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Postdevelopment theory (also post-development or anti-development or development criticism) is critique of the concept and practice of modernization and development as promoted by Western political powers in the Third World. Postdevelopment thought arose in the 1990s [1] as a set of criticisms against development projects led by Western nations and legitimized under development theory.
For postdevelopment theorists, "development" is an ideological concept that works to preserve the hegemony of the Global North [2] while increasing the dependency of the Global South. [3] Thus, postdevelopment theory argues for "alternatives to development" [1] or "bottom-up" approaches to development, [3] as determined by the peoples in the Third World.
The postdevelopment critique holds that modern development theory is a creation of academia in tandem with an underlying political and economic ideology. The academic, political, and economic nature of development means it tends to be policy oriented, problem-driven, and therefore effective only in terms of and in relation to a particular, pre-existing social theory.
The actual development projects thus initiated, by both governments and NGOs, are directed in accordance with this development theory. Development theory itself, however, assumes a framework already set in place by government and political culture in order to implement it. The development process is therefore socially constructed ; Western interests are guiding its direction and outcome, and so development itself fundamentally reflects the pattern of Western hegemony.
Development as an ideology and a social vision is ingrained in the ideals of modernization, which holds Western economic structure and society as a universal model for others to follow and emulate. Rooted in Western influence, the developmental discourse reflects the unequal power relations between the West and the rest of the world, whereby the Western knowledge of development, approach toward development, and conception of what development entails, as well as perceptions of progress, directs the course for the rest of the world.
Looking back on the circumstances of this paradigm's creation within the broader context of the material changes accompanying it, the scholar Nick Cullather frames development as "history." He sees it as a perspective on where the world has come from and where the places in it are going—as well as a period in time. He would have it that the concepts of modernization and development fused after 1945. [4] Cullather notes that many historicists who study or promote development construed as history think of the entries in its unfolding through this era in term of a discourse of signifiers. They do this rather than focusing on it as ideology, which to them brings to mind ideas fixed across time. He does, however, point in his research to many scholars who do engage with the idea that it is ideology, such as Michael Latham and Michael Hunt. [4]
Influenced by Ivan Illich and other critics of colonialism and postcolonialism, a number of postdevelopment theorists like Arturo Escobar and Gustavo Esteva have challenged the very meaning of development. According to them, the way development is understood is rooted in the earlier colonial discourse that depicts the North as "advanced" and "progressive", and the South as "backward", "degenerate" and "primitive".
They point out that a new way of thinking about development began in 1949 with President Harry Truman's declaration: "The old imperialism—exploitation for foreign profit—has no place in our plans. What we envisage is a program of development based on the concepts of democratic fair dealings." [5] While claiming that the "era of development" began at this point, postdevelopment theorists do not suggest that the concept of development was new. What was new was the definition of development in terms of an escape from underdevelopment. Since the latter referred to two-thirds of the world, this meant that most societies were made to see themselves as having fallen into the undignified condition of "underdevelopment", and thus to look outside of their own cultures for salvation.
Development, according to these critics, was now a euphemism for post-war American hegemony; it was the ideals and development programs of the United States and its (Western) European allies that would form the basis of development everywhere else.
Postdevelopment theory arose in the 1980s and 1990s through the works of scholars like Escobar, Esteva, Majid Rahnema, Wolfgang Sachs, James Ferguson, Serge Latouche, and Gilbert Rist. Leading members of the postdevelopment school argue that development was always unjust, never worked, and at this point has clearly failed. According to Sachs, a leading member of the postdevelopment school, "the idea of development stands like a ruin in the intellectual landscape" and "it is time to dismantle this mental structure." [6]
To cite an example of this "mental structure", development theorists point out how the concept of development has resulted in the hierarchy of developed and underdeveloped nations, where the developed nations are seen as more advanced and superior to the underdeveloped nations that are conceived of as inferior, in need of help from the developed nations, and desiring to be like the developed nations. The postdevelopment school of thought points out that the models of development are often ethnocentric (in this case Eurocentric), universalist, and based on Western models of industrialization that are unsustainable in this world of limited resources and ineffective for their ignorance of the local, cultural and historical contexts of the peoples to which they are applied. In essence, the problem postdevelopment theorists see in development and its practice is an imbalance of influence or domination by the West. Postdevelopment theorists promote more pluralism in ideas about development.
This section is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic.(April 2021) |
Among the starting points and basic assumptions of postdevelopment thought is the idea that a middle-class, Western lifestyle and all that goes with it (which might include the nuclear family, mass consumption, living in suburbia and extensive private space), may neither be a realistic nor a desirable goal for the majority of the world's population. In this sense, development is seen as requiring the loss, or indeed the deliberate extermination (ethnocide) of indigenous culture [7] or other psychologically and environmentally rich and rewarding modes of life. As a result, formerly satisfactory ways of life become dissatisfying because development changes people's perception of themselves.
Rahnema cites Helena Norberg-Hodge [8] "To take an example, Helena Norberg-Hodge mentions how the notion of poverty hardly existed in Ladakh when she visited that country for the first time in 1975. Today she says, it has become part of the language. When visiting an outlying village some eight years ago, Helena asked a young Ladakhi where were the poorest houses. 'We have no poor houses in our village,' was the proud reply. Recently Helena saw the same Ladakhi talking to an American tourist and overheard him say, 'if only you could do something for us, we are so poor.'" [9]
Development is seen as a set of interventions and worldviews which are also powers: to intervene, to transform and to rule. Postdevelopment critiques challenge the notion of a single path to development and demand acknowledgment of diversity of cultural perspectives and priorities.
For example, postdevelopment theorists argue that the politics of defining and satisfying needs is a crucial dimension of development thought, deeply entwined in the concept of agency. Yet, questions of who voices development concerns, what power relations are played out among agents, and how the interests of socially-constructed development experts (e.g., the World Bank, IMF officials) rule the development priorities are not often addressed in classical development thought. The postdevelopment approach attempts to overcome this gap by opening up academic, practical, and other spaces for non-Western peoples and their concerns.
Postdevelopment theory is a critique of the standard assumptions about who possesses the key to progress and how it may be implemented.
While the postdevelopment school provides a plethora of development critiques, it also considers alternative methods for bringing about positive change. The postdevelopment school proposes a particular vision of society removed from the discourse of development, modernity, politics, cultural and economic influences from the West, and market oriented and centralized authoritarian societies.
In his works, Escobar has outlined the common features of postdevelopment thought and societal vision. According to him, the postdevelopment school of thought is interested (in terms of searching for an alternative to development) in "local culture and knowledge; a critical stance toward established scientific discourses; and the defense and promotion of localized, pluralistic grassroots movements". Grassroots movements, Escobar argues, are "local, pluralistic, and distrust organized politics and development establishment". [10]
Postdevelopment thought takes inspiration from vernacular societies, the informal sector and frugal rather than materialistic lifestyles. Furthermore, postdevelopment theorists advocate for structural changes. According to Escobar, postdevelopmental thinking believes that the economy must be based around solidarity and reciprocity; policy must focus on direct democracy; and knowledge systems should be traditional, or at least a hybrid of modern and traditional knowledge. Decolonial programmatics include ALBA: The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, [11] initiated by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez in 2004 in response to neoliberal development projects such as FTAA and NAFTA. ALBA is analyzed and conceptualized using concepts elaborated by decolonial scholars of the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region. According to Al-Kassimi, [11] as a decolonial delinking performance, ALBA proposes an alternative to development project that embodies the spirit of Bandung and principles of South-South cooperation thereby contesting the a priori belief that only (Western) knowledge systems informing modernity and civilization lead to economic and social development. [11]
A recent survey claims that as alternatives to development, "the practice of postdevelopment is already being carried out by actors in and out of development". [12] "Postdevelopment in practice begins with the insistence that an enduring diversity of socialities, a multiplicity of southern knowledges and nature/culture assemblages, and postcolonial political economies reveals already existing alternatives." [13]
One of the leading anti-development writers, James Ferguson, contributed to what John Rapley termed "the most important of the opening salvos" of postdevelopment theory with his book The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. In The Anti-Politics Machine Ferguson describes the failure of the development project to properly understand the cultural and economic values of the people of Lesotho. This misunderstanding led to misappropriation of resources by the international community and myriad negative consequences for Basotho (residents of Lesotho), prompting Ferguson to comment that "Capitalist interests [...] can only operate through a set of social and cultural structures so complex that the outcome may be only a baroque and unrecognizable transformation of the original intention." [14] Development projects cannot simply create a desired result, but instead have a number of unexpected consequences.
Ferguson suggests that although development projects often end in failure, they still produce tangible impacts in the physical and social-political environment. In The Anti-Politics Machine, he asks, "What do aid programs do besides fail to help poor people?" [14] In the case of Lesotho, Ferguson proposes that, "while the project did not transform livestock-keeping it did build a road to link to Thaba-Tsea more strongly with the capital." [14] Ferguson argues that there is value to understanding and thinking about the unintended consequences for an environment.
Critics of development do not deny the need for change. They argue instead that to enact proper and effective change, change itself must first be conceived in different terms. Escobar, another leading member of the postdevelopment school, argues:
While social change has probably always been part of the human experience, it was only within the European modernity that 'society', i.e. the whole way of life of a people, was open to empirical analysis and made the subject of planned change. And while communities in the Third World may find that there is a need for some sort of organised or directed change—in part to reverse the damage done by development—this undoubtedly will not take the form of 'designing life' or social engineering. In this long run, this means that categories and meanings have to be redefined; through their innovative political practice, new social movements of various kinds are already embarked on this process of redefining the social, and knowledge itself. [15]
Rahnema addresses the question of which path to take directly in his conclusion to the Post-Development Reader. Rahnema admits that it may be true that a large majority of people, whose lives are in fact difficult, do want change. But the answer he suggests is not development but the "end of development". He says that the end of development is not "An end to the search for new possibilities of change, for a relational world of friendship, or for genuine processes of regeneration able to give birth to new forms of solidarity". Rather, Rahnema argues, the "inhumane and the ultimately destructive approach to change is over. It should resemble a call to the 'good people' everywhere to think and work together." [16]
Latouche is a French emeritus professor in economy at the University of Paris-Sud. A specialist in North-South economic and cultural relations, and in social sciences epistemology, he has developed a critical theory towards economic orthodoxy. He denounces economism, utilitarianism in social sciences, consumer society and the notion of sustainable development. He particularly criticizes the notions of economic efficiency and economic rationalism. He is one of the thinkers and most renowned partisans of the degrowth theory. [17] Latouche has also published in the Revue de Mauss , a French anti-utilitarian journal.
Sachs is a leading writer in postdevelopment thought. Most of his writing is focused on environmentally sustainable development and the idea that past notions of development are naturally unsustainable practices on our finite planet. However, in 1992 he co-authored and edited The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power which contributed greatly to the compilation of postdevelopment literature as a general theory.
This manifesto posits that the new era of development that emerged in the 1950s was created by the United States in order to secure its new hegemonic position in the global community. Sachs explains that the concept of "underdevelopment" was actually constructed in Harry S. Truman's 1949 inaugural address, which popularized the term. Sachs argues that the creation of this term was a discrete, strategic move to secure American hegemony by reinforcing the idea that the United States is at the top, and other countries on a lower pillar, of a linear and singular trajectory of development. It created a homogeneous identity for these countries and stripped them of their own diverse characteristics. "It converts participation into a manipulative trick to involve people in struggles for getting what the powerful want to impose on them." [18]
The Development Dictionary describes a biological metaphor for development. This biological metaphor was transferred to the social sphere and perpetuated the ideal that there is one natural way to develop into the perfect form. To develop in a manner disparate from the "natural order of things" was to become a disfigured anomaly. This definition held the potential to provide morally ambiguous justification for imperialist behavior and can be connected to colonial discourse and mainstream development theories. Under such categorization, Sachs explains, development was reduced to a simple measurement of the economic growth of per capita production.
Sachs issues a cry for public awareness of the "limits of development". He leaves the reader with the idea of the "New Commons" and posits that men and women should begin with this awareness before attempting to introduce new political policies with room for creativity and innovation in diverse development paths.
There is a large body of works which are critical of postdevelopment theory and its proponents. It has been noted that postdevelopment theory sees all development as imposed upon the developing world by the West. This dualist perspective of development may be unrealistic, and Marc Edelman notes that a large proportion of development has risen from, rather than been imposed upon, the developing world. [19] Citing Jonathan Crush's point that "Development, for all its power to speak and to control the terms of speaking, has never been impervious to challenge and resistance, nor, in response, to reformulation and change." [20] Ray Kiely argues that "The post-development idea is thus part of a long history within the development discourse." [21] In short, Kiely argues that postdevelopment theory is merely the latest version of a set of criticisms that have long been evident within writing and thought in the field of development. Development has always been about choices, Kiely explains. Choices with resulting losers and winners, dilemmas and destruction, as well as creative possibility.
Critics also argue that postdevelopment perpetuates cultural relativism: the idea that cultural beliefs and practices can be judged only by those who practice them. By accepting all cultural behaviors and beliefs as valid and rejecting a universal standard for living and understanding life, critics of postdevelopment argue, postdevelopment represents the opposite extreme of universalism, extreme relativism. Such a relativist extreme, rather than besting extreme universalism, has equally dangerous implications. John Rapley points out that "rejection of essentialism rests itself on an essentialist claim – namely, that all truth is constructed and arbitrary[...]" [22]
Kiely also argues that by rejecting a top-down, centralized approach to development and promoting development through local means, postdevelopment thought perpetuates neo-liberal ideals. Kiely remarks that "The argument — upheld by dependency and post-development theory — that the First World needs the Third World, and vice versa, rehearses neo-liberal assumptions that the world is an equal playing field in which all nation states have the capacity to compete equally[...]" [23] In other words, making locals responsible for their own predicament, postdevelopment unintentionally agrees with neo-liberalist ideology that favors decentralized projects and ignores the possibility of assisting impoverished demographics, instead making the fallacious assumption that such demographics must succeed on their own initiative alone. Kiely notes that not all grassroots movements are progressive. Postdevelopment is seen to empower anti-modern fundamentalists and traditionalists, who may hold non-progressive and oppressive values. [21]
Posthumanism or post-humanism is an idea in continental philosophy and critical theory responding to the presence of anthropocentrism in 21st-century thought. Posthumanization comprises "those processes by which a society comes to include members other than 'natural' biological human beings who, in one way or another, contribute to the structures, dynamics, or meaning of the society."
Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. Following pioneering work by Michel Foucault, these fields view discourse as a system of thought, knowledge, or communication that constructs our world experience. Since control of discourse amounts to control of how the world is perceived, social theory often studies discourse as a window into power. Within theoretical linguistics, discourse is understood more narrowly as linguistic information exchange and was one of the major motivations for the framework of dynamic semantics. In these expressions, ' denotations are equated with their ability to update a discourse context.
Global North and Global South are terms that denote a method of grouping countries based on their defining characteristics with regard to socioeconomics and politics. According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Global South broadly comprises Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, and Oceania. Most of the Global South's countries are commonly identified as lacking in their standard of living, which includes having lower incomes, high levels of poverty, high population growth rates, inadequate housing, limited educational opportunities, and deficient health systems, among other issues. Additionally, these countries' cities are characterized by their poor infrastructure. Opposite to the Global South is the Global North, which the UNCTAD describes as broadly comprising Northern America and Europe, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. As such, the two terms do not refer to the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern Hemisphere, as many of the Global South's countries are geographically located in the former and, similarly, a number of the Global North's countries are geographically located in the latter.
Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms, that are used to study and interpret social phenomena. A tool used by social scientists, social theories relate to historical debates over the validity and reliability of different methodologies, the primacy of either structure or agency, as well as the relationship between contingency and necessity. Social theory in an informal nature, or authorship based outside of academic social and political science, may be referred to as "social criticism" or "social commentary", or "cultural criticism" and may be associated both with formal cultural and literary scholarship, as well as other non-academic or journalistic forms of writing.
International development or global development is a broad concept denoting the idea that societies and countries have differing levels of economic or human development on an international scale. It is the basis for international classifications such as developed country, developing country and least developed country, and for a field of practice and research that in various ways engages with international development processes. There are, however, many schools of thought and conventions regarding which are the exact features constituting the "development" of a country.
Postcolonial feminism is a form of feminism that developed as a response to feminism focusing solely on the experiences of women in Western cultures and former colonies. Postcolonial feminism seeks to account for the way that racism and the long-lasting political, economic, and cultural effects of colonialism affect non-white, non-Western women in the postcolonial world. Postcolonial feminism originated in the 1980s as a critique of feminist theorists in developed countries pointing out the universalizing tendencies of mainstream feminist ideas and argues that women living in non-Western countries are misrepresented.
Underdevelopment, in the context of international development, reflects a broad condition or phenomena defined and critiqued by theorists in fields such as economics, development studies, and postcolonial studies. Used primarily to distinguish states along benchmarks concerning human development—such as macro-economic growth, health, education, and standards of living—an "underdeveloped" state is framed as the antithesis of a "developed", modern, or industrialized state. Popularized, dominant images of underdeveloped states include those that have less stable economies, less democratic political regimes, greater poverty, malnutrition, and poorer public health and education systems.
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's social roles, experiences, interests, chores, and feminist politics in a variety of fields, such as anthropology and sociology, communication, media studies, psychoanalysis, political theory, home economics, literature, education, and philosophy.
Development theory is a collection of theories about how desirable change in society is best achieved. Such theories draw on a variety of social science disciplines and approaches. In this article, multiple theories are discussed, as are recent developments with regard to these theories. Depending on which theory that is being looked at, there are different explanations to the process of development and their inequalities.
Development anthropology refers to the application of anthropological perspectives to the multidisciplinary branch of development studies. It takes international development and international aid as primary objects. In this branch of anthropology, the term development refers to the social action made by different agents who are trying to modify the economic, technical, political, or/and social life of a given place in the world, especially in impoverished, formerly colonized regions.
In postcolonial studies and in critical theory, subalterns are the colonial populations who are socially, politically, and geographically excluded from the hierarchy of power of an imperial colony and from the metropolitan homeland of an empire. Antonio Gramsci coined the term subaltern to identify the cultural hegemony that excludes and displaces specific people and social groups from the socio-economic institutions of society, in order to deny their agency and voices in colonial politics. The terms subaltern and subaltern studies entered the vocabulary of post-colonial studies through the works of the Subaltern Studies Group of historians who explored the political-actor role of the common people who constitute the mass population, rather than re-explore the political-actor roles of the social and economic elites in the history of India.
The postmodernist school in criminology applies postmodernism to the study of crime and criminals. It is based on an understanding of "criminality" as a product of the use of power to limit the behaviour of those individuals excluded from power, but who try to overcome social inequality and behave in ways which the power structure prohibits. It focuses on the identity of the human subject, multiculturalism, feminism, and human relationships to deal with the concepts of "difference" and "otherness" without essentialism or reductionism, but its contributions are not always appreciated. Postmodernists shift attention from Marxist concerns of economic and social oppression to linguistic production, arguing that criminal law is a language to create dominance relationships. For example, the language of courts expresses and institutionalises the domination of the individual, whether accused or accuser, criminal or victim, by social institutions. According to postmodernist criminology, the discourse of criminal law is dominant, exclusive and rejecting, less diverse, and culturally not pluralistic, exaggerating narrowly defined rules for the exclusion of others.
Arturo Escobar is a Colombian-American anthropologist and professor emeritus of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. His academic research interests include political ecology, anthropology of development, social movements, anti-globalization movements, political ontology, and postdevelopment theory.
Feminist epistemology is an examination of epistemology from a feminist standpoint.
Postcolonial international relations is a branch of scholarship that approaches the study of international relations (IR) using the critical lens of postcolonialism. This critique of IR theory suggests that mainstream IR scholarship does not adequately address the impacts of colonialism and imperialism on current day world politics. Despite using the language of post-, scholars of postcolonial IR argue that the legacies of colonialism are ongoing, and that critiquing international relations with this lens allows scholars to contextualize global events. By bridging postcolonialism and international relations, scholars point to the process of globalization as a crucial point in both fields, due to the increases in global interactions and integration. Postcolonial IR focuses on the re-narrativization of global politics to create a balanced transnational understanding of colonial histories, and attempts to tie non-Western sources of thought into political praxis.
The anthropology of development is a term applied to a body of anthropological work which views development from a critical perspective. The kind of issues addressed, and implications for the approach typically adopted can be gleaned from a list questions posed by Gow (1996). These questions involve anthropologists asking why, if a key development goal is to alleviate poverty, is poverty increasing? Why is there such a gap between plans and outcomes? Why are those working in development so willing to disregard history and the lessons it might offer? Why is development so externally driven rather than having an internal basis? In short, why is there such a lack of planned development?
Ilan Kapoor is a professor of Critical Development Studies at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is an influential postcolonial scholar, considered the first to bring both psychoanalysis and postcolonial analysis to the field of Development Studies. He is the author of seven books and numerous articles on postcolonial politics, psychoanalysis, participatory development, and celebrity humanitarianism.
Decoloniality is a school of thought that aims to delink from Eurocentric knowledge hierarchies and ways of being in the world in order to enable other forms of existence on Earth. It critiques the perceived universality of Western knowledge and the superiority of Western culture, including the systems and institutions that reinforce these perceptions. Decolonial perspectives understand colonialism as the basis for the everyday function of capitalist modernity and imperialism.
A critical theory is any approach to humanities and social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to attempt to reveal, critique, and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from social structures and cultural assumptions than from individuals. Some hold it to be an ideology, others argue that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation. Critical theory finds applications in various fields of study, including psychoanalysis, film theory, literary theory, cultural studies, history, communication theory, philosophy, and feminist theory.
Coloniality of knowledge is a concept that Peruvian sociologist Anibal Quijano developed and adapted to contemporary decolonial thinking. The concept critiques what proponents call the Eurocentric system of knowledge, arguing the legacy of colonialism survives within the domains of knowledge. For decolonial scholars, the coloniality of knowledge is central to the functioning of the coloniality of power and is responsible for turning colonial subjects into victims of the coloniality of being, a term that refers to the lived experiences of colonized peoples.
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