InSight, In Focus: Observations Arising from the Inaugural Canadian National Students' Conference in International Development Studies.

"InSight", the inaugural Canadian National Students' Conference in International Development Studies, was convened in June 2004 as a forum for undergraduate students to collectively reflect upon their complex, fluid, and rapidly-growing field of study. As the synthesis of the observations and reflections of the students at InSight, this paper lends an undergraduate voice to recent reviews of the condition of International Development Studies (IDS) in Canada. While IDS exists in multifarious incarnations at universities across Canada, this paper provides a much-needed articulation of perceptions, motivations, problems, and values that can be found in IDS undergraduates from coast to coast. The authors of this paper have sought, as did the "InSight" Conference itself, to honour the idealism, creativity, and energy of those students drawn to a field of study located at the periphery of the academic world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]