Archive for March, 2008
Post-Development paper
Here is an earlier paper on post-development:
Can Post-Development Provide Constructive Criticism, And Furthermore Should It?
Can Post-Development Provide Constructive Criticism, And Furthermore Should It? Introduction.
Post-development has posed many questions for many of mainstream developmental theories’ ideas. However it is not without it’s critics, and of those criticisms, the strongest seem to be those that accuse post-development of rejecting mainstream developmental theory without offering any constructive alternatives. This paper will look at post-development and it’s criticisms from this point of view and ask the question whether these criticisms are valid. However it will also ask whether this actually matters.
Post-development’s view on the state of Development
Despite arguments levelled at Post Development, arguing that, as a discourse themselves, Post Development writers essentialise development. A rough idea of Development (described as ‘Big D’ by Hart (Hart, 2001)) as understood by these writers can be sketched out.
The biggest changes to the view on development discourse were in the last decade of the last millennium. Schuurman suggests that there have been many changes in development discourse from the second half of the 1980s and through the 1990s, partly due to events changing on a global scale (Schuurman, 2000). These included the collapse of Soviet-style socialism, the end of apartheid in South Africa amongst other things (Hart, 2001) due, in part, to these changes, both the neoliberal right and the cultural left declared that Development was dead (Hart, 2001). As Hart writes, “ Development was definitely dead, and sending out noxious fumes.” (Hart, 2001: 649).
Sachs goes so far as to say: “ After forty years of development, the state of affairs is dismal. The gap between the frontrunners and stragglers has not been bridged; on the
contrary, it has widened to the extent that it has become unimaginable that it could ever be closed.” (Sachs, 1997: 290).
Escobar suggests that the belief in the role of modernisation as the force behind development was the basic premise of Development from 1940s and 1950s: That social, cultural and political progress was achieved through material advancement. (Escobar, 1997).
Schuurman believes that there has been a loss of the three most important paradigms in post-war development thinking:
- The essentialisation of the Third World and its view that its population exists as a homogeneous entity.
- The belief in the concept of progress as an ultimate end in itself, and the belief that society can be produced, controlled, created from the top down (i.e. by the state).
- The importance of the state as the creator, controller, initiator of this progress. (Schuurman, 2000).
Development thinking that was directed at the Third World was evolutionary, unilinear and teleological. But since then each of the ‘paradigmatic’ characteristics has come under attack (Schuurman, 2000). However, many Post-Development writers would see this as surface change, as opposed to a fundamental rupture in Development discourse
Generally, amongst Post-Development writers, Development is seen as a Foucauldian discourse. This discourse sees Development as a certain way of thinking about the world. And as such is a form of knowledge that rather than reflecting reality, actually constructs it. This construction of reality becomes a form of power that closes of alternative ways of thinking (Kiely in Storey, 2000). This knowledge/ power comes from the (perceived) oligarchy of Western thought and results in its dominance over the Third World. It does this by defining and categorising the Third World as in need of developing (Storey, 2000). An example of this categorisation is seeing the lack of Western-style technology not as one of difference but as underdevelopment (Storey, 2000).
Nederveen Pieterse states that for Escobar the discourse of Development as the means by which the ‘truth’ about the Third World is produced and managed (Nederveen Pieterse, 2000): “To understand development as discourse, one must look not at the elements themselves but at the system of relations established among them.” (Escobar, 1997: 87).
As such Development is seen by Post-Development writers as an extension, if tacitly, of colonialism. Rahnema sees Development as the convergence of the aspirations of the leaders of the independence movements, the ‘masses’ and, also, to the former colonial powers who were seeking new ways to expand their economies: “The myth of development emerged as an ideal construct to meet the hopes of the three categories of actors” (Rahnema, 1997a: ix).
Latouche sees Development as a given ‘Good’, defined as material progress as measured by GDP: “Development is a growth that is corrected, regulated, healthy – therefore a good growth; while growth… is already the achievement of the Good” (Latouche, 1997: 136). So, as Development is measured by GNP it becomes reductionist. The ‘success’ of the North, and the resultant reification of growth as the panacea to development problems is the result of the argument that there is a trickle-down effect from growth. But, argues Latouche, this trickle-down effect in the North has been achieved by ‘exporting’ poverty to the South (Latouche, 1997). This whole extension of colonisation argument is echoed by Nandy, who focuses on the end mind-set that results from the Development discourse: “This colonisation colonises minds in addition to bodies and it releases forces within the colonised societies to alter their cultural priorities once and for all” (Nandy, 1997: 170).
Post-Development on discourse itself
The premise of post-development is that Development, the discourse and the end it set out to achieve, has not worked. Nederveen Pieterse sums it up by stating: “ Post-
Development starts from a basic assessment: that attaining a middle-class lifestyle for the majority of the world is impossible.” (Nederveen Pieterse, 2000: 175).
Nederveen Pieterse suggests that the post-development critique overlaps with many Western critiques of modernity from critical theory through post-structuralism to the ecological movement. “It is to development what ‘deep ecology’ is to environmental management.” (Nederveen Pieterse, 2000: 176). It parallels dependency theory, human development and alternative development, but, Nederveen Pieterse notes, what sets it apart from these other critical theories is that post-development theory rejects development (Nederveen Pieterse, 2000). Ziai notes that this rejection is based on a conception of Development discourse as Eurocentric, as well as imperialist and ultimately meaningless (Ziai, 2004).
Discourse analysis, as applied to Development, is the methodological basis for post-development. Again, this is true for many critical theories, however, Nederveen Pieterse is of the opinion that post-development goes further than this and uses discourse analysis as its ideological platform (Nederveen Pieterse, 2000). In a Foucauldian sense it is not so much about developmental discourse as either being some kind of truth or not, but how historically the discourse has produced the effect of truth even though as a discourse it is neither true nor false (Storey, 2000). The failure of Development to reduce poverty is not the central problem of Developmental discourse for post-development, but is its purpose to discipline and dominate. So, therefore, the Third World remains objectified and its needs externally defined (Storey, 2000).
Escobar states that: “ The system of relations establishes a discursive practice that sets the rules of the game: who can speak, from what point of view, with what authority, and according to what criteria of expertise.” (Escobar, 1997: 87). The discourse of development creates abnormalities, things that are ‘underdeveloped’ that can be treated through development (Escobar, 1997). According to Escobar, the hallmarks of post-development are an interest in alternatives to Development as opposed to alternatives types of development; an interest in local culture and knowledge; a critical stance
towards established scientific discourses; and the defence and promotion of localised, pluralistic, grassroots movements (Ziai, 2004).
In fact Rahnema goes so far as to liken Development to the AIDS virus, that destroys its host by getting itself to be internalised by the very same host (Rahnema, 1997b). Whereas Sachs sees a problem for Development in the ecological limits to growth: “Recognizing the finiteness of the Earth is a fatal blow to the idea of development.” (Sachs, 1997: 292). He sees this problem as two-fold; it creates a problem for universalisation of Development in space and its durability in time. This means that any attempt to ease the ‘crisis in justice’ will threaten the ‘crisis in nature’ and vice versa (Sachs, 1997). Rahnema also sees the limits to growth as a problem, stating, also, that Development has failed to resolve the problems it has set out to fix and that in effect it has made them worse: “[Development] was an ideology that was born and refined in the North, mainly to meet the needs of the dominant powers in search of a more ‘appropriate’ tool for their economic and geopolitical expansion.” (Rahnema, 1997: 379).
Lehman on the other hand sees economics as destroying that ‘sacred space in vernacular institutions, often embodied in the day-to-day business of women, something she believes had an historic relation to economy but had not been subsumed until Development in its reductionist outlook attacked the borders and shrank this space (Lehman, 1997). Although this sounds very much like the old view of home economics which was often ascribed to women rather than a space chosen by them.
There’s something wrong with Post-Development
One of the main accusations levelled at Post-Development is its essentialisation of Development; this is quite serious as for many writers, Development as discourse is the basis for their critique. Ziai notes that post-development portrays Development discourse as some kind of ‘monolithic structure (Ziai, 2004), “ The heterogeneity of 40 years of development theory and policy and especially the originality of alternative approaches is
not adequately taken into account” (Ziai, 2004: 1047). This critique is echoed by Nederveen Pieterse who criticises post-development’s association of Development with Westernisation, which, he claims, denies the agency of Southern actors themselves, as well as ignoring the heterogeneity of ‘the West’, the differences between Europe and the United States for example, as well as Japan and what happened with the East Asian miracle (Nederveen Pieterse, 2000, 2001). Crush notes that it is the actual call for banishment that essentialises Development, this very act assumes there is an ‘unequivocal definition’ (Nederveen Pieterse, 2000, Ziai, 2004).
Another criticism of post-development is its reification of local cultures and communities; ‘the last refuge of the noble savage’ as noted by Kiely (Ziai, 2004). There is what amounts to a romanticisation of non-Western communities.
Also the complete rejection of modernity ignores many of its positive achievements, for example in medicine, such as increases in life expectancy (Ziai, 2004, Storey, 2000). Again this is a criticism that Nederveen Pieterse agrees upon, although he emphasises the drive for modernisation in the South itself, for example, the high-tech drives in India and parts of Latin America; or India and Pakistan’s nuclear race (Nederveen Pieterse, 2000), not to mention recent events in Iran. It can be argued that symbols of modernity such as nuclear power are precisely what is wrong with modernity, yet, it is also useful when asking particularly for who is modernity bad for. Surely it is too much of a generalisation to suggest that such icons of modernity are not desired by those in the South, and at least patronising to suggest that it is bad for them.
Ziai also notes that the rejection of universalism, for example, human rights (Rahnema, 1997c, Esteva and Prakesh, 1997), and the celebration of cultural difference, conceals or, Ziai suggests, even willingly accepts, many traditional forms of oppression and cruelty, such as female genital mutilation (Ziai, 2004).
Finally, there is the argument that post-development is purely critique and offers no solutions, it is all ‘critique but no construction’; they fall on ‘Pontius Pilate politics’ (Ziai, 2004). Nederveen Pieterse believes the line between alternative and post-development is quite thin and all that separates them is post-development’s rejection of
development as discourse, he believes alternative development “shares with post-development the radical critiques of mainstream development but it retains belief in, and accordingly, redefines development” (Nederveen Pieterse, 2000: 181). If this is the case, what then is the point to post-development?
Post-Development strikes back
Despite these criticisms, many critics acquiesce that post-development texts have the potential to criticise the shortcomings of development, it is the lack of constructive alternatives that is the problem (Ziai, 2004). Ziai suggests, however, that post-development does offer alternatives in its conception of communal solidarity, direct democracy, social movements, indigenous/ traditional knowledge etc. (Ziai, 2004).
Post-development may occasionally romanticise traditional culture and grassroots movements but it does not do so uncritically (Ziai, 2004). Ziai believes this is because there are two variants within post-development literature, the neo-populist and the sceptical (Ziai, 2004). However, she does not indicate which writers correspond to which variant, and it does seem that some writers can vary from one to another, such as Rahnema (1997c). Ziai believes the sceptical variant: “is based on an implied metatheory which can be loosely described as postmodern… and the constructivist and anti-essentialist perspective which regards culture as something which is actively constructed” (Ziai, 2004: 1054). Ziai notes that “It becomes impossible to reject ‘Development’, because the signifier cannot be fixed to a specific signifier” (Ziai, 2004: 1054).
Nustad’s response to arguments that post-development offers no alternatives is that: “ Post-development attempts to demonstrate why development interventions do not work and this must be kept separate from a call for alternatives” (Nustad, 2001:479). He argues that post-development writers such as Escobar point out that development discourse is not neutral knowledge, that the discourse has normalising effects and this is its political dimension. What was seen to be a neutral and practical problem, namely, how
to deliver development to the poor of the world has become part of a way to control power and knowledge (Nustad, 2001).
Cowen and Shenton point out that Development is often seen to be both a means and a goal, this creates a tautology as the goal is often assumed to be present at the onset of the development process (Nustad, 2001), that is assumed that those who are to be ‘developed’ desire it. “Thus to speak of bottom-up development is to confuse the means and goals of development” (Nustad, 2001: 483). However, a question arises were, during a development project using participatory processes, that the community to be developed chooses ‘no change’ as an option. If this were ‘allowed’ under the development programme it would negate the argument against it. If this were an option it would hold even if the ‘no change’ option were not to be taken up, just that it was available. Some post-development authors do nod towards this dilemma by suggesting that if the goal towards social change cannot be legitimately defined by an outside expert, and the decision is to be truly decided by the target actors, then these actors have the right to choose to pursue Western-style development if they so wish (Ziai, 2004). Nustad suggests that a way forward for development post-post-development is to examine how “development initiatives are transformed, reformulated, adapted and resisted in local encounters” (Nustad, 2001:485). This approach would also counter the charge against post-development that it ignores agency within the Third World.
Using Foucault’s court metaphor, where the judge in the court claims neutrality due to his position, Nustad claims it is the same for Development discourse. Development as a discourse attempts to de-politicise itself by denying alternatives, and purporting itself as the only way to be. Referencing Ferguson’s Anti-Politics Machine article he suggests that by separating the intentions the developers have for the development project from the outcomes they believe should be attained, Ferguson shows that this puts constraints on the developer that creates a depoliticising effect due to Development discourse: “They have to construct the field in which they want to intervene in such a way that intervention is possible. Therefore, a local, technical perspective is
substituted for a more global political perspective on the processes that produce poverty in the first place” (Nustad, 2001: 481-482).
On this point Escobar suggests that criticism of this kind assume that any contact with development and its commodity is a desire for development and its commodity by the people themselves “not the enactment of a cultural politics in which development and the commodity might mean different things” (Escobar, 2000: 13). But this argument could also lead to the homogenisation of the local. Within a village or local community there are many different views. It seems to be denying agency again and if anything smacks of a charge of ‘false consciousness’.
As an alternative to Development Esteva and Prakesh analyse the phrase ‘Think globally, act locally.’ They suggest that this phrase understands that modernity is global yet ordinary people lack the centralised organising power to act globally. However, Esteva and Prakesh then go on to reject the phrase ‘Think Globally’ as well and suggest that we should both ‘Think Locally’ as well as ‘Act locally’ (Esteva and Prakesh, 1997). However, after World Social Forums such as those in Sao Paolo, organised by the very social movements post-development writers such as Esteva and Prakesh reify so much, it would be churlish to suggest that local/ grassroots organisations cannot ‘Act Globally’, let alone ‘Think Globally’. There is also the question that without ‘Thinking globally’, how can we know of the suffering and thus have solidarity with those in other parts of the globe. How can ‘local’ people in one part of the world learn from the struggles of others in similar circumstances elsewhere?
Esteva and Prakesh argue that “most global Samaritans fail to see that when their local actions are informed, shaped and determined by the global frame of mind, they become as uprooted as those of the other globalists they explicitly criticise” (Esteva and Prakesh, 1997: 280 italics authors original). They argue that for local movements and initiatives have to remain local or they ‘lose their feet’ and that the Goliath, Development, demands that they fight on its terms (although at another point, they do point out, contradictorily, that David beat Goliath) (Esteva and Prakesh, 1997).
However, Esteva and Prakesh do usefully point out that for much of the Third World, people who are marginalized, have little access to this globalised world, other than that acted upon them, and most likely they never will (Esteva and Prakesh, 1997). They also state that many local actors have taken a step away from this ‘globalised’ world and have refused to be a part. This, it seems, is their alternative to development, a choice, and a valid one, but is it a solution?
Sachs too looks to the local for solution, he looks at sustainable development and, although he believes sustainable development has resolved the dilemma of the limits to growth in favour of the crisis of nature, he finds it lacking in the crisis of justice, as he states, it leaves open the question ‘Whose needs? What needs’. He points out that it is especially with the large number of the world population who are marginalized by the expansion of development, that the crisis of nature and the crisis of justice coincide. He doesn’t believe that expansion of the world economy will solve this dilemma. To answer this he looks towards what he calls ‘The home perspective’. Yet due to the limits to growth and the uneven spread of energy use, Sachs doesn’t see the solution lying with the South but upon the North’s responsibility, itself, to learn to live sustainably: The principal arena of ecological adjustment is thus neither the southern hemisphere nor the entire globe, but the North itself.” (Sachs, 1997: 297). However, perhaps wisely, Sachs leaves open the question of how to achieve this. Is it corporations, individuals or both? If we are following the ‘home perspective’ we can perhaps presume it’s the individual, which would leave open the charge that post-development writers, support the status quo. But that might be too presumptuous, and then again, corporations are staffed by individuals.
Against the charge that post-development reifies the traditional, the non-modern, vernacular, Rahnema states that it is not that the non-developed ways are in any way better, just that they are potentially less perilous. Also Ziai argues that much of post-development’s view of culture is constructivist as opposed to ontological (Ziai, 2004). Escobar agues that “One must be careful not to naturalize ‘traditional’ worlds, that is,
valorize as innocent and ‘natural’ an order produced by history… The ‘local’… is neither unconnected nor unconstructed” (Escobar in Ziai 2004: 1051).
Rahnema acquiesces that there are, what he views as, good development projects, but then he suggests that development relief projects only postpone the ‘day of reckoning’ (Rahnema, 1997c). This always seems to me to be a worrying, comment. It seems to be condemning to starvation or disease large numbers of people for the sake of semantics within a discourse. The Development discourse may be a monolithic deity, but to deny large numbers of people some sort of relief is akin to invoking a counter-deity. It is with arguments like this that separating disaster relief and poverty alleviation projects from the discourse of Development is an important semantic point.
Rahnema asks an important point, echoed by many other post-development writers, which is who is asking for development. Rahnema believes there is a ‘public transcript’ and a ‘hidden transcript’. Participation is mooted as the ‘public transcript’ but, Rahnema argues, the ‘hidden transcript’ is the agenda of the Northern governments and aid-providing institutions that are informed by the Development discourse, and he asks whether the target populations really have any say. He then asks the question “What if the people were to express, openly and democratically, their wish to receive development aid? This argument is now particularly supported by those who hope that a different, participatory version of development, based on the real support of the population, could restore to the institution its lost legitimacy” (Rahnema, 1997c: 388). Rahnema seriously doubts such a governmental system exists. This seems to be a defeatist response, doubting the possibility of such a form of government is a poor excuse for forsaking development and seems to stump the desire for a better world in its tracks, and if this is not a reason for the post-development argument, then what is? Also it brings a paradox post-development’s way, which is that if those who are part of the Development discourse’s apparatus cannot know the wishes of the people, then how do those supporting the post-development camp?
Rahnema does suggest a possible idea for future vernacular societies based on Confucian ideas of ‘min’ and ‘jen’, conjuring up some romanticised idea of natural
authority in the idea of ‘jen’ who are supposed to command the respect and deference from the ‘min’, or the masses. Although how the ‘min’ are supposed to recognise good ‘jen’ if their ‘eyes are closed’ is left unexplained. Also, is not what in Europe or the USA or Japan, as well as China, we experience as modernity the future of what our ‘jen’ of old envisaged as progress. (Rahnema, 1997c), This is also heavily criticised by Nederveen Pieterse as a poorly disguised form of authoritarianism (Nederveen Pieterse, 2000, 2001).
Returning to the importance of discourse in post-developmental thinking, Storey notes that Escobar calls for a reconceptualisation of the meaning of under development (Storey, 2000). Escobar suggests that although the Developmental discourse has gone through structural changes – a charge often levelled against post development is that it ignores the changes in Development thinking from state-led, through structural adjustment to the Post-Washington consensus – this does not matter, as the architecture of the discursive formation was laid down in the period 1945-55 (critics argue whether this date was the birth of modern Development, but though the date may be inaccurate, it doesn’t disprove the idea of the architecture) and has remained unchanged ever since. This has allowed it to adapt to new conditions so all these changes in Development strategy have occurred within the confines of the same discursive space (Escobar, 1997: 89). “As a discourse, development is thus a very real historical formation, albeit articulated around an artificial construct (underdevelopment), which must be conceptualised in different ways if the power of development discourse is to be challenged or displaced” (Escobar, 1997: 92).
Conclusion
So we return to the question, ‘Can Post-Development provide constructive criticism?’ and this is relevant to the charge that post-development offers no alternatives, and, I hope, this paper suggest that in fact there are many proposals for alternatives to development within post-development’s critique, even if most of them are somewhat misguided. Which brings us to the more prescient part of the question: ‘And furthermore
should it?’ which, I believe, is a far more important question. The reply to which hinges on post-development’s criticism of Development as a discourse.
Many critics admit that the critique that post-development brings to the table is of use, even if it offers no alternatives. Ziai notes “[Post-development] extends social conflictuality to the area of development policy and development aid through reformulating relations of subordination implicit in development discourse as relations of oppression.” (Ziai, 2004: 1057).
Storey also suggests that the problems and criticisms of post-development do not invalidate the entirety of its approach. He points out that one of post-developments most vocal critics, Nederveen Pieterse acquiesces that “Despite its difficulty in generating a future programme, post-development articulates meaningful sensibilities” (Nederveen Pieterse in Storey, 2000: 44). Storey goes on to say that even though post-development is unable to provide a model for social change it can contribute to increasing awareness of ‘the social context of discourse formation’ (Storey, 2000). He continues: “it is the methodological orientation of the post-development school – especially its seemingly ‘negative’ predilection for deconstruction and critical discourse analysis – that has… most to offer” (Storey, 2000: 45).
Nustad believes that discourse analysis suggest an answer as to why over the last fifty years so little progress has been made in the development of much of the South. He states that the argument that post-development should provide solutions or alternatives to Development rests on the assumption that there is a Developmental answer. Discourse analysis suggests there isn’t. If there is a solution to be found Nustad suggests it rests on “examining how poverty is produced, and the relationship between processes that produce wealth and poverty” (Nustad, 2001: 488).
Looking at the work of Escobar helps to understand why discourse analysis suggests there need not be an alternative to Development: “Understanding the history of the investment of the Third World by Western forms of knowledge and power is a way to shift the ground somewhat so that we can start to look at that materiality with different eyes and in different categories” (Escobar 1997, 55). The Development discourse in a
way creates the problem it sets out to solve. Post-Development does not say that by getting rid of Development poverty will be eliminated, but it does suggest that it blocks alternatives:
“The coherence of effects that the development discourse
achieved is the key to its success as a hegemonic form of
representation: the construction of the poor and underdeveloped
as universal preconstituted subjects, based on a privilege of the
representers; the exercise of power over the Third World made
possible by this discursive homogenisation… and the colonisation
and domination of the natural and human ecologies of the Third
World” (Escobar, 1997: 92-93).
These alternatives to development, good or bad, will come from the people that development sets out to aid, those Escobar points out are excluded from the debate: ‘people (Escobar: 1997). Although the complete rejection of the Development discourse, is not a given, depending on your perspective, post-development is a perspective and a good, analytical one. Although authors such as Nederveen Pieterse (2000, 2001) and Ziai (2004), may suggest that there are other analytical critiques just as good that don’t reject Development in its totality, it is post-development’s view of the relations of power and knowledge within the discourse that lead to its rejection of Development. It is that this view that Developmental discourse blocks alternatives forms is not a negative one but a potentially positive one, that leads to a possible plethora of alternatives that is why post-development need not give an alternative to Development. It is not for them to choose.
Returning to Escobar once again, it seems fitting to end with another quote:
“For me, this is a journey of the imagination, a dream
about the utopian possibility of reconceiving and
reconstructing the world from the perspective of, and
along with, those subaltern groups that continue to enact
a cultural politics of difference as they struggle to defend
their places, ecologies and cultures. (Escobar, 2000: 14)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Escobar, A. (1997) ‘The Making And Unmaking Of The Third World Through Development’ in Rahnema (ed.) The Post Development Reader, pp85-93 Zed Books
Escobar, A. (2000) ‘Beyond The Search For A New Paradigm? {Post-Development And Beyond’ Development 43 (4): pp11-14
Esteva, G. & Prakash, S. M. (1997) ‘From Global Thinking To Local Thinking’ in Rahnema (ed.) The Post Development Reader, pp277-289 Zed Books
Hart, G. (2001) ‘Development Critiques In The 1990’s: Culs De Sac And Promising Paths’ Progress In Human Geography 25 (4): pp649-658)
Latouche, S (1997) ‘Paradoxical Growth’ in Rahnema (ed.) The Post Development Reader, pp135-142 Zed Books
Lehman, K. (1997) ‘Protecting The Space Within’ in Rahnema (ed.) The Post Development Reader, pp354-358 Zed Books
Nandy, A. (1997) ‘Colonisation Of The Mind’ in Rahnema (ed.) The Post Development Reader, pp168-178 Zed Books
Nederveen Pieterse, J. (2000) ‘After Post-Development’ Third World Quarterly 21 (2): pp175-191
Nederveen Pieterse (2001) Development Theory: Deconstructions/ Reconstructions Sage
Nustad K. G. (2001) ‘Development: The Devil We Know’ Third World Quarterly 22 (4): pp479-489
Rahnema, M. (1997a) ‘Introduction’ in Rahnema (ed.) The Post Development Reader, ppix-xix Zed Books
Rahnema, M. (1997b) ‘Development And The People’s Immune System: The Story Of Another Variety Of AIDS’ in Rahnema (ed.) The Post Development Reader, pp111-134 Zed Books
Rahnema, M. (1997c) ‘Towards Post-Development: Searching For Signposts, A New Language And New Paradigms’ in Rahnema (ed.) The Post Development Reader, pp377-404
Sachs, W. (1997) ‘ The Need For The Home Perspective’ in Rahnema (ed.) The Post Development Reader, pp290-301
Schuurman, F. J. (2000) ‘Paradigms Lost, Paradigms Regained? Development Studies In The Twenty-First Century’ Third World Quarterly 21 (1): pp7-20)
Storey, A. (2000) ‘ Post-Development Theory: Romanticism And Pontius Pilate Politics’ Development 43 (4): pp40-46
Ziai, A. (2004) The Ambivalence Of Post-Development: Between Reactionary Populism And Radical Democracy’ Third World Quarterly 25 (6): pp1045-1060
Here is link to upload paper: Can Post-Development provide constructive criticism?
Edit: 27/03/08. Thanks to all those who have been downloading this, I am glad there has been so much interest. However if anyone thinks it worthwhile quoting from it, could you please cite it: Kemp, A. MA in Social Development paper, ‘Aid & projects’ seminar, University of Sussex, 2005-2006. Thankyou]
Schizophrenia and Control pt.1
I’d like to start this post with a link to a text by Deleuze: Society of Control
This text had me wondering on my own personal experience with schizophrenia, not so much due to Deleuze’s earlier work on schizophrenia, but on Deleuze’s insistence that we have moved from a society of discipline that Foucault observed, that lasted from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries until WWII, to a society of control.
This is particularly interesting for me as I have previously mentioned my PanOptic hallucinations, of being surveilled by my voices, I also mentioned that Kafka’s The Trial had particular resonance for me. So it is interesting that Deleuze in the above work mentions this novel as being caught at a moment in time during the transitions between these two societies.
In Foucault’s Crime and Punishment his description of schools epitomising the role of discipline struck close to the bone for me. Let me explain, I was educated at a certain well to do boarding school, historically constructed from the melding of a school to train governors to India for the East India Trading Company and another for Imperial Service to the darkest corners of the Empire. My move to my social theory Masters from my social development Masters was hastened (although not caused) by a comment by my development tutor musing on whether the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex where I was studying was the new Haileybury. The school was a very traditional school, our dormitaries housed 45 to a room, with just metre high barriers between our sleeping zones allowing the easy gaze of the supervisor on duty down the length of the room. Chapel on sunday, where we were berated by Reverends of our position as the cream of society (Jews and Muslims were excepted from attendance on religious grounds – I just frequently ‘accidentally’ failed to attend). The whole school ate in a single hall, so shaped that one could hear whispers from the opposite end of the hall, whilst the prefects ate on the balcony, surveilling the entire hall, a position not afforded the headmaster. But the description that ultimately got me from Discipline and Punish was that of the toilet doors being sized in such a way that a supervisor, or for that matter anybody, could see over or under to prevent any wrong doing, perverted or otherwise – I learnt to wipe my arse sitting down having been caught cleaning shit from my rear in the upright position once too often. I have destroyed many toilet seats since.
I now wonder whether my later turn to anarchism left me fighting a society of discipline as opposed to the society of control that had been developing outside those hallowed walls that I was unprepared for leaving me in a Kafka-like state. I often wonder whether Lacan was wrong in insisting that the Real Father that leads to foreclosure causing schizophrenia necessarily has to be the biological father, in some ways is there a father in that school that I have been unable to kill in all its surveillence and discipline? That then left me unprepared and unable to fight even more insidious forms of control?
Ambiance – Ultra-Red
This was written in 1997, yet I have just stumbled across it through an rss feed of a del.icio.us tag, that strange space between surveillance and communicative power that has the Web 2.0 lot all a fluster. Anyway here is Ultra-Red’s call for an ambientinternational:
Hi Fi Question
If you are someone (like me) who spends thousands of pounds on hi fi equipment to (not my reason though) find some mythical authenticity of musical sound, but only listen to pop music…
Are you trying to find the authentic inauthentic? The reality in hyperreality?
(Note: I realise this preposition relies on the possibility on recreating the authentic through technology, would I pour scorn on that? Oh, I did.)
So Much For Affluenza
Rates of suicide in poverty stricken areas of rural India are high too, as they are in many other parts of the developing world.
India pledges to combat suicide in rural areas
Solipsism
Bertrand Russell the analytic philosopher often enjoyed telling the story of a woman at one of his lectures on solipsism who declared that she was a solipsist too and was surprised there weren’t more of them.
I’m also reminded of Hegel’s concept that we can not truly be self-conscious until we are conscious of another consciousness.
It informs my investigations into communication especially as perhaps due to distorted communication within my family I became susceptible to schizophrenia.
However, when doing a quick google search I on this subject i regularly came across the suggestion that schizophrenia was akin to solipsism. Admittedly only by those not ‘expert’ in mental health, although perhaps experts in their own field (in this particular case philosophy). Which suggests the concept exists in the general ‘lifeworld’, our collective knowledge from which we draw from.
In the literature on schizophrenia I find distorted communication more prevalent, which suggests that although schizophrenia is a form of psychotic communication, especially in forms such as hearing voices, paranoia and thought broadcast, to an other it appears as a form of solipsism as that other would him/herself perceive it without understanding their position in the relation with the schizophrenic (perhaps a solipsism of their own).
I know in my own personal experience of schizophrenia there is a variance here between the two concepts. I hear voices that talk to me, they may well be my imagination, they may well be others. The reason I suffer is the inability to distinguish between the two. If the voices are my imagination then I cannot be conscious of them as a consciousness, therefore it is solipsistic, isn’t it.
Well, this ignores the fact that hearing voices is merely a part of my being. There are other consciouses that I do communicate with, others who I am aware are there. However the distorted communication I have been treated to has driven me to communicate with myself as an Other, or in my case Others, which are representations of those other Others I cannot communicate with. That this communication is with myself, with my imagination, becomes less solipsistic as the self I am communicating with is represented as an Other consciousness, even if psychotically.
In the human need to recognise another consciousness denied I have created them as representations within my imagination.
