One frustrating aspect of Escobar’s approach - to pick up on Bea’s comment - is that he focuses exclusively on the ‘failures’ of the system. In a presentation earlier this year (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-o0merYDLA) he stated that “We don’t have to accept the one future that is offered to us by capitalism, by high technology, by the West and by heteropatriarchal (?recording unclear) capitalism”. For Escobar, is ‘successful’ development possible or is ‘development’ no more than a discourse supporting the ethnocentric, capitalist world system?  To express this in more concrete terms: should we think of the  Human Development Index in Escobar’s terms as merely another failed component of the top-down world system that he criticises or is there some value in seeing it as an  attempt to focus attention on the disparities in  health, education and the life opportunities that people have in an imperfect  world?
Jennifer H

Response to Emanuela, Bea and Jennifer:

I am not sure if Escobar is arguing in terms of binaries, although I would agree with him that 'Development' is failing, being a person that has been working in the field for more than 6 years myself. If you examine how the system functions, you will get to see that the usual business is that OECD countries create categories and "interventions" that are imposed on governments and individuals from the Global South.

On the other hand, South-South cooperation, most recently Chinese Aid in Africa, is also a project of exploitation and neocolonialism in which China gains access to cheap resources...
Moustafa Yamada

In response to Moustafa: 

I think that South-South developmental cooperation/exploitation is something that is really interesting to bring up in this context and represents a gaping hole in the literature as I read it. The case of Chinese development initiatives in Africa really interesting. I think its important to note that in addition to the economic benefit that China is able to reap through investing in Big D infrastructure style development projects across Africa (largely in mining), there is huge global political influence to be won through the expansion of the Chinese One Belt, One Road project into Africa. 
Claudia

 -Priyanka K.

A great example the illustrates the development vs culture debate raised by the author is Helena Nordberg- Hodge’s ethnography on the Ladakhi community of Tibet. 

Followed by the replacement of agricultural by capitalist monetary economy in Ladakh encouraged by the Indian government, the nature of the community changed. They began to experience notions of relative poverty (especially after western television programmes have been introduced) despite, they did not have a word for poverty prior to the imposed developmental changes. Young people began to abandon traditional clothing due to feelings of shame, and many no longer spoke the traditional Ladakhi language due to changes in the educational curriculum. 

- Veronika

The points you have highlighted also made me think, whether it is accurate to suggest development is the nature’ s law of change, or would it be important to emphasise that it is not simply nature, but the capitalist nature’s law of change in order to sustain the system.  Therefore, Comte’s statement that “women’s “social sympathy” is essential for development” might be understood better from a Marxist feminist perspective within the capitalist natural context. For example, Zaretsky suggests, the nurturing nature of women could encourage the process of development, as women provide free unpaid housework, which according to the theorist involves teaching capitalist values to the next generation of labour force, while also providing psychological support to their husbands, so they can return to work fresh without wanting to rebel against the system. However, the extent of the applicability of this theory is debatable depending on many factors, such as the era and given society of focus.

- Veronika

 

The specific question I am asking is, if the study of communities is such an integral part of development, and if development needs to be placed in a social and cultural regime, then how might it  benefit from intersectionality – i.e, how can it account for multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social world is constructed (Crenshaw, 1991) To put it in another way, what can development learn from feminist intersectional approaches? I’d love to hear some thoughts.
-Anuradha-

Response by Moustafa:
I think your question depends on what you mean by "development." If we follow Pailey's (and Escobar's) argument, I do not think (the machine of) Development is waiting (or willing) to learn from a decolonized point of view. However, if it is knowledge production for example, I think anthropology can contribute to what 'development' means for different groups

Response to Moustafa:

I agree that the area of development must be specified before we can answer Anuradha's question; however, I can think of a few historical examples where Western development did indeed borrow from Indigenous practices, such as with the birth of permaculture. Bill Mollison, an Australian biologist, only founded this field after spending a considerable amount of time studying a community of Aboriginals in Tasmania. I think it would be more accurate to say that one of the main issues  lies in “the machine” of development not being willing to acknowledge the origins of such innovations, while also applying and adjusting “decolonized” practices to fit a colonized world. - Mahali

It makes me wonder... if we were to understand development as both real and unreal, would we still be talking about the First and the Third world?

Laura Torres

Response to Laura - 
This is such a profound way of looking at the issue Laura. So many more themes come out of this. Lived experience versus knowledge. Visible versus invisible. Economic outcomes versus power structures. Which of this is real and which is unreal? 

Response to Laura:

I also loved the reference to that quote. It's so important to recognise that something can be ideological, and yet have material dimensions and consequences. We cannot dismiss the very 'real' impact of race simply by calling it a 'construct' and, therefore, thinking of it as 'unreal'.
-Maria

 

While I was unable to ‘read’ where Cowen and Shenton stand with regard to the positivist development doctrine, I could but disagree with Comte and J.S.Mill on Progress and Development. Edward Said (2003:14) criticizes knowledge production of the that time of being racial charged and imperialistic, in which the Global South is “inferior,” which also sets a foundation for knowledge production at large that reproduces the position of the “Orient.” This can also be read in the accounts of Mill’s Principles of Political Economy where he refers to local Indians of being too poor or of limited intelligence.

I was also struck by how he writes about the homogenization of “third world” countries: “...a squatter in Mexico city, a Nepalese peasant, and Tuareg nomad become equivalent to each other as poor and underdeveloped” (p. 386).  It once again stresses the importance of thinking outside of the limited, homogeneous identities that have become tethered to specific regions (the Middle East, Central America, etc) and the “Global South” as a whole.  - Mahali

2. Considering the history of development being strongly entangled with European history and history of ‘though’, as presented by Cowen and Shenton, and (thus) suffering from a white gaze, is there another way to think of development? In other words, does its legacy inevitably make it impossible to shift development toward a less western-centric discipline/approach/intention? Is there an alternative path, or is development intrinsically and inevitably ‘rotten’? Pailey writes that past and present theories of development have created “phenotypic others”, and similarly Escobar describes how “development proceeded by creating ‘abnormalities’ (such as the ‘illiterate’, the ‘undeveloped’[…])”. What is the path, if there is any, for development theories to be applied without “otherizing” and “categorizing”? 
- Sarah M.

I cannot stop thinking about the fact that most of the organizations dealing with “development” or that are operating in the international system were created after WWII in a specific environment and also in “paternalistic mindset”. If I can use Escobar’s words, I would say that the mindset was: influenced by a top-down ethnocentric and technocratic approach, that always treated people of the “third” world as an abstract way. This generated fear and underestimation, of their own cultures, in the third world populations.

Because of all that, it is very difficult to believe that development theories were set up only in the name of people’s interests, especially knowing that all the knowledge produced about the third world is used and promoted by institutions through applied programs, conferences, international consultant services held by western countries or carry out by people with a vision of development still linked to the aspect of economic growth.

Is it possible to affirm that development theories after 1945 were a continuation of colonial practices? Is it possible to interpret the evolution of each country as a process rather than a development?

-Susanna Owusu

I have always been used to analyse the word “development” taking in consideration only the debate after 1945 and from an economic point of view, furthermore, I believed that some indicators to analyse the condition of developing countries were sufficient to define the status of each nation in the evolutionary process.

I always knew that the theories of development came from a Eurocentric conception, but I ignored its historical origins. Thanks to the lectures and readings I now understand the technical evolution of the term "development" and its transformation over the years.

-Susanna

Though Pailey’s mention of how the “white gaze” manifests within charity work is brief, this is something that I believe must be analyzed as thoroughly and critically as international migration policy itself. If the world of development is as rife with whiteness and racism as she writes, then surely the same is true of humanitarian aid, where policymaking and practice is still primarily in the hands of white North-Americans and Europeans. - Mahali

Furthermore, while discussing the theory of trusteeship Cowen and Shenton, point out how Saint Simonians that "only those who had the ‘capacity’ to utilise land, labour and capital in the interests of society as a whole should be ‘entrusted’ with them". To me it shows how trusteeship in these circumstances looks like taking over in the 'interest of other', which it is not but for the interests of themselves, which is a key characteristic in colonialism.

+Phoebe

When discussing his perspective on power and control in relation to development, Escobar suggested, the process of problematising poverty within certain countries almost functions as a tool that justifies the interference of another country that is viewed to have a more robust economic and social structure, therefore taking a position in the role of the saviour. Although it appeared to be a somewhat monolithic view at first, Escobar’s thought made me think of the potential impact of some fundamental developmental theories, such as Rostow’s five stages of growth and Wallerstein’s world system theory more critically. Considering their hierarchal illustrations of levels of development based on a given subjective measure, I was wondering if the latent effect of these theories could be influential on the predisposition of power asymmetry as they could also be utilised to indicate who might be the saviour and who needs saving, therefore possibly reinforcing and reproducing the unequal relations.

- Veronika