The contribution of Post Development to:
(a) Debates on Development and;
(b) Debates on the welfare of the poor and marginalized people in global capitalism.
By: Henry Badenhorst
20 March 2010
Abstract
Development and Post-development are in a titanic battle for the souls of the Two/Third world or ‘Social majorities’. Development is heavily critiqued as serving the purposes of the ’social minorities’ in forcing the masses to convert to western culture and beliefs. Post-development in its rhetoric language use, in an academical sense, offers no real practical alternatives. Post-modern grassroots movements seem to appear on stage as the hero to save the oppressed masses from development.
Introduction
Sachs starts his book; The Development Dictionary with these incredible words` `The last forty years can be called the age of development. This epoch is coming to an end. The time is ripe to write its obituary'' (Blaikie.2000:1036) and furthermore, he states “the idea of Development stands like a ruin in the intellectual landscape. Delusion and disappointment, failures and crime have been the steady companions of development and they tell a common story: it did not work. Moreover, the historical conditions which catapulted the idea into prominence have vanished: development has become outdated” (Pieterse.2000:285). Esteva in his rhetoric goes as far to say that Development stinks and that it’s a malignant myth which threatens social majorities. (Pieterse.2000:286)
Development is heavily criticized by Post Development thinkers and vice versa. Development advocates agree that even though post development has no cure or alternatives for development, it does have a valuable contribution towards Development and towards the struggle for human welfare of poor and marginalized people in global capitalism. Post-development will be conceptualized, if that is indeed possible, by looking at its contradictions. Post-development will be further explored by looking at the critique it has against development. The critique that post-development display towards development will be analyzed, measured and critiqued. Lastly, the contribution that post-development has had on the struggle for human welfare by poor and marginalized people will be discussed i.t.o. grassroots movements that have sprung up in the mainly Two/Thirds world where social majorities have to combat against modernism and neo-liberalism instituted by social minorities.
What is Post-Development?
Post-development is according to Stewart (2007:4) a fundamental and radical rejection of the whole of Development, including its institutions, language, and objectives. Pieterse paints post-development as a “radical reaction to the impasse of development theory and policy” (Stewart.2007:4), which” starts out from a basic assessment that attaining a middle-class lifestyle for the majority of the world population is impossible” (Pieterse.2000:285). As summarised in Stewart (2007:4), there are four claims of post-development according to Pieterse.
Firstly, post-development attacks the way in which development characterizes poverty. Secondly, it tries to highlight development’s entanglement with forms of westernization. Thirdly, it claims that modernism, “the worship of progress” and the dominance of science all work together to serve dominant minorities. Fourthly, it claims that development works as an ideological discourse and that different actions in the development field all assist to confirm and support this ideology. These four claims are discussed later in more detail.
Post-development strongly rejects alternative development, since according to Esteva, it only acts as a deodorant trying to cover the stench of ‘Development’ (Stewart.2007:4). Post-development concerns itself with unmasking the whole development discourse, exposing ideas such as development, progress, poverty and equality as all comprised due to their links to the failed project of development (Stewart.2007:5). It may also be wise to include the meaning of Development thinking since without a development ideology there won’t be post-development thinking. Up to the mid 1980s, development thinking, all development theories, and the international aid industry shared three paradigms, namely; essentialising the Third World and its inhabitants as homogenous; an unconditional belief in progress and in the make-ability of society; and the importance of the nation-state in realising that progress (Schuurman.2000:392). Since the mid-1980s, these three paradigms have “lost their hegemonic status, and have been replaced by a loose set of partly descriptive, partly heuristic (involving trial and error) notions like civil society, social capital, diversity, and risk”, according to Schuurman (2000:392).
Development thinking being an “interventionist and managerialist discipline, steeped in social engineering and the ambition to shape economies and societies”, involves itself in telling others what to do “in the name of modernization, nation-building, progress, mobilization, sustainable development, human rights, poverty alleviation, and even empowerment and participation” (Pieterse.2000:292). Post-development is a response to this discourse or thinking, in that it rebels against this authoritarian sensibility, due to its aversion to control (Pieterse.2000:292).
Post-development’s criticism of Development
Post-development, first of all, attacks the way ‘development’ defines poverty. Poverty according to the development approach implies real material poverty (Pieterse.2000:287). Shiva, as post-development thinker, argues that it should not be, mentioning subsistence economies, serving basic needs through self-provisioning, which are not necessarily poor in the sense that they are deprived (Pieterse.2000:287). Development’s idea of poverty, according to Shiva, includes those who do not participate overwhelmingly in the market economy, neither consuming commodities provided for and distributed through the market (Pieterse.2000:287). Rahnema points out, that, pro-development advocates represent poverty as the world’s impoverished, incapable of doing anything for themselves, furthermore refusing the help of do-gooders (Pieterse.2000:287). Instead, it is the economics of development which is truly pauperizing leading to poverty alleviation and elimination to slip off the map (Pieterse.2000:287).
Post-development secondly, highlights development’s entanglement with forms of Westernisation. Development is used as a tool to force countries to adopt or to convert them, to Western culture, beliefs, customs and practices in matters such as law, economics, industry, lifestyle, etc. Latouche critiques development by stating that it has been and will always be “the westernization of the world” (Pieterse.2000:288). Escobar argues that development is external, based on the model of the industrialized world (Pieterse.2000:288). According to Kothari, development only took over where colonialism left off (Pieterse.2000:288). Thus sounds the critique that post-development thinkers have for Development’s involvement and equation with westernization.
The third ‘claim to fame’ of post-development, is its critique of development’s involvement with modernism, the “worship of progress” and science, all working together to advance dominant minorities. This critique of modernism fits in with the critique of westernization (Pieterse.2000:288). Development thinking represents “the new religion of the West”, according to Rist, but on the other hand, it is to be said that the worship of progress is not only limited to the West (Pieterse.2000:288). Part and parcel to this critique of modernism is the critique of science, where science is viewed as power (Pieterse.2000:288).
The final claim of post-development is that it sees development as an ideological discourse. Escobar states that the ‘discourse of Development’ has been a ‘mechanism for the production and management of the Third World (Pieterse.2000:289-290). The rhetoric doesn’t stop there, it is also described by Esteva as a ‘Frankenstein type dream’, an ‘alien model of exploitation’ that reflects urban bias (Pieterse.2000:290). What is needed, according to Escobar, instead of development, is a different regime of truth and perception, suggesting an undertaking of an ‘archaeology of Development’ implying a change in the order of discourse and mind shift in the way we think (Pieterse.2000:290,294).
Other critiques against development include that of Lumis, who declares an end to development since it’s inherently anti-democratic (Pieterse.2000:292). However it’s not only states who form part of this ‘development managerialism’, but also international financial institutions and NGO’s, who all “share a lack of humility” and is a “key characteristic of the development power/knowledge complex” (Pieterse.2000:292). Alternative development is thus seen by post-development as alternative managerialism, enforcing their suspicions and therefore not considering alternative development as alternatives to development, instead of rejecting that too (Pieterse.2000:292). Should the alternative, as Roe suggests, be to do nothing? (Pieterse.2000:292).
Criticisms of Post-Development
Putting post development under the spotlight exposes certain truths about it. In emotive language, post-development thinkers have proclaimed the evil of development as an instrument in the hands of social minorities to modernize and to westernize the unwilling masses of the Two/Third world and bring them in step with their beliefs, customs and practices as a mechanism of control and to force subservience. This blatant rejection of cultural autonomy by Western powers is done in the good name of ‘development’, which postmodernists and post-development thinkers reject as being conducive to the welfare of the masses or Two/Third world, as Esteva and Prakash refer to. Even though being tempted to be swayed by emotive language use by post-development thinkers, there is another side to the coin. Post-development does indeed have its faults and shortcomings, which can be criticized.
Post-development’s claims and critique of development, as discussed above, have also been critiqued by pro-development advocates. Pieterse (2000:287) argues with regards to post-development’s critique of market representation and its link to poverty, according to pro-development advocates, that less market representation not necessarily implies more social presentation, lest we romanticize poverty and equate it with purity. Post-development’s second critique of development namely Development equals westernization, especially that of Kothari’s where it's argued that westernization took over from colonization, is vehemently attacked by Pieterse that this view is as old as the modernization theory, which “calls to mind the momentum and pathos of decolonization, the arguments against cultural imperialism, Coco-colonisation, Mcdonaldisation and the familiar cultural homogenization thesis according which western media, advertising, and consumerism induce cultural uniformity” (Pieterse.2000:288).
It’s furthermore “one-sided” and “old hat” and it “denies the agency of the Third World and denies the extent to which the South also own development” (Pieterse.2000:288). The fact is that the South has contributed towards recent development perspectives, such as dependency theory, alternative development and human development (Pieterse.2000:288). Pieterse criticizes Latouche and others over their broad use of the term ‘The West’, since sharp historical differences between North-America and Europe exist (Pieterse.2000:288).
Post-development’s third claim or criticism towards development is against modernism, science and the “worship of progress”. Even though Pieterse recognizes the fact that technological progress is at times placed above human development, he makes the point that even states in the South are guilty of using science as an instrument of power as proved by examples of India’s high modernization drive and Indonesia’s experimental aircraft technology industry(Pieterse.2000:289). Although Rist sees development as the ‘new religion of the West’, the fact remains that it’s not restricted to the West and that an “aversion to modernism also exists in the West” (Pieterse.2000:289). Science is not all bad; it can be used for good, such as ecological movements using scientific methods to monitor energy use pollution and climate changes (Pieterse.2000:289).
The last claim or critique by post-development about development is that it works mainly as an ideological discourse, used as a mechanism for the production and management of the Third World. Pieterse criticizes Escobar’s perspective as a broad and uneven mixture of exaggerated claims, sustained by weak examples (Pieterse.2000:290). It’s broad in the sense that it combines vocabularies such as post-structuralism, social movement theory and development; uneven in that his perspective (which represents post-development’s perspective), centres on anti-development without giving a clear delineation between anti-development and alternative development; and exaggerated in that his position “hinges on a discursive trick, a rhetorical ploy of equating development with ‘Development’” (Pieterse.2000:290). “Escobar’s perspective on actual development is flimsy and based on confused examples, with more rhetoric than logic” (Pieterse.2000:290).
Sachs in 1992, found the concept of development outdated (Schuurman.2000:395). He gave the following reasons, namely that; the belief in ecology led and will always lead to ecological disasters; the concept of development was an ideological weapon in East-West conflict, which no longer exists; the welfare gap between North and South is growing instead of shrinking; and development leads to a loss of diversity, which is boring (Schuurman.2000:395).
Post-development thinking is fundamentally uneven, since it concerns itself with much discourse, yet the actual language use is indulgent and sloppy (Pieterse.2000:293). Pieterse (2000:293) accuses Escobar of playing games with rhetoric by referring to development as ‘Development’ suggesting it’s the same, in fact, essentializing ‘development’. Pieterse (2000:293) argues that Sachs makes the call on the one hand for the banishment of development, yet in this call for banishment, he suggests that it’s possible to define development unambiguously. Escobar does the same, on the one hand “he caricatures ‘Development’ and argues for ‘alternatives to development’, yet on the other hand, he pleads for redefining development”, contradicting himself (Pieterse.2000:294). The contradictions seem endless, on the one hand rubbing shoulders with anti-intellectualism, yet on the other calling for ‘complex discursive operations’ (Pieterse.2000:295). Pieterse (2000:293) remarks that it seems necessary for post-development to essentialize development, in order to radically repudiate development. This dichotomous thinking by post-development is rather confusing and as Pieterse rightly remarks, they tend to “turn on a language game rather than an analysis (Pieterse2000:293).
There are several problems according to Pieterse with the dichotomous line of thinking posed by post development thinkers. Firstly, some of their claims are simply misleading and it misrepresents the history of development, such as Esteva and others who refer in the Development Dictionary to Truman in the 1940s who started the development era, when in fact in the South it started with colonial economics, a much older history than development (Pieterse.2000:293). Secondly, dichotomic thinking “underrates the dialectics and the complexity of motives and motions in modernity and development” (Pieterse.2000:293). Lastly, “post-development’s attitude towards real, existing development is narrow”. Post-development literature only seems to cite instances that concern Africa, Latin America, and India (Pieterse.2000:293).
Post-development does receive positive feedback. Even Pieterse, the critic of post-development, is ready to admit that Development suffers from ‘psychological modernism’, where technological progress is placed above that of human development, a condition that post-development heavily criticize, leading to their rejection of development (Pieterse.2000:288). He, furthermore, admits that post-development makes positive claims and that it’s associated with affirmative counterpoints, such as indigenous knowledge and cultural diversity (Pieterse.2000:294). Post-development “opts for ‘Gandhian frugality’, not consumerism, for conviviality (pleasantness), for grassroots movements and local struggles” (Pieterse.2000:294). Post-development furthermore takes the critique of development to the point of retreat from business-as-usual, which can be a creative position from which an alternative practice can grow (Pieterse.2000:296).
Post-development heavily criticizes development, but it offers no or very little solutions or alternatives. The development dictionary, compiled by Sachs, where nineteen development concepts are critiqued by different post-development thinkers, does not significantly go into what courses of action should be taken instead of development (Stewart.2007:5). The general trend in post-development literature is to stop at critique (Pieterse.2000:294). Rist, for example, states that “alternatives are not his affair” (Pieterse.2000:294). We have thus an endorsement of the status quo and in effect more of the same, exposing post-development’s core weakness (Pieterse.2000:294). An exception to this general trend of no alternatives to development, is the post-development reader by Rahnema, that includes a lot more material on alternatives to development, most notably a whole section on “the vernacular world” about the economic and cultural resources present in indigenous societies; and traditions unharmed by development (Stewart.2007:5). Another section, suggests new post-development social and perceptual spaces, meaning localities, philosophies of simplicity, inner spaces and different ways of experiencing the present (Stewart.2007:5). The alternatives suggested seem to have romantic and conservative element aimed at the welfare of traditional and indigenous societies, on the on hand, yet on the other hand, these suggestions have great moral sensitivity and awareness of the dimensions in the lives of the poor (Stewart.2007:5).
Post-development critique does not amount to a “Foucaultian” critique of development, even though post-development texts are usually associated with the concepts of Michel Foucault, such as ‘archaeology of development’, ‘autonomous production of truth’, and most notably ‘discourse’ (Ziai.2004:509,511). “Following Foucault, Post-development sees development as a discourse” (Ziai.2004:510). Ziai (2004: 510-511), however, points out five post-development deviations from Foucault. Firstly, post-development development discourse does not take into account the diversity of four decades of development theory, policy, and alternative approaches, whereas Foucaultian archaeology claims that the unity of discourse is constituted by its rules and not by common assumptions, emphasizing breaks, differences, and discontinuities. Secondly, “post-development writers remain captured within a traditional objectivist critique of ideology”, where development’s universal promise of prosperity is unmasked as a ‘deceitful mirage’ or ‘malignant myth’ and whereby development discourse is accused as being a political project whereby Third World societies are being restructured according to the needs of the West, an idea which Foucault explicitly rejected (Ziai.2004:510). Thirdly, essentialization of development, as a frequent phenomenon in post-development literature, unlike Foucaultian literature (Ziai.2004:510) Fourthly, post-development texts are stuck within a sovereign, repressive concept of power, which is only partly accurate, whereas Foucault has overcome this narrow perspective on power in his later works (Ziai.2004:511). In the last instance, whereas post-development texts criticizes industrial modernity as ‘gulag’ and ‘holocaust’, yet simultaneously romanticizing pre-modern subsistence communities, Foucault on the other hand insists that power is ubiquitous in the sense that is to be found in international institutions as well as local and self-evident relations and discourses (Ziai.2004:511).
Skeptical Post-development’s connectedness with radical democracy is another point brought forward by Ziai (2004:519). The criticisms and demands of skeptical post-development are in agreement with those of radical democracy (Ziai.2004:519). Relations of oppression and exploitation in the and culture, knowledge and the relationship to nature are important and significant to post-development texts, but gender and the relations of oppression is a blind spot (Ziai.2004:519). Post-development is similar to Laclau & Mouffe’s project of radical and plural democracy where democratic struggles for equality and liberty are extended to a wide range of social relations (Ziai.2004:519). Post-development tries to extend struggles for self-determination in the South, to seemingly harmless efforts aiming at ‘development’ and in general to various structures of modern societies such as market, state, and science (Ziai.2004:519).
Existing power structures have to be radically decentralized and power has to remain at the local level, as Lummis points out: “democracy is a critique of centralized power of every sort”, which also implies a critique of the system of political representation (Ziai.2004:519). Radical democratic/post-development critique not only challenges the principle of political representation, but also the principle of epistemological representation, which is the ability to represent the world conceptually and symbolically, enabling the disengaged observer to manipulate that world (Ziai.2004:519). “Sceptical post-development could be seen as a manifesto of radical democracy in the field of ‘development’ policy and theory”, extending social conflictuality to the area of development policy and development aid, through formulating relations of subordination implicit in development discourse, as relations of oppression(Ziai.2004:520).
Post-Development’s overall contribution to the struggle for human welfare
The Chiapas movement in Mexico, comprised of different Indian peoples, signals the uprising of ‘social majorities’ against the ‘global project’. These grassroots movements are born “from disillusionment with the ballot box and party political apathy and from popular resistance to conventional forms of participation” (Esteva & Prakash.1998:86). Post-development writers like Esteva and Prakash state that the end of the economic era has come and that development, which once offered hope of eternal life to economic societies, has instead “dug their graves” (Esteva & Prakash.1998:93). Can these grassroots movements, consisting of ordinary men and women, and who are seeking to go beyond the premises and the promises of modernity, actually contribute towards human welfare for the social majorities or masses? These movements who are non-political, non-violent, open to all creeds and religions, non-intellectual, detached from abstract ideologies, proven by success stories like those of the Chiapas, can indeed avoid the mainstream minority march towards global progress and development.
Development over the last four decades has only succeeded in worsening the five centuries of modernization, which preceded development, in the way that ‘social minorities’ have consumed the cultural and natural spaces of the ‘social majorities’, with the intention of developing them for ’progress’, economic growth and progress (Esteva & Prakash.1998:89). The social minorities are not lying down in this war; they have continued to resist the inroads of that modern world into their lives in an effort to save their families and communities. They have resisted modernization, intended for their betterment, but it has made its mark and created a lot of destruction, leaving them less human, suffering indignity and dehumanization, being forced out of their traditional communal spaces, which they occupied for centuries, by social minorities (Esteva & Prakash.1998:89). Neo-liberal policies continue to push these ‘social majorities’ further into the wastelands of the modern world, considered by social minorities as human surpluses making too many babies, over-populated, disposable and redundant (Esteva & Prakash.1998:89). No wonder social majorities feel the way they feel and why many more are acting in the best way they can, collectively.
These postmodern (post-development) grassroots movements have certain characteristics. Like the Chiapas movement, they shun political platforms or ideologies; it has no interest in seizing power from the government; membership is not exclusive; it has a collective leadership, made up out of elected representatives; its contemporary, using modern means of communication; and it adopts a political style that is post-modern (Esteva & Prakash.1998:86). One is tempted to add, by the people for the people. They are furthermore, deliberately open; they distrust leaders and centralized political direction; they avoid the temptation to control or lead the social forces they activate; they opt for flexible organizational structures, which they use for concerted action rather than for channeling demands; and they first exhaust any democratic and legal means, before resorting to direct action or revolt (Esteva & Prakash.1998:86).
A distinction must be made, however, between grassroots post development and academic development. Grassroots post-modernism is initiatives autonomously organized by the people themselves for their own survival, flourishing and enduring, and antagonistic to the state and its formal and corporate structures (Esteva & Prakash.1998:92). Academic post-modernism agrees, but they leave some modern ‘sacred cows’ untouched, unwilling to dissect or deconstruct ‘certainties’, left unquestionable by post-development thinkers (Esteva & Prakash.1998:91). According to Esteva and Prakash (1998:91-92), there are three sacred cows left untouched by post-development academics, namely; The myth of global thinking, that economic globalization will now provide the ‘manna’, development failed to provide until the mid 1980s, goods and services the ‘social minorities’ now enjoy will be accessible to ‘social majorities’; secondly, universal human rights, as spelled out in the UDHR, that will accompany this global economy; and lastly, the myth of the individual self, accompanied by human rights that will be incorporated into this global economy, to become a ‘member’ with full rights and privileges of the club and society of homos economicus.
The benefits of grassroots movements include the fact that culturally diverse groups of people continue to find movements like the Zapatista movement, very relevant for their own struggles, seeing that there are vital lessons to be learned from these movements on finding ways to react against the evils that are plaguing their lives (Esteva & Prakash.1998:90). Common men and women are leading the way walking beyond the oppressive reign of homos economicus and homos educandus, away from development’s salvation, towards options that offer real hope for the masses (Esteva & Prakash.1998:93). The inevitable breakdown of modernity, terrorizing ‘social minorities’, is now being used by ‘social majorities as opportunities for “regenerating their own traditions, cultures and their unique indigenous and other non-modern arts of living and dying” (Esteva & Prakash.1998:89).
Conclusion
Development discourse and Post-development critique of development seems to be in a titanic battle for the souls of the Two/Thirds social majorities of the world. Development replaced modernization after World War II, but it seems that the hegemonic paradigms that all development theory shared had been watered down and globalization and neo-liberalism now dictate development. Social minorities use ‘development’ as a tool to force ‘social majorities’ to adopt western culture and beliefs. Post-development thinkers make wild accusations, albeit contradictory, about development, eventually rejecting it in totality, yet offering no genuine alternatives to development.
Development critiques post-development as using rhetoric language and for making contradictory statements. Grassroots post-development movements seem to offer real solutions to the masses out there, who would like to regenerate their lost cultures and beliefs, whereas post-development academics are more all insults and rhetoric, yet no-action, no-alternatives. One is almost swayed by the emotive language use by post development academics, and feels very tempted to join the march against the ‘global project’. Post-development however, offers no real alternatives to development and I could only go so far as to support post-development/post-modern grassroots movements where on a practical scale the ‘monster of development’ is faced by collectiveness on a day to day concrete scale.
Development critiques post-development as using rhetoric language and for making contradictory statements. Grassroots post-development movements seem to offer real solutions to the masses out there, who would like to regenerate their lost cultures and beliefs, whereas post-development academics are more all insults and rhetoric, yet no-action, no-alternatives. One is almost swayed by the emotive language use by post development academics, and feels very tempted to join the march against the ‘global project’. Post-development however, offers no real alternatives to development and I could only go so far as to support post-development/post-modern grassroots movements where on a practical scale the ‘monster of development’ is faced by collectiveness on a day to day concrete scale.
Bibliography
- Blaikie, S.2000. Development, post-, anti-, and populist: a critical review: Environment and Planning A 2000, volume 32. Great Britain: Pion.
- Esteva, G & Prakash, M. 1998. Beyond Development, what?, in Analysing contemporary development debates and issues: a reader, compiled by P.D.S. Stewart. Pretoria: University of South-Africa.
- Pieterse, J. 2000. After post-development, in Analysing contemporary development debates and issues: a reader, compiled by P.D.S. Stewart. Pretoria: University of South-Africa.
- Schuurman, F. 2000. Paradigm lost, paradigm regained? Development Studies in the twenty-first century, in Analysing contemporary development debates and issues: a reader, compiled by P.D.S. Stewart. Pretoria: University of South-Africa.
- Stewart, P. 2007. Only Study guide for DVADEBT. Pretoria: University of South-Africa.
- Ziai, A. 2004. The ambivalence of post-development: between reactionary populism and radical democracy, in Analysing contemporary development debates and issues: a reader, compiled by P.D.S. Stewart. Pretoria: University of South-Africa.
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