concerned with the real world of development, not abstract mathematical models.
DEVS 230-700 The Global Political Economy of Development
Winter Term ONLINE
This course introduces students to important debates, concepts and themes in the global political economy of development. Using a political economy perspective, we examine how different types of power relations are formed around the production, distribution and consumption of goods across local, national and international settings. We also examine how these power relations structure the institutions, processes and outcomes of global development. The course proceeds historically starting with an examination of the ways in which post-colonial countries were integrated into the world economy in the decades following the Second World War. Subsequently, we use this as a basis to examine more contemporary issues including good governance, free trade, and corporate social responsibility. No prior study of economics is needed for this course – we will be concerned with the real world of development, not abstract mathematical models.
DEVS 240-001 Decolonizing Development
Winter Term ON CAMPUS
By interrogating concepts of culture and colonialism, the course invites students to question established development narratives, confront Eurocentric biases, and envision alternative pathways for inclusive, egalitarian, and culturally sensitive approaches to global development.
DEVS 250-001 Global Environmental Transformations
Winter Term ON CAMPUS
Examines the relationship between development and environmental change by introducing social science perspectives on themes including energy, agriculture, climate, urbanisation and water. With a focus on combining macro‐ and micro‐‐ analysis, the course reflects on the meaning of development in an era of global environmental transformation.
DEVS 260-001 Globalization Gender and Development
Fall Term ON CAMPUS
This course is designed for those interested in undertaking a critical analysis of the gendered impact of the globalization process and development policies with a focus on women in the Global South.
DEVS 275-001 Global Health and Development
Fall Term ON CAMPUS
This course examines the nexus between global health and development with a focus on preparing students for work on contemporary health and wellbeing issues. It takes a multidisciplinary perspective, but largely from the field of social science, to analyze current global challenges including environmental and social transformations, and changing disease burden. Using case studies, students will learn important concepts and principles in global health and development. Innovative approaches that bridge global health and development will also be introduced in this course.
DEVS 280-700 Global Engagement
Fall Term ONLINE
This course explores current thinking around the motivations for, and ethical implications of, working with communities on issues of social justice, inequality, and sustainable development. Students will engage in self‐ reflexive practices and work collaboratively to create tools and action plans for ethical global engagement in the future.
DEVS 300-001 Cross‐Cultural Research Methods
Winter Term ON CAMPUS
How do we go from an idea or question to designing a research project to answer it? Students will learn how to prepare and design cross-cultural research projects for international development work, to understand and use selected methods from a critical perspective, to understand important elements underlying successful fieldwork and to learn to develop a development research proposal. We will cover research design, choosing the instruments, cross-checking and in-the-field analysis, entering the field, choosing the informants, analyzing the data and proposal writing.
DEVS 302-001 Development in Action
Fall Term ON CAMPUS
The course will also prepare students to engage with various actors and institutions in the development ‘industry’ while being reflective of their own positionality and vision for change in this increasingly troubled world. In short, the course aims to provide students with an honest and open view of the uneasy dilemmas and challenges of ‘doing’ development if they are to realize alternative futures.
DEVS 340-001 Theories of Development
Fall Term ON CAMPUS
This course introduces students to various theories that attempt to explain what ‘development’ is, how it occurs (or why it does not occur) and to whose benefit. Despite the frequent use of the term ‘development’ in academic, policy and journalistic writings, there is little consensus on what it actually entails – or even if some discernable process exists at all. For example, while modernisation theory suggests that development is a sequence of structural changes that all societies eventually go through; post-development theories argue that the notion of ‘development’ is merely a rhetorical device that reproduces power relations between the West and the Rest. To begin to understand these debates – and the political issues at stake – we survey several broad areas of development theory including classical political economy, modernisation theory, dependency theory, neoclassicism, neoinstitutionalism, Marxism, post-colonialism, post-development, feminist theories and global political-ecology.
DEVS 355-001: AIDS, Power, and Poverty
Fall Term ON CAMPUS
HIV/AIDS is one of the most pressing development issues in the world today. This course examines the cultural, political, economic, and other social factors that contribute to its transmission and intractability, and which help to explain the differential impact of the disease upon societies worldwide. Particular attention is paid to the ways that specific social/sexual identities and practices arising from inequitable class, gender, race, and ethnic relations, affect the prevalence of HIV, the ability to contain its spread, and the human costs that it entails.
DEVS 359-001: Migrations, Refugees, and Development?
Winter Term ON CAMPUS
The course examines contemporary issues 'forced' migration of people to obtain theoretical understanding of processes shaping human mobility and the debates governing inclusion or exclusion of people.
DEVS 361-700 Policy Advocacy in Global Development
Winter Term ONLINE
This course equips students with strategies, techniques and mindsets that help social movements and justice-oriented organizations contribute to policy advocacy. Through historical and sociological research, students apply core concepts and best practices to develop new understandings about where policy advocacy fits within a broader spectrum of transformative societal change. The course provides practical guidance for designing public campaigns aimed at legal and policy changes toward the goal of justice advocacy in global development.
DEVS 366-001 Land Politics and Health
Winter Term ON CAMPUS
This course explores the complexity of land politics and its implications for health and health promotion at local and global levels. It starts by conceptualizing land politics as deeply steeped in political ecologies which produce and reinforce health inequities. With such theoretical framing, students will learn the situatedness of contemporary concepts and processes in land politics (including environmental appropriation, exploitation, dispossession, and repossession) in broader discourses of environmental (in)justice and sustainability. It will also discuss how power and politics over land access are organized and operationalized at multiple scales to influence longstanding health inequalities. The course will conclude by examining ways in which global health can benefit from equity in land politics, and assist students to examine their future roles in promoting healthy environments and healthy populations through ‘equitable land reforms’ in communities and at the global level.
DEVS 392-700 Global Settler Colonialisms
Winter Term ONLINE
Colonialism is often considered a singular term. Beginning with a review of the Columbian Exchange, this course examines how colonialism continues to evolve in various forms, and in various contexts. Students are encouraged to consider how many forms of colonialism relate to place, context, resources, and time. The complexities of global settler colonialisms is a central theme.
Contract Hours
The hours in the TA contract will be determined based on the actual course enrollment.
To Apply
The University invites applications from all qualified individuals. Queen’s University is committed to employment equity and diversity in the workplace and welcomes applications from women, visible minorities, aboriginal people, persons with disabilities, and persons of any sexual orientation or gender identity.
The University will provide support in its recruitment processes to applicants with disabilities, including accommodation that takes into account an applicant’s accessibility needs. If you require accommodation during the interview process, please contact: Barbra Lalonde, (613) 533-6000, ext. 77210.
Application Process
The process of assigning qualified graduate students to these positions is outlined in the Collective Agreement between the Public Service Alliance of Canada () and Queen’s University. Remuneration will be in accordance with the Collective Agreement, and appointments are subject to funding or enrollment criteria. Applications will be reviewed, and positions allocated in reference to candidates’ teaching and academic experience as it applies to the course subject field and in reference to the candidates’ priority for a Teaching Assistantship as specified by the Collective Agreement.
If you wish to be considered for a teaching assistantship listed above, please send one attachment including both your cover letter and your qualifications, along with your resume outlining your relevant experience to:
Carrie Roosenmallen, Graduate Programs Coordinator
Department of Global Development Studies
Queen’s University
Kingston Ontario Canada K7L 3N6
devsgrad@queensu.ca
Application Deadline
Submit your application and supporting documentation no later than Friday July 18, 2025, at 11:59 pm. Late applications will not be accepted. Only those applicants who will be offered a teaching assistantship will be contacted.
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