Post‐Development: Premature Burials and Haunting Ghosts

Abstract

While the Post‐Development school in development theory tried to bury the concept of ‘development’, this attempt turned out to be unsuccessful. A closer investigation reveals that different post‐development texts reproduce the polysemy of ‘development’ in their criticism of it, attacking different phenomena subsumed under this heading. Development theory, on the other hand, was also premature in declaring post‐development obsolete fifteen years ago. By examining the works of two prominent authors, this contribution shows that the critics of post‐development have adopted central arguments of that approach. It concludes by identifying some points of convergence between post‐development and its (progressive) critics in development theory.

Towards a paradigm of Southern urbanism

“…See Simon (1998) for a discussion of the relationship between postcolonialism and postmodernism, and Ziai (2015) for a thorough representation of debates surrounding postdevelopment.…”

Inventing critical development: A Brazilian geographer and his Northern networks

“…Marxist geographers, drawing on the idea of uneven development as a necessary condition of capitalism, did not follow the poststructuralist critiques of development and generally continued to use this concept, even if formulated in ways more attentive to ecology and indigenous movements (Peet & Watts, 1996;Peet & Hartwick, 2015) and to the "possibility to overlap different approaches" (Harvey, 2006, p. 74). Other geographers committed to postcolonial studies and critical research on the Global South, including Marcus Power, James Sidaway and David Simon, analysed the spaces of "anti-development" and called for a dialogue between the different critical approaches known through the vague definitions of "anti-development, beyond-development, post-development" (Power, 2003, p. 83) and the wider frame of postcolonial, de-colonial and subaltern studies, matching contemporary statements by development scholars such as Aram Ziai (2015). Simon stated that it was necessary to remain critically engaged with development issues in order to "help the approximately 1.2 billion people living in absolute poverty to improve their position" (Simon, 1997, p. 184).…”

Strategic Alliances or What Alternative? TheBia Kud Chumand Community Culture in Thailand

“…Alternatives to development in the post-modern era, which have largely built on a deconstruction of the dominant capitalist narrative of development, have been theorised under the heading of post-development (Escobar, 1992;Latouche, 2001;Sachs, 1992). Recently, however, the enthusiastic post-development critique of the 1990s has lost much of its power (Pieterse, 1998;Ziai, 2015). Post-development approaches are often criticised for being too discourse-oriented and lacking in a critical materialist analysis and a theory of practice.…”

“…Amidst fierce claims for preservation of the commons, social equality and global justice, catchwords such as community, localism and culture are often used by proponents of anti-globalisation to identify reactionary, discriminating right-wing ideologies (cf. Klapeer, 2016;Ziai, 2015). In Thailand, the Sufficiency Economy (SE) development programme combines a rejection of Western modernity by promoting a Buddhist perspective on economics with perverted claims of rural social movements in the region.…”

“…How are material improvements related to the discursive and ideological articulation of these alternatives (Ziai, 2015). The basic idea behind the implementation of the community currency system Bia Kud Chum 1 was the improvement of income and of self-sufficiency.…”