{"id":1045,"date":"2019-11-29T19:55:10","date_gmt":"2019-11-29T18:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.convivialthinking.org\/?p=1045"},"modified":"2020-01-10T12:42:27","modified_gmt":"2020-01-10T11:42:27","slug":"development-a-failed-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/index.php\/2019\/11\/29\/development-a-failed-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Development: a failed project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Read also in SPANISH<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to abandon development and think about postdevelopment instead.<\/p>\n

by Julia Sch\u00f6neberg<\/em><\/p>\n

“They talk to me about progress, about ‘achievements,’ diseases cured, improved standards of living. I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out. They throw facts at my head, statistics, mileages of roads, canals, and railroad tracks. [\u2026] I am talking about natural economies that have been disrupted \u2013 harmonious and viable economies adapted to the indigenous population \u2013 about food crops destroyed, malnutrition permanently introduced, agricultural development oriented solely toward the benefit of the metropolitan countries, about the looting of products, the looting of raw materials.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Aime C\u00e9saire (1950): \u2018Discourse on Colonialism\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s not beat around the bush: to understand the problems with current \u2018development\u2019 discourse and practice there is no alternative other than situating \u2018development\u2019 as a construct that has resulted from colonialism and that continues to perpetuate itself within this legacy. Nothing illustrates this better than the above quote from Aime C\u00e9saire\u2019s powerful essay on the \u2018Discourse on Colonialism\u2019. It almost reads like a contemporary critique of failed development interventions, sharply dissecting extractivism, fetishism of economic growth, the global division of labour and the marginalisation of non-Western worldviews, cosmovisions, imaginaries. The text is almost 70 years old, yet its relevance today could not be clearer.<\/p>\n

What are the problems with \u2018development\u2019?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

I only write about \u2018development\u2019 in inverted commas. The word, the concept, the practice has been (ab)used for such a broad variety of specific agendas, all of them structured by power hierarchies and asymmetries. Depending on fashionable fads, \u2018development\u2019 has come to be conceptualised as development-as-growth, development-as-progress, development-as-empowerment and many more<\/a>. Fundamentally, \u2018development\u2019 has become what Gustavo Esteva<\/a> calls an \u2018amoeba\u2019 term \u2013 one lacking any real meaning.<\/p>\n

The commonality of all of these definitions is that they rest on an intrinsic dichotomy of the \u2018West\u2019 and the \u2018Rest\u2019, the developed and the underdeveloped. There is in inherent assumption that there are those in possession of the solutions and those that need to be helped. That \u2018development\u2019 can be directed by intervention. As is clear in the formulation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, economic growth remains central in any definition, despite obvious contradictions with ecology.<\/p>\n

Irritatingly, \u2018development\u2019, despite of fuzziness and many failures, continues to be considered something good in itself, the only viable means to achieve a positive outcome. Critiques that point out an ever increasing gap<\/a> between those owning most and those that try to make ends meet with less and less are dismissed. The conviction remains: if only \u2018development\u2019 would be practiced more participatorily, more inclusively, more empoweringly. If only \u2018development\u2019 would implement the better, the more efficient, the more technologically advanced solutions. Then, poverty would be easily abolished<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What is postdevelopment about?<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

In this context, a new strand of thinking is gaining traction. Postdevelopment critique strongly objects against the belief that \u2018development\u2019 simply needs to be fixed. Quite in contrast, postdevelopment proponents proclaim \u2018development\u2019 has failed.<\/p>\n

Despite being a heterogeneous pool of critiques, there are a number of common points essential to postdevelopment arguments:<\/p>\n