Rethinking Development

Geographies

Development as a concept is notoriously imprecise, vague, and presumptuous, yet struggles over the mean-
ing of this fiercely contested term have had profound implications on the destinies of people and places
across the globe.
Rethinking Development Geographies offers a stimulating and critical introduction to the study of geog-
raphy and development. In doing so it sets out to explore the spatiality of development thought and practice.
The book highlights the geopolitical nature of development and its origins in Empire and the Cold War. It
also reflects critically on the historical engagement of geographers with ‘the Tropics’, the ‘Third World’ and
the ‘South’. The dominant economic and political philosophies that shape the policies and perspectives
of major institutions are explored here. The interconnections between globalisation and development are
highlighted through an examination of local, national and transnational resistance to various forms of
development.
The text provides an accessible introduction to the complex and confusing world of contemporary global
development. Informative diagrams, cartoons and case studies are used throughout. While exploring global
geographies of economic and political change Rethinking Development Geographies is also grounded in a
concern with people and places, the ‘view from below’, the views of women and the view from the ‘South’.
Marcus Power is a Lecturer in Human Geography at the School of Geographical Sciences, University of
Bristol.
RETHINKING
DEVELOPMENT
GEOGRAPHIES

MARCUS POWER
First published 2003
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.

© 2003 Marcus Power

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted

or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any
electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Power, Marcus
Rethinking development geographies/Marcus Power.
p. cm.
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Economic geography. 2. Economic development.
3. Developing countries–Economic conditions.
4. Globalisation. 5. Economic history. 1. Title.
HF1027 .M23 2003
338.9–dc21 2002155680
ISBN 0-203-00618-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0–415–25078–1 (hbk)

ISBN 0–415–25079–X (pbk)
F O R A I D A N A N D S A M UE L L UE B C K E
Contents

Acknowledgements x
Copyright acknowledgements xi

Chapter 1 Introduction: what is ‘development’? 1

People, places and progress: thinking spatially
about development
Mental maps and imagined geographies of
difference
Development and the geography of power
Re/thinking geographies of development: a guide
to what follows

Chapter 2 Illuminating the dark side of development 20

Introduction: an incomplete and contested
picture of progress
The global ‘protest caravan’
Decolonising the mindset of development
The political and psychological satisfaction of
‘helping’ the poor
The (geo)politics of aid
Conclusions: geopolitics and the ‘apothecary’ of
development remedies

Chapter 3 Geographers and ‘the Tropics’ 45

Introduction: Orientalism and tropical
geographies
Geographies of colonial modernity
From tropical to development geography (via
imperialism)
From ‘pious Eurocentrism’ to geographies of
‘anti-development’

vii
CONTENTS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Conclusions: geo-writings and the tropical

worlds of development

Chapter 4 Development thinking and the mystical ‘kingdom

of abundance’ 71
Introduction: knowledge and the era of
modernity
The Enlightenment and the theorisation of
development as progress
The ‘Sinatra Doctrine’ and the Cold War
Dependency: just another narration of tradition
vs. modernity?
Imagining a post-development era
Conclusions: deconstructions and
reconstructions of development

Chapter 5 Thirdworldism and the imagination of global

development 95
Introduction: a critical geopolitics of Third
World development
‘The West’ and ‘the rest’
The concept of the three worlds
Lost for wor(l)ds?: worlding and otherness
Conclusions: colonialism, decolonisation and the
pursuit of development

Chapter 6 Postcolonial geographies of development 119

Introduction: what is postcolonialism?
Postcolonialism and national belonging
Language, culture and identity
Partnership or trusteeship?
Conclusions: postcolonialism and the voices of
the poor: can anyone hear us?

Chapter 7 Globalisation, government and power 143

Introduction: globalisation and the non-western
world
Neoliberalism and ‘actually existing’
globalisation
Globalisation and the myth of free trade
Globalisation and the post-Washington
apothecary
Conclusions: governance, geopolitics and
development: towards a new kind of
multilateralism?

Chapter 8 The dissemination of development 169

Introduction: development as a ‘global moral
imperative’?
Obscuring the causes of poverty: the poverty
process acronyms
Poverty, livelihoods discourse and social capital

viii
CONTENTS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Deconstructing the ‘development gateway’

Conclusions: solutions in search of problems?

Chapter 9 ‘Theorising back’: views from the South and the

globalisation of resistance 194
Opening a space in the history and geography of
international development
Empowerment from above or below?
Geopolitics from below and the crises of state-
centred developmentalism
‘We do not need you to save our forests’
Neoliberalism, democracy and resistance in
post-apartheid South Africa
Conclusions: a global fabric of struggle?

Chapter 10 Conclusions: resisting the temptations of

remedies, mirages and fairy-tales 219
Towards 2015
Geographies of neoliberalisation
Imagining a post-development era
Decolonisation and development (geography):
beyond trusteeship

Glossary 236
Bibliography 238
Index 259

ix
Acknowledgements

This book is a product of many different ideas and As well as those mentioned above, I would also
sources of inspiration. My greatest debt is to my like to thank the following for their influence and
parents Ann and Maurice and to my sisters Pauline help: Andrew Crampton, Giles Mohan, Claire
and Jennifer for all the love and support they have Mercer, Rachel Slater, Rob Kitchin, Dave Griffith,
offered to me throughout this project and through- Alix Wood, Adrian Smith, Rob Potter, David
out my academic career. I also owe a particular debt Simon, Paul Waley, Dave Clarke, Adrian Bailey,
of gratitude to James Sidaway for all his valuable Frank Cudjoe, Felix Driver, Peter Bazimya, Reg
and insightful suggestions on possible directions in Cline-Cole, Andrew Mould and Melanie Attridge.
which to take this book. I would also like to thank Thanks also to the anonymous referees for their
James for his friendship over the years, and his con- helpful comments on earlier drafts of this book.
tinued support and encouragement.

x
Copyright Acknowledgements

The author and publishers would like to thank the following for granting permission to reproduce images
in this work:
Adbusters Media Foundation for Figures 1.5, 9.2, 9.11, 9.13 and 10.3.
Alex Hofford for Figures 2.4, 5.5, 5.8.
Alix Wood for Figures 5.2, 5.6, 6.3.
Andrzej Krauze for Figure 10.5.
Atlantic Syndication for Figure 10.6, Beattie.
Cagle Cartoons Inc for Figure 6.7 cartoon by B. Farrington, 16 April 2002; Figure 6.9 cartoon by D. Cagle,
6 September 2001; Figure 7.5, M. Lane; Figure 8.3, cartoon by D. Cagle, 11 May 2001; Figure 10.4, cartoon
by M. Keefe, 26 March 2002; Figure 10.9, cartoon by M. Lane, 3 April 2002.
Cartoonist and Writers Syndicate (CWS) for Figure 1.1, Oliver Schopf; Figure 5.3, Palomo; Figure 5.7,
Paresh; Figure 5.9, Hajjaj; Figure 7.4, Ammer; Figure 7.6, Miel, Figure 7.8, Bado, Figure 7.9, Wonsoo;
Figure 7.10, Gable; Figure 8.2, Phore; Figure 8.10, Gable; Figure 10.1, Zetterling.
Dave Brown and The Independent (2001) for Figure 1.4 and Figure 6.8.
Figure 4.4 © David Griffith and Rob Kitchen.
Environment & Urbanization for Figure 1.9, originally published on the front cover of Vol. 12, No.2,
October 2000; and Figure 4.2, originally published on the front cover of Vol. 13, No. 1, April 2001.
François Houtart for Figure 1.8
Frelimo/Forum Mulher for Figure 6.1 and Figure 9.3.
Globalise Resistance for Figure 1.12 and Figure 9.12.
Humana People to People for Figure 4.3.
ID21 for Figure 9.4, cartoon image by Maddocks from Insights magazine, issue 38 (November 2001).
Jonathon Shapiro for Figure 7.1, cartoon which appeared in The Sowetan on 3 May 2001.

xi
COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Lily Kong for Figure 3.4, Figure 7.7.

Michael Chanan for Figure 6.4, film still courtesy of ICAIC.
NBA for Figures 7.3, 9.6, 9.7, 9.8, 9.9, 9.10, 10.8.
New Internationalist Publications for Figure 4.1.
Oxfam Publishing, 274 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 7DZ for Figure 2.9 and Figure 9.5. Reproduced with
permission.
Figure 2.7 © Chappatte, originally published in International Herald Tribune – [Link].
Shaun Askew for [Link] for Figure 7.2 and Figure 8.5.
Taylor & Francis for Figure 1.10 from Geography of the Third World by Dickenson et al., Routledge, 1996,
and Figures 4.5 and 5.1 from Critical Geopolitics by Gearoid O’Tuathail.
The Associated Press Ltd and The Economist for Figure 2.8.
The Straits Times for Figure 10.2.
THINK AGAIN/[Link] 2002 for Figures 1.6, 2.3, 2.5, 2.6, 6.6, and D. Alwan/Protest Graph-
ics for Figure 10.10.
United Nations Department of Public Information for Figures 1.2, 1.3, 1.11, 3.5, 4.6, 6.2, 8.1, 8.4, 8.6, 8.7,
8.8, 8.9, 10.7.
World Bank for Figure 1.7 and Figure 2.2.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permissions to reprint material in this
book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged
and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of this book.

xii
1
Introduc tion
w hat is ‘d evelopment’?

[D]evelopment is a continuous intellectual project as well as an ongoing material process.

(Apter, 1987: 7)

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, a num- as well as often divergent perspectives on how to
ber of high-profile events and processes have illus- change the world economy and how to devise pol-
trated that the challenges of global ‘development’ icies that improve economic growth opportunities
are becoming an increasingly important part of for all peoples. In seeking to understand these kinds
international relations and world politics. After the of differences between the ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ nations
terrorist attacks on the United States in September of the world, geography and geographical analysis
2001, many people were quick to point out that have a particularly important role to play.
poverty and inequality between nations was becom- One of the major difficulties in finding common
ing the most important issue in building world approaches, policies and solutions to these chal-
peace and international political stability. In the lenges is that the idea of ‘development’ is difficult to
context of the global war on terrorism that has fol- define, since the term has a whole variety of mean-
lowed 9/11 and the international concern to rebuild ings in different times and places. In Malaysia, for
and reconstruct Afghanistan and Iraq, issues of example, debates about the nature of development
poverty and development have again taken centre- and its importance to national ‘progress’ and social
stage. Furthermore, in the spring of 2002 at a United change have taken on a very different complexion
Nations (UN) meeting in Monterrey, Mexico, world when compared to a country such as South Africa
leaders made many promises to deliver more aid or Sri Lanka. Even within such countries, the mean-
and assistance to poor countries and to open their ings and definitions of ‘development’ vary substan-
markets to trade with the ‘lesser developed world’. tially across national territory and between different
At the time of writing, the World Summit on sus- social groups or are, in a way, ‘place-specific’. As if
tainable development is meeting in Johannesburg to complicate our study of ‘development’ and its
(South Africa) to discuss current trends in global geographies even further, it might be said that the
production and consumption and the social and term actually has no clear and unequivocal meaning
environmental strains that threaten to ‘derail devel- and is in a sense truly the stuff of myth, mystique
opment efforts and erode living standards’ (Wolf- and mirage. Little consensus exists around the
ensohn, 2002: 21). What is particularly interesting meaning of this heavily contested term yet most if
about these and similar world gatherings is that they not all leaders of the world’s many nation-states
bring together nations and peoples with often vastly and international organisations claim to be pursu-
different and incredibly varied levels of social and ing this objective in some way. This book seeks to
economic resources for ‘development’ to discuss show that, by contrast, the strength of the term
common approaches and to devise collective solu- comes directly from its power to seduce, to please, to
tions. The United States and Uganda, for example, fascinate, to set dreaming, but also from its power to
are characterised by marked differences in living deceive and to turn away from the truth (Rist, 1997:
standards, with very different cultures and histories 1). Development is nearly always seen as something

1
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

row (Wallerstein, 1994). In this book we will be

delving further beneath the surface of these differ-
ent definitions in an attempt to show how they have
often been ‘normative’ (saying what should be
done) or instrumental (serving as an instrument or
means), usually pointing to things that are lacking
or deficient (e.g. knowledge) or things that need to
be intensified (e.g. democracy). As we shall see, at
the core of development studies and also develop-
ment geography there has been this very normative
preoccupation with the poor and with what are
often referred to as the ‘marginalized and exploited
people of the South’ (Schuurman, 2001: 9).
The term ‘development’ often refers simply to
vague notions of ‘good change’, an unquestionably
positive phrase that in everyday parlance is practic-
ally synonymous with ‘progress’ and is viewed typ-
ically in terms of increased living standards, better
health and well-being and other forms of common
good which are seen to benefit society at large. The
core definition of development in the United
Nations Development Programme’s annual Human
Development Reports revolves around the idea of an
‘enlargement of people’s choices’. The term is used
regularly in a wide variety of senses however, which
embody ‘competing political aims and social values
and contrasting theories of social change’ (Thomas,
2000: 23). Thus conflicting and contradictory views
about the relationships between development and
capitalism can be enfolded within popular assump-
tions about positive change and how to bring about
poverty eradication.
A number of the major development agencies have
recently tried to demonstrate that both ‘developing’
and ‘developed’ societies can be rank ordered
according to common measures of progress and
change such as in the case of the UN’s Human
Development Index (HDI). This tried to escape the
limitations of previous measures by combining four
Figure 1.1 The World Summit for Sustainable Development as variables for each country: income, life expectancy,
‘seen’ on TV by President Bush human liberty and level of education. The defin-
Source: Oliver Schopf and CWS ition of poverty (like that of development) remains
hotly contested however, while conditions of pov-
that is possible, if only people or countries follow erty clearly vary between different areas of the
through a series of stages or prescribed instructions. world, as does the way poverty is experienced, mak-
It is also often assumed that an organic and inher- ing it more difficult to reach a ‘universal’ definition
ently ‘natural’ process of evolution is somehow at that can be agreed upon. Poverty is of course a
work, one that is both progressive and forward- relational issue which refers to life chances and
moving. The assumption here is that from little experiences which are uneven socially and spatially,
acorns do giant oaks grow. Development also often but debates about poverty have generally focused on
means simply ‘more’: whatever we might have some those groups that are ‘deprived’ and lacking in
of today we might or should have more of tomor- social power, assets or capital rather than focusing

2
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Figure 1.3 To what extent does the United Nations create a better
world?
Source: UN Department of Public Information
Figure 1.2 Fifty years of successful UN operations?
Source: UN Department of Public Information

on the associated issues of wealth and consump-

tion. Moreover, poverty is clearly far from being a
new concern, but ‘development’ is an idea that has
acquired particular meanings over the past two cen-
turies, especially since the end of the Second World
War.
The vision of development articulated by many
global agencies however is still very much based
around the idea of a linear progression, indicated as
different degrees of departure from already estab-
lished western ideals and experiences. As in the case
of Gross National Product (GNP) per capita, the Figure 1.4 Western political leaders like Tony Blair have a very
HDI does in many senses (albeit at a very crude positive view of globalisation
level) point to growing gaps between ‘rich’ and Source: © Dave Brown 2001, The Independent
‘poor’ areas and peoples of the world, but their sig-
nificance is almost cheapened by the failures of tioned in studies and representations of poverty
these ‘generalised’ indicators. Too often these ‘gaps’ which may therefore even be responsible for deepen-
are taken as a given in the study of development ing, reproducing and widening these gaps (Rist,
and rarely is this sufficiently problematised or ques- 1997). None the less, even though the data give only

3
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

a shallow and sometimes misleading impression, P E O P L E , P L A C E S A N D P RO G R E S S :

it is still possible (and necessary) to theorise T H I N K I N G S PA T I A L LY A B O U T
about different levels of economic development DEVELOPMENT
in the twenty-first century (Peet with Hartwick,
1999: 9). This is the power of development: the power to
In many western societies, poverty is now often transform old worlds, the power to imagine new
considered in relative terms, where the wider social ones.
exclusion of the poor is sometimes taken into con- (Crush, 1995: 2)
sideration. This notion of poverty is also relevant in
non-western contexts where a wide range of social One of the most intriguing and useful discussions
‘resources’ may be available to an individual other of the meaning and significance of development
than monetary income (Sen, 1983, 1985). None the was written in 1997 by Majid Rahnema, who once
less, it is argued here that despite some of these served as a minister in the government of Iran in the
changes, the measures adopted by many global 1960s and later headed a UN development pro-
development organisations remain powerful gramme in Mali before engaging in debates about
examples of precisely how not to go about counting ‘alternative’ development in his later career:
the poor (Reddy and Hogge, 2002). This book seeks
to show that people experience impoverishment in I remember very well that, for example, in my
and through their particular places and localities. own country, dozens of researchers have set out
This also needs to be considered as an important to find an equivalent term in Persian. There were
dimension of poverty in a global and inclusive def- many concepts that spoke of “good life”, “soli-
inition, which does not seek to ‘objectify the poor’, darity”, “prosperity”, “blossoming”, “the happi-
to declare them a ‘problem’ and to invent a solu- ness of living together”, and “the beneficial flow
tion, but rather to convey the variety of complex of life”. These words were far from hollow, fossil-
daily struggles that poverty involves on a number of ized or pompous.
geographical scales, from the local to the global. (Rahnema, 1997a: 6)
What is particularly intriguing here is that despite
nearly six decades of ‘global’ strategies of develop- Rahnema is referring to the political and economic
ment, few if any of the international agencies know climate of the 1960s when Iranians searched for an
exactly how many poor people there are in the equivalent term in Persian. ‘Dozens’ of researchers
world and only very recently have these agencies have since set out to understand how the idea of
actually begun to ask: How do poor people them- development could be made relevant to their par-
selves view issues of poverty, development and ticular historical and geographical contexts. In par-
well-being? (Narayan et al., 2002). ticular, Rahnema recalls how, in the case of the
As we shall see, the notion of development thus Arab and Persian world, the term frequently
represents a great variety of definitions, theories acquired and was imbued with these positive char-
and approaches, but it can also be considered some- acteristics while debates around the meaning of
thing of a hosting metaphor that contains within it ‘development’ were far from empty or ‘hollow’:
‘crucial connecting assumptions between growth ‘they stirred people’s hearts, spoke to them, reson-
and democracy’ (Apter, 1987: 7). In the chapters ant as they were of everything that gave meaning to
that follow we will be exploring the ways in which their dreams and the well-being of a happy com-
development also often serves as a heuristic device, munity’ (Rahnema, 1997a: 6).
as something to stimulate thought or discussion, a Thus, while the Middle East does not usually
way to propose strategies, theories and ideologies figure prominently in debates about global develop-
of how to overcome and eradicate poverty. Before ment, Rahnema shows how the meanings of devel-
we set out on this journey it is worth remembering opment in the Iranian context also stirred people’s
that development is one of the most complex hearts, dreams and imagination. This raises fun-
words in the English language and its varied intel- damental questions about the relations between
lectual history or genealogy can confuse and limit people and places that we need to examine further.
its contemporary usage in myriad ways (Williams, Debates about development have resonated with
1976). people and communities in a variety of places and
spaces around the world over a long period of time.

4
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

One objective of this book is to formulate a view of which need to be considered in thinking critically
development which focuses on the relationships to about the spatiality of development. In a whole var-
households and communities and not only (as often iety of ways, development has always been about
happens) on ‘formal’ institutions such as the state, spatial imaginaries that operate at the local,
the transnational corporation, the international national and global scale. Thus it is useful to focus
development agencies or non-governmental organ- on the extent to which there is a translation of the
isations (NGOs). This is a very difficult balance to meaning and objectives of development theories
maintain consistently, since development operates and practices into a variety of seemingly very differ-
across so many spatial scales and involves different ent geographical contexts. As Rahnema explains
degrees of formality simultaneously. about the use of equivalent terms in Persian and
Geographers have often focused on deprived and other contexts and settings, these words seemed
poor areas and have raised questions about different almost impossible to translate, as they represented
regions and inequalities, adopting a range of differ- what appeared to be ‘totally different perceptions of
ent approaches over the past six decades. What we what a good life is’ (Rahnema, 1997a: 7).
will focus attention on in this book is the inter- This then is a central and fundamental issue in
actions between different spaces and places and the the process of rethinking our approaches to the
ways in which these interactions have been stretched study of development’s geographies: how to trans-
and extended at different times and through different late these ‘totally’ different and supposedly
processes. In this sense, our consideration of space, incompatible conceptions of what a good life is or
place and scale can offer alternative organising of what ‘good change’ is necessary to help bring this
principles around which to think about develop- about for the majority. For students of ‘develop-
ment. In particular this book is aimed at intermedi- ment’, learning to understand and appreciate social
ate and advanced level undergraduate students and economic differences between one area of the
studying development, and on one level it sets world and another is a difficult and value-laden
out to offer a thematic and historical critique of process, particularly complicated in the context of
development, arguing that we thus need to under- contemporary globalisation. In a study of student
stand the variety of relationships between people travellers to the Third World, Desforges (1998) illus-
and places by examining historical relationships at trates, for example, the links between travel and
the global level. On another level, it is argued that identity for many students who sought to ‘collect
such an exploration needs to be grounded, to be places’ which offered authentic individual know-
seen as rooted in the ‘everyday’ practices, move- ledges and personal experiences that could be
ments and behaviours of individual people based gained through journeying to other worlds. This
in particular places. involved a kind of framing of Third World peoples
It is worth remembering that there is also no easy and places as different and also the assumption that
definition of place here, since we are referring to it was possible to ‘collect’ experiences of Third
such a complex diversity of peoples, cultures and World places. In this way, travel may be understood
localities. Places are not bounded however, but are as one way in which ‘youth identities “stretch out”
‘open’ and linked to a ‘space of flows’ and they can beyond the local to draw in places from around the
also be seen as something that is ‘made’ by the media globe’ (Desforges, 1998: 176). This sense of iden-
or understood as a context for social and political tities being ‘stretched out’ and places being drawn
relations (Holloway and Hubbard, 2001). People into the global is a crucial theme in thinking about
and places have all too often been disregarded in the geography and development today.
rush to form grand theories of economic or political Most recently, debates about ‘globalisation’ and
development and this imbalance needs to be development (which have often been abstract and
urgently rectified. It is useful to think then about lacking in clarity) have come to provide a key means
how people have created and transformed the places through which many people seek to understand
and spaces of development and have perceived and transitions among human societies at the start of
imagined particular kinds of localities or historical the third millennium. Much has been made of the
experiences in their conceptions of those worlds impact of globalisation, the consequent ‘annihila-
deemed worthy and in need of ‘developing’. In this tion of space by time’ and the increased ease of
sense, space can be theorised in material, relational, travel and communication that characterise the con-
imaginary, abstract and metaphorical forms, all of temporary world. There has also been a tendency to

5
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

speak of the ‘end of geography’, envisioning a time M E N TA L M A P S A N D I M A G I N E D

when all places will have similar social and cultural GEOGRAPHIES OF DIFFERENCE
characteristics as global corporations, and as media
agencies spread similar products and images across By whom is development being done? To whom?
the globe (Holloway and Hubbard, 2001). In this These are potent questions. They should particu-
respect, the nations of Africa, Central and Latin larly be asked when ‘solutions’ are put forward
America and much of Asia – collectively often that begin ‘We should . . .’, without making clear
referred to as the ‘Global South’ – are seen to face who ‘We’ are and what interests ‘We’ represent.
great challenges and to be confronted by a number (Allen and Thomas, 2001: 4)
of opportunities as a consequence of ‘globalisa-
tion’. In this book, we will be examining the One of the focal points of this book is the conten-
dynamic relations between territories, power and tion that representations of the ‘Third World’ and
identity in the ‘Global South’ (which is said to of the ‘West’ imagine places which are imbued with
include well over two-thirds of the world’s nation- certain sorts of moral, cultural and socio-political
states). In particular we will be examining the pos- attributes. These important representations also
sibility of what some observers have referred to as have a significant impact on the spatial scales at
‘deterritorialisation’ or the displacement of iden- which development policy takes place and ultim-
tities, peoples and meanings that is said to result ately also determine the kinds of resistance to and
from globalisation in a postmodern world system. It contestation of these policies which are possible.
is important then to examine the way in which terri- This book also raises questions about the principal
tory is seen to lose significance as a result of global- sources and means we use to help understand and
isation and the ‘unstoppable’ juggernaut of global make sense of ‘tropical areas’, the ‘Third World’
changes in information, knowledge and technology. or ‘developing areas’. These might include, for
What is often not clear in these debates is what role example, the mass media (e.g. television, radio, cin-
there is for the people of the ‘South’ to shape their ema and the written press), school, college and uni-
own destinies and to what extent borders and geo- versity education, and even friends and relatives.
graphical divides are becoming less important in a These images of other worlds are built up from our
global context. cognition and perception of the environment and
The media in particular sometimes simplify the summarise each individual’s knowledge of their
complexities of development and globalisation and surroundings. They are not necessarily ‘false’ or
present poverty as universal or globalisation as ‘wrong’ but partial because they are not always
novel. The media also relay images and information based on first-hand experience and are thus in some
about inequality within and between worlds almost ways ‘fictions’ (Holloway and Hubbard, 2001).
every day but these global inequalities have often These are simplified and distorted images, which
been misrepresented, while the means of conduct- can relate to different kinds of places and spatial
ing an assessment or evaluation of this unevenness scales (rooms, houses, neighbourhoods, cities,
has also been widely disputed. The ways in which regions, nations and the entire globe). Imagining the
the peoples and places of development have been geography of development through mental maps, we
represented is crucial here. If people construct create maps in our minds which have meaning for
places, so too people are constructed by places and us, and come to form something of a ‘mental atlas’
thus there is a reciprocity and relationality between where each page can be referred to in a particular
peoples and places that geographers are beginning situation (Holloway and Hubbard, 2001). They
to turn their attention to (Holloway and Hubbard, allow us to make sense of broad and varied parts of
2001). In a whole variety of important ways the the world with which we may yet have little or any
media play a key role in building a spatial imagin- direct contact either through experience or learning.
ation of the globe and globalisation, enframing the These mental maps can be called ‘imagined geog-
way that Third World others are viewed in western raphies’. They represent individual and collective
societies. imaginations of the world and refer to the way in
which we imagine the geography of Africa, Asia or
Latin America and understand the ‘development’
of these regions. One of the major objectives of this
book is to encourage readers to think critically

6
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

about how these maps are drawn and how they formed using the same sources. The views and pro-
affect perceptions of political, socio-economic or jections of the globe that emerge outside Europe
cultural differences between world regions, peoples and North America are important here (Chaliand
and places. What kinds of interaction do we have as and Rageau, 1985) as we need also to think about
consumers, for example, with these other worlds, the way in which the world may be viewed differ-
and how is this interaction mediated at different ently by, for example, Chinese, Russian, African and
spatial scales? Geographers are increasingly raising Muslim peoples. Eurocentrism thus has its own
important questions about the ways in which imagined geographies of the world (Blaut, 1993), an
spaces, places and scales are being reconfigured to ordering of the global map, which begins with
the exclusion of certain groups (such as women, ‘the Europeans and has European spaces at its centre
poor’ or people with disabilities) and in the (Hall, 1992). In Eurocentric or Americocentric rep-
reconstruction of new kinds of communities, which resentations of the world and ‘modern’ develop-
transcend the boundaries of particular places and ment, Europe and North America are often
localities (see Massey, 1992). depicted as the highest stages of civilisation and
Imagined geographies conjure up for us in our own global progress. Despite the continuance of ‘persist-
mind’s eye a view of the world and may be drawn ent poverty’ in the USA (Glasmeier, 2002) through-
from a variety of sources, meaning that they are out the twentieth century and up to the present,
not necessarily unique to us as individuals. Many America is still seen as the richest and most
people will have the same or remarkably similar ‘developed’ economy on the planet. Many North
mental maps and imagined geographies of the American geographies of development remain
world since in many cases they will have been centred on Canada or the United States of Amer-
ica, with these states seen as pivotal axes in the
global development industry.
A central theme explored in this book concerns
the power and capacity of these pivotal axes and of
global development organisations such as the UN
agencies and the World Bank to put forward dom-
inant spatial imaginations of other peoples and
places and to provide ‘truths’ about successful
growth, miracle economies and supposedly ‘miracu-
lous’ economic recovery. In so doing, we are not
trying to create a simple ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ debate about
such countries and organisations or the more gen-
eral themes of ‘development’ here but rather to
understand the power of these states, ideas and
institutions in particular places and at certain times
in world history. Development in some conceptions
may be understood as a dogmatic belief, almost a
‘religion’ (Rist, 1997) involving a series of practices
that, taken together, are riddled with contradictions,
manifest in a variety of place-specific ways. From
their pulpits, global development agencies preach a
number of creeds and doctrines of good change
while forcing countries to seek their blessing and
baptism on the global alter of development.
Throughout this book we will be examining the
relevance and value of these creeds and doctrines,
exploring the possibility that under the guise of
‘attacking poverty’ some of these global institutions
Figure 1.5 Sweatshops and the production of consumer goods are actually attacking the poor (Cammack, 2002).
have attracted more and more attention in recent years Development arguably operates in a way as a
Source: Image courtesy of [Link] (2001) kind of global ‘industry’, one with various technical

7
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

services and its own ‘pharmacy’ of prescriptions for ber that development is simultaneously both an
poor and needy countries or indebted nations intellectual project and a material process (Apter,
‘thirsty’ for credit. According to World Bank Presi- 1987) and that ‘development’ represents a broad
dent James Wolfensohn, fighting poverty is at the ‘fund’ of knowledge about the modern world and
very centre of the work done by these global devel- progress within it which different individuals and
opment agencies, since the ‘4.8 billion people who institutions draw upon at different historical con-
are our ultimate clients deserve nothing less’ junctures to articulate their plans for global, local
(quoted in Cammack, 2002: 125). Why does this or national societies. In noting that development is
organisation choose to locate its headquarters profoundly material (and about more than telling
in Washington, DC if its ‘ultimate clients’ are stories) we are recognising that the term is more
concentrated in other localities? than just a ‘plastic’ word and that in its name:
Development is partly also quite a religious enter-
prise, where objectives are pursued with missionary schools and clinics are built, exports encouraged,
zeal and a pious devotion to particular theologies wells dug, roads laid, children vaccinated, funds
and beliefs. Various images and stories about dis- collected, plans established, national budgets re-
tant places and peoples emerge from these institu- vised, reports drafted, experts hired, strategies con-
tions, and their constructions and imaginations of cocted, the international community mobilised,
other worlds. In this way it is important to remem- dams constructed, forests exploited, high-yield
plants invented, trade liberalised, technology
imported, factories opened, wage-jobs multiplied,
spy satellites launched.
(Rist, 1997: 11)

To this we might add that the ‘fund’ of knowledge

upon which global development draws is also very
spatial in character, often centred upon the experi-
ences of certain countries in particular political and
economic spaces. Thus the prescribed remedies for
development ‘problems’ and the problems of
‘developing countries’ usually issue from certain
types of places and localities and must be seen as
shaped by certain spaces of the world economy and
certain recollections of world history.
As mentioned above, one key measure that has
been used to depict patterns of global unevenness is
Gross National Product (GNP) per capita. A grow-
ing GNP became a kind of myth in development
circles, or ‘a dogma, a shibboleth in economic rea-
soning and a golden calf and centre of economic
worship’ in the 1950s and 1960s (Weisskopf, 1964:
14). UN agencies are fond of monetary criteria like
these which categorise the countries of the world
(according to groups of income, literacy, calorie
supply, life-expectancy or volume of export-trade)
but these indicators often mask more than they
reveal about impoverishment and inequality (Power,
2000; Matsu, 2002). Average and aggregated meas-
ures such as these are often meaningless in terms of
‘representing the real situation’ on the ground or in
Figure 1.6 The idea that there are miracle cures to the problems particular places (Peet with Hartwick, 1999: 8). To
of the South has been an enduring one focus on a growing GNP at the expense of other
Source: © Protest Graphics ways of thinking about development (and how to

8
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

measure it) has thus arguably weakened and The global capitalist economy, it could be argued,
undermined the search for new and alternative ways actively produces inequality and uneven develop-
of thinking about poverty and inequality. As we ment in a kind of ‘zero-sum’ game where for every
shall see in Chapters 7, 8 and 9, the contemporary winner there is a loser, for every place that comes to
global development industry is currently dominated share in global wealth another is pushed out of the
by an ideology known as ‘neoliberalism’, which has equation:
become the predominant approach to thinking
about and practising development today. Manu- A big part of the ‘economic development’, i.e. the
factured in Chicago in the 1970s by philosopher- wealth, of the rich countries is wealth imported
economists such as Milton Friedman, neoliberalism from the poor countries. The world economic sys-
has since become almost a religion in itself, which tem generates inequality and it runs on inequality.
preaches restraint and the prominence of the mar- . . . It is a fraud to hold up the image of the
ket, becoming a kind of ideological ‘thought virus’ world’s rich as a condition available to all.
(Beck, 2000: 122) made in Europe and North Amer- (Lummis, 1992: 46–47, emphasis in original)
ica. Neoliberalism is problematic in that it promotes
and normalises an economic growth-first strategy If the global economy is a pyramid and everyone is
where social and welfare concerns come later (Peck encouraged to stand on top, how is this to be
and Tickell, 2002). It also naturalises an image of arranged? If China, India and Brazil were able to
international markets as fair and efficient (when the truly ‘catch up’, is it possible that other ‘developed’
reality is altogether different) and privileges ‘lean countries would have to decline as a locus of devel-
government’, economic deregulation and the opment, consumption or accumulation? Develop-
removal of state subsidies to marginal and dis- ment equality and the idea of catching up with the
advantaged communities. More importantly, in wealthy through economic activity has dominated
many ways neoliberalism forecloses alternative development thinking for many years but seems
paths of development, narrowing the ideological increasingly less likely at the beginning of the
space in which it is possible to think outside the twenty-first century in the context of growing evi-
‘development box’. Of particular interest here is dence of widening and deepening patterns of global
that behind neoliberalism there is the core assump- inequality. If we look at the representation of the
tion that the economy should dictate its rules to ‘champagne glass’ of global social inequality
society rather than the other way around. produced by the United Nations Development

Figure 1.7 A mapping of the world according to World Bank income data
Source: World Bank

9
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Programme (UNDP) in 1992 we can see how within the existing global framework of economic
entrenched these sorts of inequality actually are (see structures. The idea of the Third World also gives
Figure 1.8). Central to the notion of (neoliberal) enormous power to western development institu-
development is the idea that ‘latecomers’ must catch tions to shape popular perceptions of Africa, Asia,
up with already existing and ‘advanced’ systems and Latin America and the Caribbean (Escobar, 1995).
practices, but with such marked and entrenched dif- In this sense, the idea of three worlds has structured
ferences and inequalities, how is this possible? For many political scriptings of old and new ‘world
much of the postwar era of development, implicit in orders’. It has also shaped many of the ways in
the representation of the developed world is the which people have imagined complex geographies
idea that blueprints can be created, that progress of global change.
can be copied, mimicked, transferred or trickled
down to ‘LDCs’ (to use another annoying locution
that arrogantly distances non-western societies as DEVELOPMENT AND THE
‘less developed’). ‘Development’ has therefore often GEOGRAPHY OF POWER
served as a ‘lighthouse’ (Sachs, 1992) or as a ‘lode-
star’ and an ‘illusion’ (Wallerstein, 1994) into which For Rahnema (1992: 158) the term ‘global poverty’
several different movements, governments and is in some ways ‘an entirely new and modern con-
institutions have invested faith and meaning. Like struct’, while attempts to comparatively measure
the term ‘Third World’, development partly repre- inequalities between nations and to eradicate them
sents a geographical imagining and the representa- can be considered to be partly a product and inven-
tion of a better world. It also incorporates a belief tion of the postwar era (after the Second World
in the idea of correctable inequalities and injustices War). From this modern construct comes a complex
between nations, states and regions and (usually) and widely significant politics of naming and label-
ling whole areas of the globe as ‘poor’ and the
invention of global solutions to problems of impov-
erishment in the South. This is partly a reference to
the end of colonial rule in some areas of the non-
western world in the second half of the twentieth
century and the way in which ‘development’ became
a means of enframing or constructing the new ‘chal-
lenges’ and ‘opportunities’ of self-government that
lay ahead for the newly independent countries. One
example of this idea comes from the struggle for
independence in Ghana in the late 1940s and early

Figure 1.8 The UNDP’s favoured ‘champagne glass’ of world Figure 1.9 Cartoon illustrating the dominance of northern
income distribution streams of environmentalism
Source: Houtart (2001) Source: Environment & Urbanization (2000)

1 0
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

1950s, when Kwame Nkrumah (who later went on and economic status before the ‘West’. Thus in
to become the country’s first leader after independ- some ways development was emerging as a key
ence from Britain in 1957) regularly called upon principle upon which the United States would seek
Ghanaians to organise themselves so as to challenge to build its own global empire after 1945. Since then
their colonial masters. On a nationwide tour in ‘development’ has become:
1950, Nkrumah pointed out: ‘We prefer self-
government in danger, to servitude in tranquillity. an amoeba-like concept, shapeless but ineradic-
Forward ever, backward never!’ (Nkrumah, 1961: able [which] spreads everywhere because it con-
56). notes the best of intentions [creating] a common
Many nation-states in the South sought to deepen ground in which right and left, elites and grass-
their victory over colonial rule by embracing ‘devel- roots, fight their battles.
opment’ as a national framework for building upon (Sachs, 1992: 4)
independence. As we shall see, both as an idea and as
an arena of practice, development was borne partly Ideological interpretations of development have
out of the ashes of colonialism and the growing varied but they have always claimed ‘the best of
concern with ‘decolonisation’ in the non-western intentions’. The idea of development is often dis-
world. Former US President Harry Truman, for cussed in relation to ‘developing countries’ (also a
example, in a famous speech of 1949, spoke of value-laden term) but is still very relevant in soci-
this emerging ‘underdeveloped’ world, representing eties that proclaim themselves as ‘developed’. Can
it as a ‘handicap and threat both to them [the any society claim to be fully ‘developed’ when it
underdeveloped and poor] and the more prosperous forms part of a world that allows around 800 mil-
areas’ (Truman, 1949). As we shall see, the issue of lion people to suffer from hunger and malnutrition
how to conceptualise ‘poverty’ is crucial in any geo- every year? According to Jean Ziegler, a UN rights
graphical interpretation of development and so it is expert, global hunger today remains a ‘silent geno-
important to examine the idea of the poor as a cide’ (Zeigler, quoted in Chomsky, 2001). Further-
threat to established social or political orders and more, in 1998 a high-ranking US official reportedly
additionally to look at the way in which ‘poor claimed that a child born in New York stood a
people’ have been historically (as well as geograph- smaller chance of living to age 5 or learning to read
ically) constructed as an ‘object of humanitarian than a child born in Shanghai (quoted in Sogge,
concern’ (Allen and Thomas, 2001: 16). The idea 2002: 27). Thus North and South, First World and
of development as ‘forwardness’ (as opposed to Third World are not as separate as they might
‘backwardness’) quickly took centre-stage in the appear, since, as some observers have pointed out,
decades that followed as part of the war on there are simultaneous and intertwined processes of
communism and in some of the global political ‘Thirdworldisation’ in the ‘First World’ and pro-
dramas of the Cold War. There is no space to cesses of ‘Firstworldisation’ in the ‘Third World’.
explore the nature of the Cold War here but this is None of this is particularly new when it is remem-
none the less a fundamental cornerstone of the dis- bered that terms such as ‘First World’/‘Third World’
cussion that follows in this book (particularly in the and ‘North’/‘South’ were themselves constituted by
first four chapters). As a crucially important global colonial encounters of various kinds, but it is
social and political conflict between capitalism and important to remember the complex geographies of
communism, the Cold War gave rise to something of migration in the contemporary world which mean
a new world order in ways which continue to have a that living standards in the ‘North’ are not uni-
bearing on the contemporary geography of power versally high and neither are they universally low in
in the world today. President Truman went on to the ‘South’. In Chapters 5 and 6, for example, we will
explain the need for ‘modern, scientific and tech- be examining the history of the notion of ‘three
nical knowledge’ and announced the beginning of a worlds’ and of ‘East’/‘West’, exploring the possibil-
‘bold new program’ to resolve ‘underdevelopment’ ity of alternative representations.
and poverty in ‘backward’ areas (Truman, 1949). This book is therefore very much about questions
One of the most interesting aspects of this speech of ‘race’ and the possibility of anti-racist represen-
was its normative dimensions, or the fact that it tations of other cultures and economies, highlight-
declared what ought to be done, what the ‘under- ing the reality that, as Gilroy (2000) has argued,
developed world’ ought to do to change its political racial hierarchies and categories continue to

1 1
INTRODUCTION
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Figure 1.10 A map of the world indicating important North/South distinctions

Source: From Dickenson et al. (Routledge 1996)

structure the ways in which differences between boats’ and will therefore lead to further political
peoples and places are approached. In this sense, conflicts and instabilities:
the world of global development still remains
entrenched in camps whether they be national, geo- Regions, countries, and groups feeling left behind
political, racial or cultural. In choosing a title like will face deepening economic stagnation, polit-
Rethinking Development Geographies this is precisely ical instability, and cultural alienation. They will
what I want to signal: that it is important and neces- foster political, ethnic, ideological and religious
sary to challenge the enduring influence of racial extremism, along with the violence that accom-
thinking and racialised categories bequeathed partly panies it.
as a legacy of the days of Empire. In this book we (CIA, 2000: 7)
will be seeking to complicate such categories and
labels and to flag up the continued importance of The involvement of the US Central Intelligence
whiteness, racism and racial formations in thinking Agency (CIA) in this concern for the ‘global trends’
about, mapping and practising development today. of development is interesting here. The notion of
This book argues that development has to be developing countries or ‘emerging markets’ lagging
considered therefore in large part as related to a or falling behind in some way runs throughout the
‘geopolitics’ of race, where ‘developed’ countries report as does the image of these countries as rela-
take an interest in and consider the needs of poor tively unchanged, with ‘brittle’ or ‘frail’ economies
countries in ways that often issue directly from their and societies. Although written before the terrorist
own preoccupations and strategic political, cultural attacks of 11 September 2001, the report identifies
and economic objectives and perspectives. One use- key ‘drivers’ and trends that will shape the world
ful example of this is a report by the US Central between 2000 and 2015. These include future con-
Intelligence Agency (CIA) written in 2000 and flict, natural resources and the environment,
entitled ‘Global Trends 2015’, where it is argued national and international governance, the global
that the changing global economy will create many economy and globalisation, and finally the pre-
economic ‘winners’, warning that it ‘will not lift all ponderant role of the United States itself. This

1 2
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

book seeks to explore many of these themes, espe- sense are such representations a legacy of the past?
cially the particular (geo)political imaginations of In this sense, the CIA is engaging in a kind of writ-
development that agencies such as the CIA produce. ing of the global spaces of development, construct-
What we need to ask here is why is it so common to ing ways of knowing the ‘developing world’ as well
see ‘poor countries’ as tradition-bound, as inventing and legitimating forms of interven-
unchanging, brittle, weak and frail and in what tion in the political and economic affairs of other

1 3
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

countries. The actual contribution of the CIA to European or even North American countries for
this process is not especially important here; rather and on behalf of non-western countries, but rather
our concern is with the broader question of writing that development is also partly the product of
about global spaces of development (and interven- people’s resistance, particularly those groups
tions therein), and with an examination of the links constructed as the ‘objects’ of intervention and
between development theories and practices and policy-making. None the less, there has been a per-
their relationship to the changing nature of inter- sistent tendency for development professionals
national political relations over time. and institutions to devise mechanisms and pro-
It is thus important to remember that the industry, cedures that make societies fit pre-existing
business and ‘machinery’ of global development models which embrace the functions of ‘modernity’
(and the flow of representations that this creates) is and the ‘modern’ world, rather than each society
dynamic since its languages, strategies and practices being seen as able to make its own history and geog-
have been shaped over a long period. Development raphy, to tell its own stories of progress (in condi-
is therefore not just a European creation (since as tions of its own choosing) and to represent its own
we shall see ‘Europe’ itself is a product of the ‘Third particular political and cultural traditions (Escobar,
World’) but must also be considered as a ‘reflection 1995).
of the responses, reactions and resistance of the Throughout this book reference will be made to the
people who are its object’ (Crush, 1995: 8). The key ‘discourses of development’, and what we are talk-
point here is not that development was invented by ing about here is a kind of flow of ideas that are
connected to one another, a flow of representations
and conversations about global development and
society over a period of time, even a century or
more. The terms ‘discourse’ and ‘discursive prac-
tices’ usually refer to verbal and written communi-
cations but have come to include the ‘ensemble of
social practices through which the world is made
meaningful and intelligible to oneself and others’
(Johnson et al., 1994: 136). Thus particular kinds of
knowledges of world development are (re)produced
through the representations and practices of dis-
courses. Geographers have increasingly emphasised
the variation of discourses over space and time and
have shown how spaces themselves (such as that of

Figure 1.11 The UN has always been concerned with the possibil- Figure 1.12 A call to attack the World Economic Forum meeting in
ity of international peace and stability January 2002
Source: UN Department of Public Information Source: Globalise Resistance

1 4
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

the imaginary ‘Third World’) are discursively pro- on a particular series of historical moments and the
duced (McDowell and Sharp, 1999). This is very experiences of European countries and social rela-
much a postmodern approach to the study of tions, these ideas arguably have a much wider rel-
development and, as we shall see, is not without its evance in any examination of power relations in the
own problems and limitations. Third World (Escobar, 1985).
The book draws in particular on the notion of In his work, Foucault (1979, 1980) was not writ-
discourse articulated in the work of Michel ing explicitly about the idea of development, but
Foucault (1926–1984) who worked as Professor of these important writings did offer new ways of
the History of Thought at the College de France. thinking that challenged people’s assumptions
Foucault attempted to question some of the basic about prisons, the police, insurance, gay rights, wel-
ideas which people normally take to be permanent fare and the care of the mentally ill. This work also
truths about human nature and societal change, and had an important focus on the process of transition
his writings continue to loom large over any geo- to a ‘modern’ western society and explored how
graphical discussion of power (Philo, 1992) but also this was based around new forms of control dis-
over contemporary debates about the power of persed through complex networks of power and
development. Although Foucault’s work is focused knowledge and a number of ‘technologies of

1 5
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

domination’. Perhaps most usefully, these interven- here follows work by a number of researchers who
tions focused on people as subjects and the question have discussed the possibility of combining pro-
of how individuals were encouraged by certain ductively the interventions of Foucault and Derrida
kinds of institution to behave in particular ways, to in the study of international relations and develop-
reach certain social ‘standards’ and to observe ment (Doty, 1996; Power, 1998; Manzo, 1999; Yapa,
certain rules or to adopt particular ideas and 2002). This combined approach allows us to unpack
ideologies of modern social order, progress and de- the conflicting meanings and contradictions of
velopment. This approach is quite complex and development, and its narrations of progress and
challenging but it does capture something of the social change in other worlds. It also calls for an
diffuse and subtle nature of power relations opening up of the process of reading which allows
between peoples and places and of the diverse for multiple interpretations, not all of which are
nature of important resistances to those relations of intentional, that may be found within the languages
power and domination. and margins of any textual writing.
In a related sense, as Hart (2001) suggests, a dis-
tinction can also usefully be made between ‘big D’
Development and ‘little d’ development. The for- RE/THINKING GEOGRAPHIES OF
mer refers to a post-Second World War project of D E V E L O P M E N T: A G U I D E T O W H A T
intervention in the Third World that emerged dur- FOLLOWS
ing the time of decolonisation and the Cold War.
This would suggest that it is necessary to explore the The day will come when nations will be judged
‘disciplinary power’ of development, or the extent not by their military or economic strength, not by
to which, as Foucault’s work suggests, people the splendour of the their capital cities and build-
become good, docile, governable citizens in the ings but by the well-being of their peoples.
course of their society’s modernisation. The phrase (UNICEF, 2000: 1)
‘little d’ development, however, points to the devel-
opment of capitalism as a ‘geographically uneven, Development is often presented as a collective task
profoundly contradictory set of historical pro- that (despite the relative lack of success globally)
cesses’ (Hart, 2001: 650). D/development can thus appears to be justified beyond all dispute, as inher-
be viewed simultaneously as both a project and a ently ‘good’ for people as apple pie. Thus we should
process, with overt and covert forms, shot through not take it for granted that development is always
with contradiction and unevenness. Both senses are positive, necessary or associated with progressive
deployed throughout this book and this is also values and changes. All these questions are up for
combined with a concern for the deconstruction debate in what follows in this book. We will be try-
of development, following the work of Jacques ing to peel back these outer layers of self-evidence
Derrida, born in El-biar, Algeria in 1930. Decon- and this image of inherently positive values, to try
struction refers to a specific kind of analysis which to understand how the concern for development
Derrida applied to literature, linguistics, philoso- has been constructed and embedded within a par-
phy, law and architecture, and suggests new ways of ticular geography, history and culture. In addition,
thinking about texts, languages and reading. Point- our perspective on the images and practices of
ing to a number of problematic assumptions in the development depends in large part on whether we
nature of texts and highlighting the multiple layers adopt the viewpoint of the ‘developer’ or those of
of meaning at work in language, Derrida’s writings the ‘developed’ (Rist, 1997). In this way the book
are useful in thinking about development in that seeks to show that there are a whole variety of per-
they can help us to understand the unavoidable ten- spectives involved here and argues that as a result,
sions between the ideals of the developers and the it is clearly a good time to take a fresh look at
developed, and the absence of clarity and coherence the geographies of development, to go back to the
in philosophies of progress. Again, this work drawing-board in order to interrogate further
emerges from a particular context but has major the geographical imagination of the local, national
relevance as a possible framework and methodology and global development mosaic. A rethinking of
for critiquing development and exploring alterna- development geographies is particularly necessary
tive ways of thinking about relations between soci- because the lines that have so far divided North and
ety and space. In this sense, the approach adopted South are now present within every nation-state and

1 6
Figure 1.13 Map of the world showing dates of independence from Colonial rule and the European colonising country
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

are making ever less appropriate the conventional tions between ‘postmodern’ approaches to the
language used to interpret the geography of devel- study of development and the protests of the
opment in the world economy (Rich/Poor, North/ ‘anti-globalisation movement’. The chapter
South, First World/Third World, Developed/ also looks at the complex historical beginnings
Developing). of development and how it is measured, focus-
For some commentators, what used to be called ing in particular on the case of foreign aid and
the ‘Second World’ of socialist revolutionary its relations to the global war on terrorism.
regimes has supposedly ‘disappeared’ from history I Chapter 3 moves a little further back in time,
(Dirlik, 2002), although Cuba, China, North Korea exploring the work of geographers in the ‘Trop-
and Vietnam still retain a concern with ‘socialist ics’, the ‘Third World’ or the ‘South’. It raises
development’ of various kinds. The more important questions about the ways in which geographers
point perhaps is that there is a sense in which the have written about and imagined ‘modern’
other two worlds are to an extent left seemingly face progress and development over time and in dif-
to face with one another, trying to renegotiate cul- ferent spaces. The objective here is to examine
tural relations in a new situation of ‘globalisation’. the legacies in terms of definitions of know-
Questions of geography are central to such rene- ledge (epistemologies) and ways of knowing
gotiations. One of the primary aims of this book is geographical difference. Theoretically and
to provide readers with a sense of the changing methodologically many of these geographies
ways in which geographers view development, par- were politically impoverished in their critiques
ticularly in the first three decades after the Second and very empirical in their designs.
World War. It also aims to contribute to an under- I Chapter 4 focuses on the question of theorisa-
standing of the benefits of a geographical approach. tions of development. Geographers have been
In particular, questions are posed about whether strongly influenced by development studies and
since 1945 (or earlier) development has indeed the theoretical explanations it put forward –
failed in many respects, assigning ‘developing coun- particularly theories of modernisation and
tries’ and the ‘world’s poor’ to marginal positions dependency. In more recent times geographers
within global economic and political structures have been at the forefront of some of the most
while making ‘prescriptions for advancement critical work concerning the study of develop-
[which] were either half-hearted or completely mis- ment. This chapter focuses on the legacies of
guided’ (Kiely, 1999: 39). This book is thus divided development’s invention in eighteenth- and
into ten chapters, which, while each is designed to nineteenth-century Europe and examines in
stand alone, can also be read in sequence as a num- further detail the strengths and weaknesses of a
ber of different angles upon or approaches to the ‘post-development’ framework.
study of geography and development. This outline I Chapter 5 extends this concern with the geo-
contains references to some of the more complex graphical representation of difference by set-
terms we will be using in the book and in this sense ting out to interrogate the mythology of the
readers may find it useful to turn to the Glossary to ‘Third World’ schema which rank-orders world
grasp the meaning of such words from the very regions according to specific sets of prescribed
beginning. Here such terms are used more as sum- criterion. The relevance of ‘geopolitics’ (see
maries of quite complex ideas that this book will be Glossary for definition) to an understanding of
exploring, but a key point is that it is always neces- development is explored here, as is the way in
sary to think about the context in which such ter- which traditions of ‘Thirdworldism’ produced
minologies are used. There are many overlaps as certain kinds of political, cultural and eco-
well as some discontinuities, ‘gaps’ or ‘time-lags’ nomic struggles. A key question here concerns
between the chapters but the following is intended the extent to which the idea of three worlds
as a guide to what follows in the book, a map of the represents diversity and difference in the South.
different directions taken: I Chapter 6 seeks to explore the interconnections
between ‘postcolonial’ (see Glossary) theories,
I Chapter 2 begins by exploring the emergence of readings and interpretations and the study of
anti-capitalist protests in a number of places development’s complex geographies. It is pos-
around the world and poses questions about sible that this framework can help to forge a
the possible intellectual and political connec- more critical approach to development and its

1 8
INTRODUCTION
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

subjects, spaces and places. The chapter focuses of such ideas. A key objective is to interrogate
on the legacies of colonial representations and some of the loaded and often quite superficial
ways of thinking about distant others. This words of development and the ways in which
chapter also develops a focus on nationhood they are popularised and disseminated.
and debates about national belonging and citi- I Chapter 9 examines resistances to neoliberal
zenship after the formal end of colonialism, development and seeks to highlight how the
and explores new forms of cultural expression practice and theory of development has been
as ways of reading and interpreting develop- increasingly contested by social movements of
ment stories. various kinds and by growing coalitions of
I Chapter 7 examines the important question of international solidarity movements which seek
globalisation and development, focusing on the to connect struggles and particular places in
role of neoliberal frameworks in contemporary opposition to certain kinds of narrations of
development thinking and their manifestation ‘development’. Examining a variety of case
in particular localities and places. How is the studies from India and South Africa to
‘borderless’ world predicted by these debates Brazil and Mexico, this chapter explores the
likely to affect the South? A key question here possibility of transnational resistances and of
revolves around the nature of ‘free trade’ and people ‘theorising back’ from below in defence
the impacts of globalisation on place-based of their communities, places and ecologies.
identities and place-specific practices. Again I Chapter 10 concludes the book with a discus-
the role of the state and national territory is sion of the millennium development goals of
central to this discussion. reducing world poverty by half by the year
I Chapter 8 looks at the postwar dissemination 2015, and offers a synthesis of the main themes
of development and explores the various ways explored, showing how they can be drawn
in which language is used to communicate par- together. This chapter also raises questions
ticular images and notions of progress. This about working in development and researching
chapter focuses in particular on conceptions of development geographies, and looks at the
‘livelihoods’ and ‘partnerships’ in develop- shape of future agendas for development
ment, again discussing the historical evolution geographers.

1 9
2
Illuminating the Dark Side of
Development

The estimates of the number of poor people in the world also influence assessments of the seriousness of
the problem of world poverty, the scale of resources that should be devoted to reducing it, and the regions
to which these resources should be directed.
(Reddy and Pogge, 2002: 1)

I N T RO D U C T I O N : A N I N C O M P L E T E have been achieved by the turn of the century. In

AND CONTESTED PICTURE OF this chapter we will examine how there are different
P RO G R E S S senses of what constitutes an ‘advance’ or a ‘set-
back’ and why the statistical methods used to meas-
In studying development one is often confronted ure this can be called into question. A key pointer in
with particular official definitions of ‘sustainable this revolves around the relative importance
development’ or UN definitions of social and eco- accorded to statistics, numbers and figures. These
nomic progress. Allen and Thomas (2001), for types of information are often a very central com-
example, begin with the idea of a ‘balance sheet’ of ponent in constructing geographies of develop-
development, where account is made of negative ment, in determining which spaces of the world are
and positive change over time. They suggest that ‘rich’ and ‘poor’. In a massive variety of reports
rather than viewing development as ‘outright fail- about development produced by institutions and
ure’ we should construct a balance sheet of organisations responsible for promoting images of
‘advances and setbacks’ (Allen and Thomas, 2001: progress (e.g. the UN, World Bank) this way of rep-
6), but this would seem to imply a degree of con- resenting inequality is never far from view. Accord-
fidence in how these advances are to be measured ing to Reddy and Pogge (2002: 1), the World Bank,
which is not shared by everyone. How do we know for example, uses an ill-defined poverty line and mis-
that the world is on the ‘right track’ in terms of leading and inaccurate measures of purchasing
poverty reduction strategy (Reddy and Pogge, power, giving the false impression of statistical pre-
2002)? Assessments of the seriousness of the ‘prob- cision. This in turn leads to ‘an incorrect inference
lem’ of poverty reduction affect the scale of that it [global poverty] has declined’ (Reddy and
resources that are directed towards each region. The Pogge, 2002: 1). Arguably, because poverty is so
absence of clear, sound and consistent conceptions widely underestimated and underemunerated, many
of poverty undermines the strength of many of of these indicators undermine the case for giving aid
these indicators, as does the reality that such and assistance to poor countries rather than
estimates are dominated by certain institutions that strengthening it. More and more people around the
see themselves as the sole producers of poverty world are beginning to protest about this mistaken
numbers. assumption that global poverty is (universally)
Despite the widely touted ‘progress’ and declining.
‘advances’ that have been made, meeting basic In some ways the lack of an agreed set of indica-
needs such as water and sanitation provision tors and measures or of common systems of data
remains far short of what we might have expected to collection tells its own story of international

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development since 1945. According to the experts at TA B L E 2 . 1 I N C O N S I S T E N C I E S

the UN Statistics Division’s thirtieth annual confer- A M O N G I N D I CATO R S I N U N
ence in March 1999: ‘Attempts at defining what an P U B L I CAT I O N S – E S T I M AT E D
indicator [of development] is have not as yet yielded P E R C E N TA G E S O F T H E P O P U L AT I O N
a single definition text that has been widely applied’ W I T H A C C E S S TO S A F E WAT E R
(UN Statistics Division, 1999: 4).
After more than half a century of international Country Source A Source B
‘development’ this must rank reasonably highly on (1990–1996) (1995)
the list of areas where the UN has failed to yet build
international consensus. These sources of data can Chile 95 Not available
therefore be treated with the ‘deepest suspicion’ China 67 90
(Peet with Hartwick, 1999: 7). It is agreed, however, Mali 66 36
that statistics, ‘facts’, measurements and quantita- Mozambique 63 32
tive information yield evidence and perceptions of Nepal 63 48
distant geographies, demonstrating ‘progress’, Senegal 63 50
measuring social change and the dynamics of con- Trinidad and 97 82
ditions and situations of development over time or Tobago
across space. At the same time they are important Uganda 56 34
because they convey messages about those geog- Source A: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), State of the
raphies, about the level of modernity and its geo- World’s Children (New York, Oxford University Press, 1998).
graphical diffusion, constructing and determining Source B: World Health Organization (WHO), The World Health Re-
relationships between programmes and peoples. port, 1996: Fighting Disease Fostering Development (Geneva, WHO,
Through them, various spatialisations of develop- 1996); WHO expanded programme of immunization information
ment are produced which require further analysis. A system: WHO et al., Water Supply and Sanitation Sector
lack of data, non-responses from countries or Monitoring Report, 1996 (United Nations Statistics Division,
Annex IX, 2000, 34).
inadequate international systems for compiling
these indicators mean that gaps and inaccuracies
are plentiful, illustrating the partiality of the picture after nearly sixty years of development there
that is painted through them. remains limited consensus on the key indicators and
A look at the UNESCO 1998 Statistical Yearbook how data should be collected to measure them. The
reveals that, out of 164 countries and territories UN provides technical assistance to improve the
covered, the only data available for some fifty-five capacity of poor countries to collect such data, but
‘developing countries’ are either estimates or data even the UN recognises that ‘the sheer volume of
referring to 1985 or in some cases even earlier. In development indicators and the lack of information
some countries there are few if any established on how similar indicators are related often make it
mechanisms for data collection required by the UN difficult and confusing for analysts and decision-
for the conference-linked indicators it seeks. If makers to use them’ (UN Statistics Division, 1999:
one looks at the comparable datasets available for 11). These countries are burdened with multiple
countries such as Britain and the USA the statistical questionnaires and requests for data by the UN
picture of these countries is also far from being agencies. Some forty-two requests for data were sent
complete and entirely accurate. In some ways aid to countries by the Food and Agriculture Organiza-
and development communities are thus defined by a tion of the UN in 1995 alone. Each of the major
degree of ‘statistical gimmickry’ (Sogge, 2002: 29) UN agencies has its own suite of indicators which
where official data are inflated and misinterpreted in are then mobilised to readily demonstrate the parts
various ways. In addition to basic problems of these agencies play in the story of global progress.
accuracy there are also overlaps in the data collec- The major purpose of this chapter is to begin to
tion procedures of international organisations, raise questions about the predicted futures and
resulting in widespread duplication ‘either in collec- expected outcomes of ‘development’ by exploring
tion of data from countries or in the dissemination the past history of this incredibly contested idea.
of the indicators’ (UN Statistics Division, 1999: 7). Just what is read into such statistics and how much
Censuses, sample surveys and administrative do they actually have to do with the quality of life
records are all used to compile these figures, but ‘on the ground’? One of the reasons that statistics

2 1
THE DARK SIDE OF DEVELOPMENT
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have assumed such significance is because they relief, and their links to debates about international
allow global institutions to illustrate that there relations and foreign policy. In the first few years
has been forward movement over time and space. after the Second World War, many countries in
That there has been some sort of temporal and Europe and North America began to turn their
spatial improvement is central to the notions of attention towards harnessing links with Third
progression and ‘development’. Despite their many World countries by providing them with foreign aid
limitations, data about poverty do retain a degree and development assistance of various kinds. Here
of usefulness, however, in pointing to the ‘gross we can also begin to understand the political geog-
inequalities emerging from processes of moderniz- raphy of postwar development, where development
ation’ (Peet with Hartwick, 1999: 11). Thus where aid sometimes leads to a certain reworking of polit-
some global institutions have claimed that there ical and economic spaces in Third World countries.
has been a global progression of something or a As we shall see, there is now a dominant ‘borrow/
reduction of poverty, data sources can also serve to invest/export/repay’ model based increasingly on
highlight the failure of development strategies and ‘export successes’ and becoming an ‘emerging mar-
ideologies over time and space. ket’ in the terms of international trade and invest-
In order to understand the importance of these ment corporations. This ideology is today also a
ideas of progress and improvement it is also neces- ‘pivotal issue in the debate over Third World debt’
sary here to explore their historical roots, to exam- (Rowbotham, 2000: 70). Although advanced under
ine the extent to which they begin with the imperial the banner of financial ‘aid’ and ‘assistance’, mar-
encounter between West and non-West. This chap- ket-based loans to the South produce a significant
ter looks at the specific question of historical geog- return for the World Bank, IMF and commercial
raphies of foreign development aid and emergency banks involved. One of the main grounds for action

2 2
THE DARK SIDE OF DEVELOPMENT
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in debt relief therefore has to be the recognition that (see Chapter 8). They have often commanded a
loans were once advanced to Third World countries degree of submission to the ambitions of global
on the understanding that the money was repayable, capitalism and the expansion of transnational cor-
which was in many ways a misrepresentation (Row- porations, but it was through these programmes
botham, 2000). It is worth remembering that some that many countries were encouraged to ‘catch up’
of these institutions have lent money to all kinds of with the ‘developed’ and to deepen their victory
suspect and questionable political regimes in their over a colonial past by modernising and industrialis-
first fifty years of existence, bedazzling recipients ing (Amin, 2001b). Everything that had been
with logic: achieved over the centuries in popular struggles for
freedom of various kinds (e.g. against colonialism)
The World Bank in particular and the regional disappears from view in the face of the structural
development banks have, since the 1960s, dazzled reform prescriptions advocated for the ailing econ-
Third World leaders with irrefutably logical omies of the Third World. In this sense it is neces-
arguments whilst promising the development aid sary to understand that neoliberalism rose to prom-
programmes. Many people were convinced by the inence partly as a response to the wider crises of
ideology of credit-based development. capitalist development in the ‘postcolonial’ world.
(Gelinas, 1998) Incredible as it may seem today, these institutions
were once seen as progressive, deterring future
This ideology of credit-based development needs to conflict and building peace and stability for the
be radically overhauled. In order to do this we need majority of the world. Initially, however, these agen-
to understand further its political, historical and cies had no control over individual governments’
geographical origins. Continuing relations of economic decisions; nor did their mandate include a
‘dependency’ have been related directly to the ‘debt licence to intervene in national policy decision-
crisis’ which began in the 1970s and 1980s. As a making around development issues. This chapter
consequence of heavy borrowing commitments also explores the connection that can be made here
many countries have become increasingly depend- between the recent protestations about the failures
ent on development assistance from international of global capitalist development and development
institutions. The severity of the debt crisis gave key institutions such as the World Bank (e.g. in Seattle)
financial institutions such as the IMF and the and the more polemical critiques of what have been
World Bank (see Box 2.2) renewed influence in the called ‘post-development’ perspectives.
affairs of national governments (Potter et al, 1999). The World Bank and IMF agreed to reduce the
Between 1980 and 1991 southern countries suffered debt burden of some of the poorest countries with
an estimated cumulative loss in total export earn- the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initia-
ings in real terms of some US$290 billion or an tive which began in September 1996. This com-
average annual loss of US$25 billion (Sogge, 2002: menced when the IMF and World Bank finally
36). A sharp deterioration in the terms of trade decided to try to deal with the growing debt crisis,
between North and South also made it very difficult producing initially a list of forty-one countries that
for many countries to make debt repayments, fur- were both poor and paying more on servicing their
ther increasing dependence on the World Bank and debts than on the health and education of their cit-
IMF which then imposed Structural Adjustment izens. Just as in colonial times, countries were
Programmes (SAPs) on these countries. Debt is required to demonstrate certain types of externally
usually denominated in US dollars and thus ‘the measured reforms, changes and levels of progress
“demand for dollars” to repay debt actually helps before a foreign audience that would assess their
maintain the value of the US dollar’ (Rowbotham, performance. After five years, only two countries
2000: 80). The ‘neoliberal’ perspective advanced by (Bolivia and Uganda) saw their stock of total debt
these institutions urges a withdrawal of state inter- reduced, having reached what in World Bank jargon
vention in the national economy, a liberalisation of is arrogantly called ‘completion point’, or ‘a sort of
trade relations, the privatisation of government oasis for “thirsty” debtors’ (Telatin, 2001: 1). Thus
institutions and a devaluation of national currency. the Bank has decided where this ‘oasis’ should be
SAPs have since been ‘rebadged’ as Poverty located and what kinds of criteria should be used
Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), although the for deciding on a list of those who should be
underlying principles remain essentially the same allowed to drink from it. Debt sustainability (a very

2 3
THE DARK SIDE OF DEVELOPMENT
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2 4
THE DARK SIDE OF DEVELOPMENT
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value-laden concept itself) was defined as the cap- lines for weeks (Rowbotham, 2000). There had been
acity of each country to repay debts using export large militant protests before against the WTO and
resources received. The Bank’s President even its sister organisations the World Bank and IMF,
claimed in 1998 that the initiative was always ‘good but these were different in that they attracted major
news for the world’s poor’ (IBT, 1998: 12). If debt is amounts of media attention. The protests also
merely reduced and conditionality imposed, showed that the US economy (often held up as
indebted countries will still be obliged to struggle to something that poor countries should try to mimic
compete for export revenues and to extricate them- and copy) was not without its own internal contra-
selves from a complex web of debt. A similar criti- dictions. Activists disrupted the WTO meeting in
cism has often been directed at the provision of Seattle, which, coupled with rebellion from a variety
overseas development assistance or aid by the of Southern countries, meant that the WTO failed
world’s richest economies. to land a new round of trade liberalisation, cele-
The first section of this chapter looks at the grow- brated as a historic defeat for corporate rule and the
ing sense of dissatisfaction with development ideas global trade regime. A huge number of inter-
and outcomes, discussing the recent wave of pro- national solidarity actions took place throughout
tests and demonstrations against capitalism and the protests which were particularly significant in
globalisation and exploring the potential overlap terms of the connections being made by activists
with ‘post-development’ critiques and theorisations. from around the globe. A well-organised and seem-
The following section examines the ways in which ingly transnational movement (including many
contemporary development needs to be ‘decolon- NGOs) had thus started to try to place important
ised’ given the important legacies of imperial questions about who controls global regulatory
assumptions and mindsets in framing global devel- institutions and for whom firmly on the global
opment thinking today. The next section then agenda. As we shall later in the book, a rejection of
moves on to explore further the political and psy- ‘corporate liberalism’ linked these street-based
chological rationale for ‘helping’ the poor and demos to some of the radical protests of the late
donating aid and assistance. In many ways examin- 1960s (Watts, 2001).
ing the case for aid can tell us a great deal about the At precisely the same time that the Seattle demos
history of development theory and practice, and unfolded, the millennium countdown was closing in
provides a useful opening on to wider discussions of on the Jubilee 2000 campaign which had sought,
North–South relations. The final section then intro- since 1994, to address escalating levels of global
duces the concept of ‘geopolitics’ in relation to indebtedness. By using high-profile public figures
these debates about foreign aid and colonial such as U2 lead-singer Bono, the campaign man-
concepts of helping the poor in order to save the aged to gather some 25 million signatures for their
‘civilised world’. petition for debt cancellation (The Economist, 1
June 2002). While the problem of what has been
called ‘Third World debt’ remains completely
T H E G L O B A L ‘ P ROT E S T CA R AVA N ’ unresolved (and institutions such as the WTO still
need urgent reform), these events at the close of the
It is a social decision to classify people [as poor] twentieth century, the ‘American century’, height-
in such a way. Since it has little to do with who ened consciousness about the ‘future of develop-
those people are, or even what they do, the ment’ and its (im)possibility in a highly uneven
expectation that ‘the poor will always be with us’ twenty-first-century world. Since Seattle, the ‘global
can hardly be faulted. . . . Such people can then protest caravan’ (BWP, 2001a), which includes a
be declared a ‘problem’ which the rest of society variety of movements under the banner of anti-
must and should cope with. capitalism, has stopped off to protest and disrupt a
(Bauman, 1999: 20) number of high-profile IMF, G8, OECD and World
Bank conferences and meetings. After Washington,
When the World Trade Organisation (WTO) met in New York, Montreal, Melbourne, Genoa, London,
Seattle in November 1999 (for its Third Ministerial Prague and other clashes with protestors, these
Conference) pictures of the violently subdued pro- organisations now consider meeting on remote
test riots were shown across the world, with the islands (e.g. in Japan) that cannot be reached easily.
story running in many national newspaper head- Many host nations have surrounded themselves

2 5
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with immense and excessive policing and protection ing of the ‘power over’ with the ‘power to’. In
so that whole spaces of these cities are not access- focusing on neoliberalism, it is thus necessary to
ible to people seeking to voice their concerns, which highlight the close connections between the Banks’
are often portrayed by the media as those of ran- ‘power over’ development thinking and the emer-
dom ‘anarchists’ looking for a fight. More than 200 gence of powerful resistances to this (see Chapter
people were injured in clashes between demonstra- 9). Although many discussions of this power may
tors who tried to enter the G8 summit HQ in 2001 appear sometimes reductionist and ‘over the top’ or
and a further 280 were arrested (BBC, 2001). At the too cut and dried, clearly the enthusiasm of the
G8 2002 Summit in Western Canada some US$300 early 1960s for development ‘has crumbled and
million was spent on securing the site of the meet- faded away’ (Rist, 1997) as this fragile bubble has
ings, which was more than the amount agreed for quickly been burst (Escobar, 1995). Too many over-
Africa at that particular gathering. Many media ambitious development projects have ended in fail-
agencies have often talked of the ‘senseless’ pro- ure, and in any case why do we need the concepts
testors in their representations of these and strategies of yesteryear if our aim is to radically
demonstrations: rethink and reconstruct development geographies?
One of the most important themes this book
If your only source of information was the slan- explores is the idea that development is in crisis, that
derous coverage of the ‘free press’, you’d think there is an absence of alternatives to development
the protestors were nothing but a bunch of and that existing theorisations have been found
violence-prone, middle-class ‘anarchist’ Birken- wanting in some way. Rowbotham (2000) articulates
stock-wearing, neo-hippies with nothing better to the growing view that at the end of the twen-
do than destroy the property of good, clean, tieth century international development is failing
hard-working small business owners. and in a kind of crisis. The views of people that are
(Gonsalves, 2002: 1) the individual human subjects of development are
very important to any study of its meaning and
There are a variety of perspectives on the protests interpretation, yet all too often people have been
however, and it is important to look beyond the left out of consultations and meaningful participa-
problematic coverage of some media agencies. The tion in their own development. In this way, the post-
globalisation of the neoliberal project has therefore development approach sets out to deconstruct the
also been connected to the beginnings of a (partial) development discourses of the postwar period, to
globalisation of resistance, and important networks critique ‘development’ as a system of knowledge
are beginning to link places and localities as sites of produced by the ‘First World’ about the under-
protest around the world (see Chapter 9). Neoliber- developed ‘Third World’. It begins by questioning
alism also takes many different forms however, but terms such as ‘progress’, ‘development’ and
what we are seeing are new forms of solidarity and ‘improvement’, and why and how progress has been
consciousness emerging where people are marginal- seen as universally beneficial by asking who deter-
ised and excluded on a global basis (Hardt and mines what ‘beneficial’ means (Peet with Hartwick,
Negri, 2000). Neoliberalism has proven to be so 1999). This involves a new kind of methodology in
enduring and pervasive partly because as a system that everything that had previously been taken for
of diffused power it is quite literally everywhere granted or seen as untouchable is called into ques-
and, as the protestors are beginning to learn, ‘the tion as long-standing certainties are destabilised.
underlying power sources of neoliberalism remain Thus development is seen here not just as an
substantially intact’ (Peck and Tickell, 2002: 400). instrument of economic control and management,
The core institutions of neoliberalism (the WTO, but also as a knowledge ‘discipline’ which marginal-
World Bank and IMF) are complex and chan- ises peoples and cultures and precludes other ways
ging institutions however, and we need to move of seeing and doing development. For Hoogevelt
beyond the simplistic images of these organisations (1997: 255), this is rather like ‘stripping the walls
as simple essences, monolithic and all-powerful. before putting fresh paint on’. Rather than seeking
The notion of ‘entanglements of power’ (Sharp et development alternatives, this approach calls for a
al, 2000) encourages us to think about the manner rejection of the entire paradigm, freeing up the
in which domination and resistance in development imagination for other ways of thinking about
are interconnected, involving a complex interweav- development. What these approaches would seem to

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share is a common rejection of existing theories and writings seek to explore not just the ‘dark side’ of
practices and a common concern to develop new development and its failures but rather the ‘other
and more effective forms of resistance. side of the story’ about the development project or
Attention is focused in particular in much of the ‘the view from below, the views of women, the view
literature on the tendency of post-development from the South’ (Munck, 1999: 200). This involves
schools to ‘romanticise’ the lives of the poor and more of a concern with ‘history from below’ (Dir-
their preoccupation with language over the material lik, 2002) revealing stories and histories that had
‘realities’ of global development today. Potter et al been suppressed in earlier accounts and challenging
(1999) describe the anti-development approach as the claims of some development ‘experts’.
little more than a ‘Utopia for New Age travellers’, None the less, the ‘postmodern’ turn in the social
for example. For some commentators then the sciences during the 1990s was based on a recogni-
global protest caravan has been mistaken for some- tion of the shortcomings of modernism, on the
thing radical and useful when actually what started ways in which modernist theories were focused nar-
it was a bunch of hippy New Age travellers with rowly on the state or were themselves part ‘of the
utopian dreams. Other commentators see the ‘alter- technologies of colonial and imperialist govern-
natives’ put forward by post-development thinkers ance’ (Bhaba, 1994: 195). To suggest that develop-
as having a ‘high New Age-like content clad in ment is an illusion and has been illusory is not to
Third World clothes’ (Schuurman, 2001: 6). Thus suggest that complicated and cunning plans were
some critics are cautious of ‘favouring’ the views of devised to mislead the world’s poor so that the USA
oppressed people and the ‘New Age romanticism’ could continue to have its high living standards.
this might lead to (Peet with Hartwick, 1999: 198). This is a massive simplification of a complex and
Other critics of this approach, such as Corbridge emerging set of positions around the idea of seek-
(1999: 73), have argued that these writings down- ing alternatives to development. These are not just a
play or ignore the ‘very real successes’ that can be series of points about the derivation of terms or
associated with development since 1950, in terms of language or simply arguments for different ‘labels’
better health or education, for example. Similarly but rather raise important and fundamental ques-
some authors point to the simplistic posture of the tions about the power and knowledge that make
‘post-development’ writers that see development as international development, about the assemblage
a ‘hoax’ that was: of knowledge concerning ‘poor’ peoples and ‘pov-
erty’ and about the construction of development
never designed to deal with humanitarian and projects that seek to intervene. They are also of
environmental problems, but simply a way of interest because (among other approaches) they
allowing the industrialized North, particularly represent a challenge to hegemonic institutions and
the USA, to continue its dominance of the rest of Eurocentric or even ‘Americo-centric’ approaches
the world in order to maintain its own standards (Kiely, 1999) which go beyond the nation-state.
of living. Rahnema, writing in The Post-Development Reader,
(Allen and Thomas, 2001: 19) argues that the approach can give rise to new forms
of international solidarity: ‘the end of development
Thus, in this context, what should we make of Jubi- should not be seen as an end to the search for new
lee South’s claim that the HIPC and PRSP strat- possibilities of change . . . for genuine processes of
egies of debt relief initiatives formulated by the regeneration . . . to give birth to new forms of soli-
International Financial Institutions (IFIs) are in darity’ (Rahnema, 1997b: 391).
fact nothing more than a ‘cruel hoax’ (quoted in It is important to remember then that it is pos-
Bond, 2002b: 3)? These institutions and their ‘relief sible that what is intended by development theories
strategies’ are examined throughout this book in an and strategies is often confused with the question of
attempt to interrogate further the assumption that ‘what is development’ in terms of its outcomes
the world is on the ‘right track’ in terms of poverty (Cowen and Shenton, 1996: viii). The ambiguity of
reduction strategy. Kiely (1999: 36) argues that the term thus sometimes leads to a degree of confu-
post-development critiques focus exclusively on the sion and a failure to find common ground for
‘dark side of development’ and are vague about debate. What is becoming clear is that development
alternatives while romanticising local cultures. theories remain intrinsically important (despite
There is an over-simplification here in that these their multiple ambiguities and confusions), ‘so

2 7
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embedded in our thinking that they have a life of obscuring much of the complexity involved in ‘posi-
their own, a life quite divorced . . . from develop- tive changes’. This book examines the geographical
ment practice’ (Apter, 1987: 9). In this sense it is nature of these historical imbrications and inter-
necessary to distinguish here between the post- relations of capitalism and the Third World, seeking
development concern with development as a dis- to reject conventional and mainstream assumptions
course and the more political and polemical about capitalist development and to develop and
approaches that these writings seem to suggest and explore the realm of alternative geographies.
imply. As we shall see later in the book, resistances As we have seen, there are different senses in
to ‘global capitalism’ and neoliberalism share a which the term ‘development’ might be used here, to
common rejection of existing theories and practices see both an intellectual project which is continuing
of development with the post/anti-development and a material process which is ongoing (Apter,
school. It may be argued that discrepancies between 1987; Thomas, 2000). In some ways ‘Development’
policy and outcome have often been so disastrously may be seen as a vision, a description or measure of
immense therefore that another round of develop- the state of being of a desirable society. In other
ment thinking is called for, one which transcends ways we are talking about a historical process of
disciplines but recognises that it is not possible to social change in which societies are seen to be
opt suddenly for discarding the languages of devel- transformed over long periods. What we need to
opment (without first understanding further how shift our attention towards here is the idea of devel-
they work) since it is already such an important part opment as consisting of deliberate efforts aimed at
of our thought about global social and geo- improvement on the part of various agencies,
graphical change. No one such single language including governments, all kinds of organisations
(theoretically) should be able to monopolise so and social movements. Again this involves a distinc-
complex a subject. tion between what Hart (2001: 650) calls ‘big D’
As Cowen and Shenton (1996: 4) point out, Development and ‘little d’ development, between
development comes to be defined by a ‘multiplicity the history of interventions in the Third World and
of “developers” who are entrusted with the task of the processes of capitalist development (and the
development’. Despite being fraught with a (Faus- development of capitalism) as contradictory and
tian) level of ambiguity, development is still seen as uneven. The post-development perspective illus-
something which happens simultaneously to indi- trates how ‘developing societies’ are not organic
viduals, communities, nations and regions, as some- wholes produced around structures and laws (as has
thing which happens cumulatively and builds step often been assumed) but rather they may be seen as
by step in an organic and natural fashion. In many fluid entities, stretched in various ways and no
ways then, development is associated with unfurl- longer bounded, discrete and localised. How have
ing and growth, which suggests that the term the wishes and worldviews of some groups and
has directionality, continuity, cumulativeness and societies become universalised or ‘imperialised’
irreversibility (Rist, 1997). In this way the idea of (Escobar, 2002: 194) and how might it be possible
development was caught up very closely with eco- to think about alternative social orders? In this way,
nomic and political changes in Europe in the eight- we need to take a step back in time to consider
eenth and nineteenth centuries, amidst the ‘rough colonial visions of progress and the beginnings of
and tumble’ of European industrialism. Develop- an imperial development mindset.
mentalism is a term that refers to the view of Third
World spaces and their inhabitants as essentialised,
homogenised entities. This was also very closely DECOLONISING THE MINDSET OF
associated with an unconditional belief in the con- DEVELOPMENT
cept of progress and the ‘makeability’ of society,
which was in turn a product of the dominance of We will be exploring the post-development
evolutionary thinking in the Enlightenment era of approach in more detail in Chapter 4, but one
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe (see common implication that does emerge from these
Chapter 4). Thus the relationship between capital- critiques is the importance of thinking historically as
ism and development has always been a central one well as geographically about development. One of
(Cowen and Shenton, 1996). In some ways the use the main themes of this book is the continuing
of organic metaphors naturalises this history, importance of colonialism in development thinking

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today, in seeking to understand how the values of

colonialism have spread widely and seeped into
many cultures and identities in a variety of complex
ways. As we shall see in Chapter 3, this has also had
a very diverse range of impacts on geography as a
discipline and its heritage as a western colonial sci-
ence. Colonial domination varied enormously, as
did the multiple geographies and histories it created.
For some authors ‘nothing has really changed’ in
that when colonialism ‘left off’, development ‘took
over’ the management of non-western countries,
but this is a somewhat simplistic image to convey.
None the less, development ideas and practices
remain in need in of decolonisation.
In many ways development is primarily ‘for-
ward-looking’, imagining a better world, and does
not always examine issues of historical and geo-
graphical context (Crush, 1995). The historical
process by which a ‘gap’ emerged and has been
sustained between ‘North’ and ‘South’ has been
interpreted in a variety of ways but a key question
has been to what extent did European expansion
and colonialism ‘underdevelop’ (Frank, 1969)
large areas of the world? Between 1800 and 1878,
European rule, including former colonies in North
and South America, increased from 35 per cent to
67 per cent of the Earth’s land surface, adding
another 18 per cent between 1875 and 1914, the
period of ‘formal colonialism’ (Hoogevelt, 1997:
18). In the last three decades of the nineteenth Figure 2.1 A monument to the Portuguese imperial discoveries in
Lisbon, Portugal
century, European states thus added 10 million
Source: The author
square miles of territory and 150 million people to
their areas of control or ‘one fifth of the earth’s
land surface and one tenth of its people’ (Peet Not only did colonisation carry a metropolitan
with Hartwick, 1999: 105). In this period the per- sense of responsibility into new Asian, North
iphery was inserted and brought into an expand- American, African and Australasian terrains, it
ing network of economic exchanges with the core also prompted humanitarians to formulate new
of the world system. Colonial rule also led to antidotes, new ‘cures’ for the ills of the world
forms of developmentalism being put into prac- (Lester, 2002: 278)
tice, homogenising other spaces and their inhabit-
ants as essentialised entities. A new sense of These new antidotes, cures and remedies were to
responsibility for distant human suffering first have an enduring significance for the shaping of
emerged during this time as the societies of twentieth-century global development theory and
Europe and North America became entwined practice, which also often carried an implicit ‘met-
within global networks of exchange and exploit- ropolitan sense of responsibility’. Colonial devel-
ation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth opmentalism was also associated with an
centuries (Haskell, 1985a, 1985b). Thus the origins unconditional belief in the concept of progress and
of a humanitarian concern to come to the aid of the ‘makability’ of society, being heavily con-
‘distant others’ lay partly in response to the prac- ditioned by the dominance of the evolutionary
tices of slavery in the transatlantic world and to thinking that was popular in Europe at the time.
the expansion of colonial settlement in the ‘age of Imperialism was viewed as a cultural and economic
empire’: necessity where colonies were regarded as the

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national ‘property’ of the metropolitan countries the hopes and dreams of many newly emerging
and thus needed to be ‘developed’ using the latest states which wanted to address these inequalities
methods and ideas. With this came a missionary and divisions in their societies (Rahnema, 1997b).
zeal to ‘civilise’ and modernise the colonised and An important issue here concerns the extent to
their ways of life. An important contention here which colonial state machineries were reworked and
then is that colonialism ‘conditioned’ the meanings transformed after independence. The colonial state
and practices of development in a number of had rested on force for its legitimacy, a legitimacy
important ways. It is important, however, to avoid which was thus highly superficial. Colonial states
the argument that because colonisation was ‘bad’ also played a role in creating political and economic
decolonisation must automatically be ‘good’, just as communities, defining the rules of the game and the
we need to avoid seeing development as ‘bad’ and boundaries of community while creating power
post-development as ‘good’ (Mercer et al., 2003). structures to dominate them. The colonial state was
Under President Truman, ‘underdevelopment’ also the dominant economic actor, creating a cur-
became the incomplete and ‘embryonic’ form of rency, levying taxes, introducing crops, developing
development and the gap was seen as bridgeable markets, and controlling labour and production.
only through an acceleration of growth (Rist, 1997). Above all, colonial state administrations sought the
What happened after 1945, however, was that devel- integration of the colonial economy into the wider
opment acquired a transitive meaning and was economies of Empire, to make linkages with the
reconceived as an action performed by one agent metropole and to establish flows of peoples and
upon another (Rist, 1997). As we shall see, there resources. After the formal end of colonialism, new
was an important sense in which, after 1945, ‘devel- states had to formulate alternative methods of
opment’ was viewed as a process that was entrusted garnering legitimacy for their authority (i.e. other
to particular kinds of agents who performed the than the use of force preferred by the colonists).
acts and power of development upon distant others. As the European capitalist system expanded and
Globally, development would have its ‘trustees’, became ever more global in its reach, the structures
guiding ‘civilised’ nations that had the ‘capacity’ of economic, social and political life that existed in
and the knowledge or expertise to organise land, colonies (before colonialism) were often radically
labour and capital in the South on behalf of others. remade. In India, after independence in 1947, Jawa-
This is a crucial idea then that quite a paternal and haral Nehru dominated the country’s politics,
parental style of relationship was established attempting to direct national development through
through the imperial encounter between coloniser a reinvented postcolonial state. India under Nehru
and colonised in ways which continue to have a (1947–1964) provides ‘a clear example of the inter-
bearing on the definition of North–South partner- action of the colonial legacy and the Cold War’
ships in the postcolonial world. In addition, what is (Berger, 2001: 225) in that Indian politicians such as
also relevant here is that many postcolonial states Nehru were trying to build states on the founda-
continue to maintain important political, cultural tions of colonial institutions but found that these
and economic ties with their former colonial rulers. trajectories were being shaped by wider inter-
Decolonisation is thus simultaneously an ideo- national political struggles during the Cold War.
logical, material and spatial process. Just as compli- Under Nehru’s tenure, the state in India stabilised
cated as colonisation (Pieterse and Parekh, 1995), and became a developmental agency that aspired to
we will be examining this concept throughout the penetrate all areas of Indian society (Corbridge and
book, exploring the possibility that it can help us to Harriss, 2000; Ghosh, 2001). Nehru believed that
reconstruct new forms of alternatives to develop- only a national state, centrally responsible for dir-
ment. Colonialism put in place important political ecting economic development, could safeguard the
and economic relations but the cultural legacies of postcolonial progress and independence of India.
colonialism bequeathed deep social and cultural As we have seen, global inequalities have widened
divisions in many societies. In the process of since 1945 and this has complicated many postcolo-
decolonisation ‘development’ became an overarch- nial development strategies. Several recent shifts in
ing objective for many nationalist movements and the global economy and the emergence of what has
the independent states they tried to form. Although been termed ‘neocolonialism’ have undermined
experiments with development were tried in many attempts to meet promises made in the early postco-
colonies, the idea of development was invested with lonial era (see Chapters 7 and 8). Particularly in the

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past three decades, a number of issues have served years. All this meant that the initiative for allocating
to sustain the linkages between the ‘core’ and the aid came not from the ODA but rather from an
‘periphery’, usually to the detriment of the latter. In industrial or commercial concern which believed it
a way imperial rule created the very idea of an needed assistance to win an order (as was the case
imperial centre and a colonised periphery and estab- with the infamous Pergau dam project in Malaysia
lished a whole variety of important binaries, divi- where a dam was added as a sweetener to a British
sions and constructed boundaries between civilised arms deal). As the world economy slipped into
and non-civilised, between the West and the Rest. recession in the 1970s this linkage became more
After the Second World War vast areas of West- explicit, not just in Britain but elsewhere.
ern Europe had been destroyed and cities lay in In the USA, the Marshall Plan had sketched out
ruins with millions of displaced people. As a con- the principles of ‘helping’ poor countries to
sequence, the USA launched its first major foreign ‘recover’ and restructure their economies and soci-
aid programme – the Economic Recovery Program eties. Presenting itself as the antithesis of empire,
proposed by Secretary of State George Marshall. the USA ‘lavished billions on corrupt regimes that
This proposed US$13.3 billion of spending over ignored poverty’ during the Cold War (Engardio,
four years in quite ‘recipient-friendly terms’ (Sogge, 2001: 58). None the less, many observers have
2002: 1). After the war Southeast Asia had also argued that the USA was taking on the mantle of
become an area of immense social and political imperialism by interfering in the political affairs of
upheaval within the British Empire. The region had countries around the world after 1945. In 1961 the
been badly damaged by war (particularly in terms US Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act
of transport and communications) and by 1948 (FAA) which distinguished different forms of aid
India, Ceylon, Pakistan and Burma had all become (from military aid) and emphasised wide-ranging
independent of Britain. The British government economic and social assistance efforts in the
was concerned that, unlike the case in its colonial ‘underdeveloped world’ that President Truman had
territories, it could not direct the development paths identified years previously. Under President J. F.
of postcolonial countries and that because of this, Kennedy, the United States Agency for Inter-
these paths to development might lead these inde- national Development (USAID) was created to
pendent countries to align themselves with the USA administer the programmes suggested by the FAA.
or USSR and thus not with Britain. The Common- Kennedy outlined how ‘collapse’ in developing
wealth was an effective tool in this process (the countries would be ‘disastrous to our national
Commonwealth had existed since the Second World security’ and ‘harmful to our prosperity’ (quoted in
War and was created partly for the purpose of secur- USAID, 2002b: 2). Kennedy justified ‘helping the
ing that alignment through development finance). poor’ as being morally right in terms of ‘saving the
More of the aid programmes undertaken by Brit- few who are rich’. For its part, USAID adopted
ain after the Second World War involved a greater notions of countries becoming more ‘modern’,
commitment of funds to independent former col- through a series of stages, in ways which drew dir-
onies, organised through the Commonwealth. Thus ectly upon the development theories of the early
while ‘aid’ was avowedly about giving to the newly 1960s. An ‘Alliance for Progress’ was formed, for
independent countries, it was also very much about example, with certain Latin American countries in a
taking from them. A language was constructed hemisphere-wide commitment of funds aimed at
around the need to fill ‘gaps’ and ‘shortfalls’ in the setting up new development planning mechanisms.
kind of finance and capital available to developing Even this language of helping through generous aid
countries but also around the nature of their gov- expresses power relations however, and so by decon-
ernance and social organisation. Declining com- structing these languages and statements we can
petitiveness in British industry led successive British reveal the knowledge bases, power sources and
governments to relate the provision of aid to the motives that lie behind them (Peet with Hartwick,
industrial needs of Britain. A Ministry of Overseas 1999).
Development was established in 1964 with this aid– A key emphasis after 1947 was countering the
trade provision as a key principle of its approach. spread of communism, particularly the influence of
The purchase of UK goods and services was thus to China, which intensified after the war with Vietnam
become a key objective of the UK’s distribution of and lasted until the mid-1970s. In the USA the
overseas development assistance (ODA) for many rhetoric of anticommunism and superpower rivalry

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was critical in harnessing support for aid in the used aid to further their geopolitical positions and
country. ideologies across the global South.
Strangely, except for a brief period during the
mid-1970s, anti-poverty measures have not been an
THE POLITICAL AND important focal point of foreign aid, while aid has
P S Y C H O L O G I C A L S A T I S FA C T I O N O F led to many reversals as well as to advances. Seen as
‘HELPING’ THE POOR a (simultaneous) remedy to problems of growth,
governance, poverty and inequality, it has become
Critics of foreign aid have argued that aid has been (not unlike the idea of development) overburdened
less effective than private investments and com- with expectations (Sogge, 2002) and an over-
mercial loans in stimulating long-term economic ambitious enterprise (Rist, 1997). In Canada, for
growth. Other critics point to the dubious Cold War example, the evidence suggests that much of the
record of foreign aid in subsidising autocratic bilateral aid programme run through the Canadian
regimes and inflaming regional conflicts. Thus, International Development Agency (CIDA) has
many critics of foreign aid have sought to highlight been associated only rarely with poverty alleviation
the ‘strategic interests’ at work in its distribution as strategies, while CIDA itself acknowledges that
well as the inequality and unpredictability of aid more than 70 cents of every dollar of aid benefits
provision. The Cold War provided an important Canada, creating 36,000 jobs in aid and NGO sec-
rationale for foreign aid in this sense in that it was tors (De Silva, 2002).
often based around ideological sympathies and Since 1970 the strategies for successive UN
connections between western and non-western ‘Development Decades’ have recognised that eco-
countries. Both the United States and the USSR nomically advanced states such as the USA have a

Figure 2.2 Global aid flows between donors and recipients in 1999
Source: World Bank (1999)

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responsibility to contribute to the financing of Programme or the World Bank. Bilateral aid and
development and have specified that each assistance is administered directly by donor govern-
‘developed’ country should provide at least 0.7 per ments (such as CIDA or USAID). Aid means lots
cent of its annual GNP as official development of different things to different people but down
assistance. While still the world’s biggest aid through the decades we can discern a number of
donor, the USA has slashed overseas development common features. According to Sogge (2002: 23)
assistance since 1990 by some 34 per cent and for- aid represents:
eign aid accounts today for just 0.1 per cent of
GDP – the lowest level of any industrialised nation I A financial services industry, promoting loans
(Engardio, 2001). There are also plans to limit for- on easy terms, and quietly insuring creditors
eign aid further in order to minimise the US against bad debts.
budget deficit (Zuza, 2002). In 1997 OECD donors I A technical services industry, improving know-
gave the smallest share of their GNPs in aid since how and infrastructure.
comparable statistics were first collected in the I A ‘feel-good’ and image industry that can
1950s – less than a quarter of one per cent (World relieve guilt and subtly pander to the satisfac-
Bank, 2000a). Meanwhile again only a pitiful 4.7 tions of parental/paternal authority.
per cent of major aid donors actually reached I A political toolshed stocked with carrots and
the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNP in 2002 sticks to train and discipline clients.
(Morrissey, 2002). I A knowledge and ideology industry, setting
There are two major kinds of development aid. policy agendas and shaping norms and
Multilateral aid is funded through contributions aspirations.
from wealthier countries and administered by
agencies, such as the United Nations Development In many ways some of the above can be useful in
our understanding of the idea of development more
generally. Development might thus be viewed as a
knowledge industry, or as an ideological, financial
and technical services industry which generates
‘feel-good’ images and understandings with the help
of a toolshed stocked with the means of administer-
ing discipline and training to developing countries.
Total aid currently amounts to about US$56 billion
from twenty-one major OECD countries and some
others (Maxwell, 2002). Two-thirds of this is gov-
ernment-to-government or bilateral aid and the
remainder is multilateral aid disbursed by agencies
such as the World Bank group, the UN bodies and
the EU. Responding to humanitarian crises is
becoming a more important component of all aid,
Figure 2.3 Aid or propaganda? more than doubling as a share of overseas devel-
Source: © Protest Graphics opment aid between 1980 and 1999 (Macrae, 2002).

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The number of states giving aid has continued to much of this indebtedness comes from private cap-
grow despite intermittent periods of major reduc- ital flows to countries of the South, of which the
tions in spending (e.g. during a recession). Between USA alone generated some US$36 billion annually
1973 and 1992 a number of oil-producing countries between 1997 and 2000 (USAID, 2002a). Private
(Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states) emerged as quite aid flows, according to critics of aid cutbacks, can-
substantial donors, making grants and loans to not have the same ‘integrity of objectives’ associ-
countries in Asia and Africa with large Islamic ated with public development aid and assistance.
populations. Ireland, Portugal and Spain are all Private capital flows (it is argued) are driven by
now donors even though they themselves are recipi- commercial motivations and are thus less strongly
ents of EU funding and assistance. South Korea connected to human needs and the need for sus-
also became a donor in 1996 when it joined the tainable development of the environment. Most
OECD. Japan emerged as the leading source of North–South private capital flows in recent years
development aid in 1994, overtaking the USA as the went to the Newly Industrialising Countries (NICs)
major contributor. In 2001 USAID claimed, how- of Southeast Asia rather than to Africa.
ever, that it was the world’s largest provider of ODA at Examining European Union aid to Africa we can
around US$11 billion (USAID, 2002a). The geog- see that public opinion on aid and development is
raphy of foreign aid flows and the geographical not some unchanging, undifferentiated mass, but
spread of their destinations is far from even how- dynamic and complex. What is clear, however, is that
ever. Recipient countries form a mixed group where ‘development was not a particularly important issue
‘former or current neo-colonial relationships for Europeans in the 1990s’ (Olsen, 2001: 664).
strongly determine who gets what from whom’ Public opinion has also been shaped by a succession
(Sogge, 2002: 28). The US assistance centres on a of aid scandals, together with tales of waste, failed
sphere of influence in the Middle East and Latin projects and plush lifestyles for aid workers, all
America, while France, Britain and Portugal focus of which have undermined public confidence
mainly on their ex-colonies. Australia dominates aid (Sogge, 2002). More than a quarter of the popula-
flows in Papua New Guinea and Fiji, while historical tion of EU member states surveyed at the turn of
ties link German aid to Turkey (Sogge, 2002). Ini- the century did not even know if the EU actually
tially Canadian overseas development assistance gave aid or not (Olsen, 2001). The EU’s develop-
went mostly to Asia (and was allied to the war ment policies are potentially of great significance
against communism there in the 1950s and 1960s) however, with EU countries controlling some 51 per
but has come to include Africa and particularly the cent of foreign direct investment (FDI) outflows
Caribbean countries in close proximity to Canadian and 56 per cent of all overseas development assist-
borders (De Silva, 2002). A large volume of ance (Van Riessen, 1999). EU states also represent
bilateral aid from Canada since the early 1960s has the largest block of members with voting rights in
been directed towards boosting the Canadian econ- the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank. Co-
omy and creating jobs for Canadians (De Silva, ordination and mobilisation of EU actions in these
2002). In 2001 the OECD signed an agreement realms could thus create a powerful base of support
designed to untie bilateral aid to poorer countries, for ‘development’ in the South. Brussels politics and
but it remains a purely voluntary agreement that policy-making is changing all the time however,
few countries will seek to implement fully. There while coherence and consistency have often been
are also important new South–South flows of aid, lacking. Lister (1997) looks at how the EU sought
pioneered by Cuba, China, Vietnam and Taiwan to foster cohesion between and among other EU
(among others). members through a ‘low policy instrument’ such as
As net reductions in aid were recorded in the aid which is seen as somewhat less controversial
1990s, private capital flows from rich to poor states than other issues. For this reason the development
increased rapidly. Official private flows expanded policy of the community is itself ‘a cornerstone of
from just over US$250 billion in 1996 to around European integration’, more about Europe and
US$300 billion by the turn of the century. Indeed, Europeans than a concern for its intended recipi-
official assistance has begun to account for less than ents. At an EU summit in Seville in June 2002 many
a quarter of all finance available to ‘developing EU states even tried to attach a condition to their
countries’ (World Bank, 1999). It is worth remem- aid donations which aimed to hit the pockets of
bering that when we talk about the ‘debt crisis’ those countries not deemed to be doing enough to

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stop the flow of asylum-seekers to European coun- lacking. According to the Voluntary Services Over-
tries, although proposals were later watered down seas (VSO) some 80 per cent of the British public
(BBC, 2002d). associates the developing world with ‘doom-laden
One crucial motivating factor in giving develop- images of famine, disaster and Western aid’ (VSO,
ment aid was that a ‘certain psychological satisfac- 2001: 3). The VSO survey found that nearly two
tion’ is gained by Europeans from helping the poor- decades on from the high-profile Ethiopian famine
est states in the world (Ravenhill, 1985: 35). (and the Live Aid relief concert organised to pro-
Humanitarian assistance from the EU also seems to vide for famine victims) these images were upper-
depend in part on the media, which can build mass most in the popular British imagination of Africa
public interest in distant geographies, because of and ‘maintain a powerful grip on the British psyche’
the strong emotions involved in representing human (VSO, 2001: 3). Aid and development are by no
suffering on a massive scale (Ignatieff, 1998: 291). means the same thing, but the way their inter-
Humanitarian emergencies partly become ‘common relationship is imagined is important in that it tells
knowledge’ through a kind of ‘CNN effect’, from us a great deal about how people envisage the
being screened by news channels such as CNN ‘problems’ of other spaces and worlds of difference.
(Shaw, 1996; Robinson, 1999). Similarly in a nar- One of the surest signs that development is indeed
rowly focused situation such as humanitarian emer- in crisis is the fact that for many development prac-
gencies, the media play a ‘decisive role in informing titioners the concept has increasingly been quite
the public and stimulating action’ (Rosenblatt, narrowly focused on short-term, humanitarian and
1996: 139). This is a complex issue, but it is clear emergency relief. Many African countries (Rwanda,
that certain kinds of ‘crisis’ are overlooked in a Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone) are represented by
world that can manage only one problem situation the media through the myth of Africa as the ‘Heart
at a time (Livingston, 1996). The role of aid workers of Darkness’ or as the ‘hopeless continent’ (see
in conjuring the imagery of emergency and humani- Figure 2.8). As Smillie (1996: 28) argues, ‘on the
tarian crisis is important here: subject of public opinion and development assist-
ance: the rationale for aid in the public mind was
We cannot have misery without aid workers. They and remains emergency relief’ (cf. Jarosz, 1992;
conjure away the horror by suggesting that help is Robinson, 1999). Arguably this is a kind of throw-
at hand. . . . Television coverage of humanitarian back to the age of Empire. What is especially inter-
assistance allows the West the illusion that it is esting about aid in this respect is that it represents
doing something. ‘another important instrument to project power
(Ignatieff, 1998: 298) beyond national borders’, just as colonialism had
done previously (Sogge, 2002: 13). Thus while aid is
Thus there are multiple images of ‘Third World also very much about foreign policy and the stra-
poverty’ and humanitarian crisis which tend to paint tegic interests of donors, it is also partly about pro-
a picture of negativity, of failure, of something jections of economic, cultural and political power
beyond the boundaries of certain countries which
establish important chains and connections, linking
donors and recipients in interesting and important
ways.
Many of the millennium development goals set
forth by the international donor community in the
1996 OECD report Shaping the Twenty-first Cen-
tury (OECD, 1996) are unlikely to be met because
aid agencies arguably suffer from similar ‘disburse-
ment-driven dynamics’ as multilateral donors (see
Box 2.2). Kofi Annan’s Global Fund for HIV/
AIDS, TB and Malaria, for example, had a target of
raising US$10 billion a year between 1997 and 2002,
but only US$1.5 billion has been raised as the first
Figure 2.4 Unloading EU-donated food aid in Huambo, Angola five years neared its end (Morrissey, 2002). Is this
Source: Alex Hofford annual US$50 billion increase in aid flows such a

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The term refers partly to the way in which space is

important in understanding the constitution of
international relations. As a school of thought it
was shaped originally by its emergence as a discip-
line in Britain, France, the USA, Germany and
Russia. Today the term is used to focus on political
meanings and representations and to explore the
contestation of the political world in a variety of
spaces and places (see Chapters 5 and 9). In par-
ticular, certain trends and patterns in international
relations are important to the way in which we
understand development. A transition from one
geopolitical world order to another was very much
Figure 2.5 Are you now or have you ever been a terrorist/ at the core of development’s postwar invention as
communist? an arena of state practice. Thus with the end of
Source: © Protest Graphics colonialism one set of political practices and repre-
sentations begins to break down and replacements
vast sum of money (especially when one considers were constructed. In this way international develop-
how much is spent each year by the same govern- ment always involves a geopolitical imagination and
ments on arms purchases)? carries within it implicit assumptions about the state
When the aid industry arrived in Russia in the of the world political order and the role of these
early 1990s and after the end of state socialism, the political practices and representations. This book
commanding heights of the international develop- argues that it is in many ways impossible to under-
ment industry (the World Bank, the IMF, USAID) stand the contemporary making of development
quickly came to spread the doctrine of neoliberal- theory and practice without reference to geopolitics
ism or the virtues of the free market. Not for the and the geopolitical imagination of non-western
first time there was little recipient control or public societies. This is not to say that development is
accountability. According to then World Bank simply the continuation of politics by another
senior economist Lawrence Summers, these agen- means, since we cannot dismiss aid as simply part of
cies came to ‘[s]pread the truth [that] the laws of some past and therefore ‘outdated sideshow in the
economics are like the the laws of engineering, one repertoire of geopolitics’ (Sogge, 2002: 10). A more
set of laws works everywhere’ (quoted in Sogge, nuanced understanding is required here.
2002: 2). Interestingly, when directed towards the In 2001 the World Bank President and the IMF
countries of Africa, Asia or Latin America, this aid Managing Director issued a joint statement which
is called overseas development assistance, but when cancelled the 2001 annual meetings of their respect-
it is directed towards Eastern Europe or the ex- ive Boards of Governors and related committees in
Soviet Union and other ‘countries in transition’ it is light of the terrorist attacks in Washington, DC and
given the much less condescending label of official New York City (World Bank, 2001d). At the time of
aid (OA) (Sogge, 2002). This book seeks to develop the attacks, and for many months after, World Bank
an exploration and interrogation of the psychology and IMF leaders made numerous points about
of ‘helping’ the poor and tries to understand how the links between poverty and terrorism, suggesting
this operates in particular spaces and places or can that this was to become the key issue of the twenty-
be considered the product of colonial and imperial first century. The ensuing global war on terrorism
histories of exploitation and underdevelopment in led by the ‘free’ or ‘civilised’ world began in
the South. Afghanistan, where, even before 9/11 and the begin-
ning of this ‘just war’, the UN estimated that mil-
lions were being sustained (barely) by international
THE (GEO)POLITICS OF AID food aid.
When the allied attacks against the retrograde
The word ‘geopolitics’ relates to a branch of polit- Taliban regime began, US air drops of food aid
ical geography that deals with international rela- were condemned scathingly by aid agencies as
tions, international conflicts and foreign policies. ‘barely concealed propaganda tools’ (Chomsky,

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successful in alleviating poverty and rebuilding

communities? Both Russia and the USA are at least
partly responsible for the (historical) creation of
this ‘humanitarian disaster’ since during the Cold
War they both intervened in Afghanistan’s political
affairs, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.
Anti-Americanism in 2001 was therefore not based
on a random hatred of western modernity or tech-
nology envy that came from nowhere but rather:

[o]n a narrative of concrete interventions, spe-

cific depredations and in the cases of the Iraqi
people’s suffering under US-imposed sanctions
and US support for the 34-year old Israeli occu-
Figure 2.6 Investing in global war pation of Palestinian territories.
Source: © Protest Graphics (Said, 2001)

2001), causing more harm than benefit in some When the United Nations Development Programme
cases. These appeals coincided with World Food (UNDP), the World Bank and the Asian Develop-
Day and seemed to illustrate the variety of ways in ment Bank came together during the Afghanistan
which aid and development (as ideals) are manipu- crisis it was to discuss the terms of reconstruction
lated in many supposedly ‘humanitarian causes’. and development in Afghanistan after the war,
Why have repeated attempts by the UN to bring focusing on options for private investment in
peace to Afghanistan failed over the past three dec- infrastructure which were actively encouraged (as
ades? The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in if there were no alternatives) (Chomsky, 2001).
December 1979 and the US and Arab arming of the The UNDP estimated that the reconstruction of
Mujahideen resistance brought ‘total war’ to Afghanistan would cost around US$7 billion to
Afghanistan, leading to the criminalisation of the 12 billion for the first five years alone (World Bank,
country’s war economy and the militarisation of 2001b). Only loans and not grants are awarded
Afghan society. Pakistan and Iran were also drawn by these bodies and private companies tend to be
into the various periods of conflict through refugee seen as most capable of organising production and
movements which spilt over into their countries. A service delivery.
succession of grandly titled UN bodies have come In discussing the role of the global war on terror-
and gone (the latest was the UN Special Mission to ism and how it shapes contemporary development
Afghanistan, UNSMA), while the UN’s overall thinking and practice we need also to raise
approach has changed little despite the high turn-
over of staff. Interventions by the UN were thus
often based upon a poor understanding of the his-
torical processes which created and sustained the
Afghan conflict (which does not begin and end with
the Taliban).
Cluster bombs and ‘daisy-cutters’ seemed to be
guaranteed to reach their intended destination,
whereas much less could be said about desperately
needed food and medical supplies which quickly
became bargaining points. If there are ‘smart
bombs’ why is there no ‘smart aid’? (Engardio,
2001). President Bush has pledged to help rebuild
the economies of post-Taliban Afghanistan and
Pakistan, yet the USA has been providing ‘aid’ and Figure 2.7 Who said that foreign policy was hard for world
foreign assistance to these countries for years, so we leaders?
may well ask why have these efforts not already been Source: © Patrick Chappatte, in International Herald Tribune

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questions about the role of Saudi Arabia, Iran, of the world (Aarts, 1999: 911). Aid flows to
Iraq, Turkey, Sudan and Israel. In relation to debates the Middle East have declined but they have always
about foreign aid and development more generally been based on the perceived interest of the donor
we can explore the experiences of Egypt, the Emir- states, which could thus turn the supply on and off
ates, Oman, Tunisia and Yemen (among others). as required. As elsewhere in the South, gross
These countries are particularly relevant to this inequalities of wealth, power and access to rights –
objective of rethinking development geographies in aka imperialism – persist (Halliday, 2000: 219). This
a number of ways. As Aarts (1999) has shown, since suggests the need to reformulate anti-imperial cri-
1945 the Arab world has passed through several tiques of development around a sense of the
phases of development ranging from cold war to indigenous roots of aggression and dictatorship,
consensus. Middle-Eastern states are also seen by not simply seeking to blame them all on an external-
many commentators to lack necessary degrees of ised process of (US) imperialism seen as somehow
‘order’, hierarchy and societal organisation present totally foreign to Middle-Eastern and other
in its alter-ego, ‘the West’. The CIA report Global cultures.
Trends 2015, for example, paints a negative picture One estimate has it that a world total of
of the Middle East, pointing out that ‘most regimes US$1,000 billion has been spent on aid since the
are change-resistant’ (CIA, 2000: 11). Just as in the 1960s (Easterley, quoted in Gonsalves, 2002: 1).
age of Empire, distant others are seen in an Although debates about assessing the effectiveness
unchanging, timeless stasis, as outside of history of aid have been well rehearsed elsewhere, they
and permanently resistant to change. The states of have not always been properly historicised or always
the Middle East, however, must also be understood seen as fundamentally related to geopolitical transi-
as the historical and geographical products of the tions and transformations. These debates are
modern state system and owe much to it. It has long important because they frequently promised growth
been problematic, however, to see the Middle East as and poverty reduction and therein often masked
a single political or socio-economic whole, to col- deeper ‘strategic’ geopolitical motivations from the
lapse contradictory trends between its countries, very start. Few aspects of world politics in the late
cultures and places. As Halliday (2000: 213) has twentieth century were as controversial as for-
argued, one of the great distortions to beset the eign aid. Foreign aid represents a transfer of
region is that its politics and history are often resources that would not have taken place as a result
explained by timeless cultural features: ‘a Middle of market forces and includes grants and loans pro-
Eastern essence’, ‘rules of the game’, or an ‘Islamic vided by governments and the IFIs (international
mindset’. The Middle East still barely figures in dis- financial institutions).
cussions of foreign direct investments (FDI) flows Some critics have even seen aid as a kind of polit-
to the Third World, for example (Halliday, 2000: ical narcotic, fostering addictive behaviour among
214), despite a fivefold increase in FDI inflows dur- states that receive it and thus come to depend on it.
ing the 1990s: States are thought to exhibit the symptoms of
dependence – a short-run ‘fix’ or benefit from aid,
On the map of globalization, except as a source but external support sometimes does ‘lasting dam-
of oil and investment funds, the Middle East age to the country’ (Goldsmith, 2001: 412). In feed-
hardly figures . . . Trade and Investment have ing this ‘addiction’ the aid donors have supposedly
most certainly not acted as solvents in relations weakened the resolve of states to act on behalf of
between Israel and Egypt, or the Arab world their own citizens. How then to kick the habit and
more generally. reduce dependence? The practice of sharing wealth
(Halliday, 2000: 214–215) with impoverished peoples has emerged as a norm
among many western countries and nearly every
This is a key theme here: To what extent does devel- state in the world has participated as a donor or as a
opment studies or development geography have its recipient of foreign aid since the Second World War.
own margins, where certain countries ‘slip off the Amid the growth and institutionalisation of aid
map’ of research and discussion about develop- flows, the practice of giving aid has also been sub-
ment? The Middle East thus is often seen as an ject to intense criticism and debate. Some develop-
‘exceptional’ case ‘eternally out of step with history’ ment theorists, for example, have dismissed foreign
and immune to the trends affecting other parts aid as an instrument of capitalist control for

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maintaining dependency and the exploitation of the have held widespread public debates about its
‘periphery’ by the ‘core’ (see Chapters 3 and 6). necessity and purposes. We can critique the case for
President Nixon’s injunction to ‘remember that the aid (morally and politically) as a way of beginning
main purpose of American aid is not to help other to explore the ways in which development is
nations but to help ourselves’ is a reminder of some defined, thinking about how the effectiveness of aid
of the considerations and motivations that under- in facilitating development has been assessed and
pin the actions of many western states. Despite the how the relations between aid and trade have been
controversy around foreign aid, few donor countries historically conceived.

TA B L E 2 . 2 E S T I M AT E D U S S E C U R I T Y A S S I S TA N C E TO T H E W E S T E R N
H E M I S P H E R E , B Y C O U N T R Y, 1 9 9 7 – 2 0 0 0 ( G R A N T M I L I T A R Y A N D P O L I C E
A S S I S TA N C E ) ( U S $ )

Country 1997 1998 1999 2000

Antigua/Barbuda 336,000 508,000 519,000 202,000

Argentina 1,615,418 6,062,635 7,783,733 1,420,000
The Bahamas 1,104,000 899,000 1,455,000 2, 437,000
Barbados 354,000 260,000 478,000 348,000
Belize 432,000 654,000 644,000 395,000
Bolivia 22,600,000 48,852,000 35,648,878 64,267,000
Brazil 3,460,000 5,831,000 2,615,000 5,200,000
Chile 544,000 17,548,050 993,000 878,671,000
Colombia 86,000,000 110,232,000 305,777,788 798,290,000
Costa Rica 333,000 451,000 701,078 2,905,000
Dominica 233,000 147,000 195,000 111,000
Dominican Republic 1,169,600 2,058,000 2,015,961 1,554,000
Ecuador 2,757,250 5,270,000 12,243,068 24,428,000
El Salvador 621,000 783,000 550,999 3,982,185
Grenada 149,000 216,000 249,000 274,000
Guatemala 2,158,000 2,847,000 3,115,000 3,250,000
Guyana 178,000 281,000 316,000 321,000
Haiti 500,000 940,000 550,000 1,143,000
Honduras 719,000 2,923,404 803,000 872,000
Jamaica 1,489,000 2,601,650 2,481,000 1,969,000
Mexico 87,044,000 26,238,000 21,244,000 16,618,000
Nicaragua 201,000 74,000 200,000 204,000
Panama 2,534,000 2,591,000 4,597,570 5,609,000
Paraguay 1,229,000 736,000 508,000 388,000
Peru 33,969,000 38,299,000 65,561,200 57,628,000
St Kitts and Nevis 158,000 245,000 218,000 77,000
St Lucia 142,000 279,000 252,000 168,000
St Vincent and Grenadines 193,000 217,000 179,000 77,000
Suriname 149,000 82,000 100,000 155,000
Trindidad and Tobago 568,000 2,625,394 598,000 893,000
Uruguay 353,000 1,198,000 1,596,000 330,602
Venezuela 6,081,000 7,182,000 4,011,000 6,475,000
Source: adapted from Center for International Policy (2000, 12), [Link] The figures given are estimates and cannot be
regarded as exact figures as they do not include arms sales or training exercises and military deployments. Some of the total amounts in
some cases include contributions which are for more than just military and police aid which can be variously defined by the US state
depending on the strategic security objectives it has in each country.

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CONCLUSIONS: GEOPOLITICS AND US$65 billion in economic and military aid from
T H E ‘ A P OT H E CA RY ’ O F the USA alone between 1948 and 1996 (Bar-Siman-
DEVELOPMENT REMEDIES Tov, 1998). The fact that the Middle East and North
Africa have just over 68 per cent of all world oil
At the beginning of the twenty-first century devel- reserves has been crucial in the establishment of this
opment geographers need to examine some of the relationship between the USA and Israel. A range
striking contradictions in the nature of inter- of ‘soft’ variables such as Israel’s democratic status,
national institutions of governance, to think critic- the idea of Israel as ‘western’ and the influence of
ally about the ways in which international develop- the Jewish lobby in the USA have also been import-
ment agencies invent, construct and name ‘poor’ ant here.
countries, places and peoples. We have seen that the What is particularly interesting about USAID
picture of progress held by such agencies is often an today is that it still draws heavily on the principles
incomplete and very partial one due to the fragility of the FAA, despite numerous attempts at overhaul-
of their data collection procedures and their dis- ing and rewriting the act, while its basic philosophy
tance from events ‘on the ground’. This book does remains much as it did just over forty years ago
not set out to tell yet another story of uniquely when the organisation was created. Arguably few if
predatory northern actors victimising uniquely any presidents after J. F. Kennedy have shared this
defenceless southern actors since ‘predation is humanist concern with other regions. According to
worldwide’ (Sogge, 2002: 36). Instead it is to the the Development Assistance Committee of the
complex connections and collusions between North OECD, in the post-Cold War world aid donors have
and South that we should turn our attention. Post- also often been motivated by ‘national concerns’
development perspectives, as we shall see in Chapter and are sometimes now ‘more concerned to show
4, hold out the possibility of radically rethinking the national flag on their development projects than
the power, place and spatiality of development in to join collective sector improvement efforts in
the contemporary world. In this sense there may be which donor identities are merged’ (OECD Devel-
lessons to be learned from the coalitions that are opment Assistance Committee, quoted in World
being formed across cultural and political differ- Bank, 1999: 13).
ences in and through a global protest caravan that is In thinking critically about geopolitics and devel-
explicitly linking struggles at various spatial scales. opment, this book argues that it is possible to re-
It is also necessary to listen to the other side of the examine debates about statehood, civil society and
development story, the views of women, the views of citizenship, to open up the ideological spaces(s)
people in the South, the views of people who are of development thinking. As Radcliffe (1999: 84)
excluded socially, and the views from ‘below’. Argu- has argued, ‘[r]ethinking development means
ably, in this way there remains a deepening contra- reconsidering the categories we use in development
diction within a modern development paradigm geography, and unpacking the power relations that
driven by ‘techno-scientific and economistic vari- shape them’. This question of the power of devel-
ables’ (Schmitz, 1995: 55–56). This dominant para- opment and the unpacking of the power relations
digm rests on grossly undemocratic and inequitable that are inscribed in development practices is a cru-
global political economies that are increasingly cial one. In some ways polymorphous notions of the
being disputed and contested. nature of power and power relations in develop-
Questions must also be raised about the geo- ment in different spaces and places are also needed
politics of development and about the changing here. How have these relations evolved historically
international geopolitical frameworks in which and what have been the legacies of the past given
development is continually remade. Development is that development was preceded by colonialism in a
imagined geopolitically and has been conditioned number of cases? A project of decolonising the
by some important geopolitical discourses, particu- mindset of development thinking is thus required
larly during the Cold War. During the Cold War, because regions such as the Middle East are not
the USA developed something of a ‘special rela- alone in being seen as eternally out of step with
tionship’ with Israel, for example, based around the progress and modernity and there are important
perception of shared strategic interests between historical and geographical reasons for this.
both states (Riech, 1996; Jones and Murphy, 2002). According to the 2002 World Development
It has been estimated that Israel received some Report Building Institutions for Markets, the World

4 1
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Bank’s primary concern remains that state institu- out to oppose international connections and flows
tions should serve and support trade, investment of ideas between people per se but rather to harness
and markets. People will benefit from all that par- some of these global relations and interconnections
ticipation in the global capitalist market can offer, for the purpose of mobilisation against neoliberal-
while 60,000 ‘voices of the poor’ are assembled to ism. Policies such as those adopted for Argentina by
underwrite this claim with a degree of popular legit- the IMF (see Chapters 7 and 8) typify the problem.
imacy. Rethinking Development Geographies seeks Argentina’s economic collapse and continued reces-
to contest this vision of institutional reform and is sion in the national economy show that IMF pol-
interested in a whole variety of other voices, includ- icies not only fail to bolster economic development
ing those of the many hundreds of thousands of but also often lead to social and political disintegra-
anti-capitalist or ‘anti-globalisation’ demonstrators tion (MacEwan, 2002). In rethinking development
who have besieged the Bank’s ‘public’ meetings in geographies we need to continue to pressure institu-
recent years. A short thirty-one-minute video pro- tions such as these which have a profound impact
duced by the Bank in 2001 entitled ‘Voices of the on the political and economic trajectories of what
Poor’ has little to say about the international causes they call low- and medium-income countries. The
of impoverishment, about the specific political or key point here is that neoliberalism systematically
economic structures that exist between nations and produces these kinds of political and economic cri-
how they maintain relations of neocolonialism in ses and thus faces ‘permanent revolt and inevitable
particular places. explosions’ (Amin, 2001b: 20).
Connections are made in the film which seek to As millions of investors have painfully learned
link the poor in different regions of the world, but from the evaporation of their investments in the
poverty within the core of the world economy, in ‘emerging markets’ of Asia during the financial
some of its so-called ‘developed’ regions, is not crisis of 1997, globalisation is a ‘two-way street’
really addressed. Even though the film recognises (De Soto, 2001). Western Europeans now vote for
that the meaning of poverty varies according to
each country’s culture and history, various parts of
the ‘developing world’ merge together into a kind of
distorted collage of underdevelopment and impov-
erishment which universalises experiences of
deprivation, the very thing the film sets out not to
do. Interestingly, few of the ‘voices of the poor’ the
Bank consulted are actually named in the film as the
subjects or interviewees are identified simply by
their citizenship in a ‘poor country’. Throughout
the film the Bank emerges as the triumphant slayer
of the dragon of impoverishment through its help
and assistance to the weak and the needy, and its
conclusions suggest that we can feel good about the
work they are doing in the name of progress. Watch-
ing this particular film one could easily leave with
the (misguided) impression that the world is very
definitely ‘on the right track’ in terms of a poverty
reduction strategy.
Opposition to the Bank’s discourse of develop-
ment is dubbed ‘anti-globalisation’, yet this is mis-
leading as most of the activists are not opposed to
growing international economic and cultural inter-
connections among peoples, but are opposed to the
way those connections are being structured ‘benefit-
ing large firms, while creating hardship and instabil-
ity for many, many people’ (MacEwan, 2002: 4). A Figure 2.8 The hopeless continent
large number of these demonstrators have not set Source: The Economist

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...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Figure 2.9 Not to be tested on children: Oxfam argues that IMF prescriptions should be recalled
Source: Oxfam

politicians who promise them a ‘third way’, but so far short as to be almost pointless’ (De Soto,
Peruvian writer Hernando De Soto argues that the 2001: 45). The word ‘pharmacopoeia’ refers to the
demonstrations against globalisation and capitalism idea of an officially published text or book which
have only forced American and European leaders to contains a list of medicinal remedies and drugs
trot out the same old wearisome lectures: and prescribed directions for use. This would
suggest, however, that the Bank and the Fund are
Stabilize your currencies, hang tough, ignore the quite open and democratic institutions with a list of
food riots, and wait patiently for foreign investors remedies that can be negotiated. Perhaps it is better
to return. Foreign investment is, of course, a very to refer to an apothecary of development remedies,
good thing – the more of it the better. Stable cur- to a kind of storehouse and chemist which claims to
rencies are also good, as are free trade and trans- be licensed to dispense medicines and drugs. Under
parent banking practices and the privatisation of these institutions neoliberalism was seen as
state-owned industries, and every other remedy in ‘rational’ practice; it was orthodoxy within a short
the Western pharmacopoeia. period and has since become the ideology of a small
(De Soto, 2001: 45) army of economic ‘experts’, who claim that their
remedies and the ‘truths’ that underscore them are
In Latin America, De Soto argues that these pol- the only way forward.
icies have failed repeatedly to build successful capit- This allows Third World peoples to be blamed for
alist structures and that rather than questioning the their lack of entrepreneurial spirit or ‘market orien-
adequacy of this pharmacopoeia of remedies, it needs tation’. If these countries fail to close the gap
to be recognised that policies and prescriptions ‘fall between themselves and the richer western capitalist

4 3
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economies, it is not because capitalism does not ‘defective forms’ (with unrecognised legal rights to
work effectively in these contexts but because the land and houses or unrecorded businesses and a
culture of the people there is seen to prevent them variety of assets that are not easily recorded). Thus
from doing so ‘or their IQ’s are too low on the Bell people lack the capacity to represent their capital,
curve’ (De Soto, 2001: 45). The poor are seen to be the titles to their homes or land, the formality of
trapped in the ‘obsolete ways’ of the past, to be part recognition for their business enterprises, ‘crops not
of dysfunctional cultures or are simply ‘pitiful beg- deeds, businesses but not statuses of incorporation’
gars’. In turn this comes back to the vision of (De Soto, 2001: 47).
development outlined in the imperial encounter, How can we begin to dismantle and think beyond
where non-western peoples were seen as trapped in the western idea of development remedies? One fun-
the outdated co-ordinates of the past, as noble beg- damental starting point is to accept that the global
gars with dysfunctional societies. The poor already apothecaries of development medicines, potions,
have capital however, and the value of their savings remedies and drugs developed a ‘licence’ to dispense
can be much higher than is often assumed, but the their prescriptions as a direct result of histories of
problem is that this capital is seen to be held in western imperialism and Cold War geopolitics.

4 4
3
G e o g r a p h e r s a n d ‘ t h e Tr o p i c s ’

I N T RO D U C T I O N : O R I E N TA L I S M A N D Europe or the ‘West’. This difference was often seen

T RO P I CA L G E O G R A P H I E S as something which could be interpreted and repre-
sented by rational, even-handed social scientists in
The identification of the Northern temperate the West in a supposedly ‘purely objective’ manner.
regions as the normal, and the tropics as In this chapter we will be examining the ways
altogether other – climatically, geographically in which geographies of development have con-
and morally – became part of an enduring tributed to the formation of a particular kind of
imaginative geography, which continues to shape Orientalism (Said, 1978) or an imperial vision of
the production and consumption of knowledge particular places and subjects (that displaces other
in the twenty-first-century world. voices) which had important material consequences.
(Driver and Yeoh, 2000: 1) In an important and influential text on Orientalism,
Edward Said (1978) suggested that Orientalism and
Geography, like many other academic disciplines,
Orientalists analysed a large corpus of representa-
has been seriously contaminated in recent years
tions of the East produced by academics, novelists
by elements derived from other essentially mar-
ginal disciplines . . . [resulting in] various types of
mathematical mystification.
(Llwyd, 1968: 58)

Our knowledge of the world and its geographies is

constructed in a variety of ways, for example
through experience, learning, memory and imagin-
ation. This chapter seeks to examine the question of
what ‘experiences’ and whose ‘learning’ has been
brought to bear in understanding the world and its
geographies. How then have geographers con-
structed ‘the Tropics’ as a particular space for
investigating progress and development in non-
western regions and how have geographers viewed
‘the Tropics’ as a world of particular forms and
relations? As we have seen, western colonial pro-
jects, despite being far from homogeneous, were
based partly on an imagination of the world which
legitimised and supported the power of the West to
dominate ‘others’. By representing other societies as
‘backward’ and ‘irrational’, the West and Europe in
particular emerges as ‘mature’, rational and object-
ive. Here the notion of ‘the Tropics’ was invented Figure 3.1 Map showing the principal ports of the British Isles
alongside a range of other labels to view certain and their global connections
societies as ‘other’ and different from the self of Source: Stamp (1934)

4 5
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...............................................................................................................................................................................................

and others situated in the ‘West’ during the eight- impacted on the way the region was viewed and
eenth and nineteenth centuries. Said argues that understood.
these representations comprised a discourse which Associated with these Africanist and Orientalist
he defines as ‘a tradition . . . whose material pres- discourses was the idea of ‘the Tropical’, a term
ence or weight, not the originality of a given author, which is still routinely attached to a whole range of
is really responsible for the texts produced out of it’ terms, everything from ‘rainforests to rainstorms,
(Said, 1978: 94). An Orientalist discourse then tran- from resorts to beaches, from urbanisation to soils’
scends the individual or the institution and repre- (Livingstone, 2000: 95). As we shall see in this chap-
sents a kind of archive of images and statements. In ter, the notion of a ‘tropical geography’ then had a
an important way this provided a common language somewhat complex history through the twentieth
for knowing a particular region and its peoples. century and became more formalised and more
‘The Orient’ was thus established in the European widely recognised after the Second World War. The
geographical imagination as an image, an idea, a French-speaking geographer Pierre Gourou was
personality, an experience (Lester, 1999). Said’s one of the most famous exponents of these kinds of
approach to Orientalism had provided an geographies (Gourou, 1947, 1960). From 1953 new
exceptional account of the working of the unequal possibilities began to emerge for the publication of
relationship between the western colonial powers such geographies with the creation of the Malayan
and the peoples of the ‘East’ during the nineteenth Journal of Tropical Geography. A distinct field of
and twentieth centuries. Orientalism looks at how geographical enquiry had thus begun to emerge,
this manifested itself in the production of know- supported by new conferences, journals and fund-
ledge about this particular part of the world, ing possibilities, which would have an important
thereby reinforcing a sense of difference between impact on the nature and terms of geographers’
the Orient and the rest of the world based around contributions to the study of ‘development’. In a
a sense of distances and inequalities (Bilgin and way the very notion of ‘the Tropics’ was crucial to
Morton, 2002). the very creation of the discipline of geography,
Europeans sought knowledge about the Orient imbuing it with a sense of itself as a ‘sternly practical
and through their Orientalist discourse they pro- science’ (Livingstone, 1992). Geographers them-
duced what Said (1978: 3) calls a ‘Western style for selves, however, also invented areas and regions of
dominating’, inventing the authority and legitimacy study that would concentrate their ‘expertise’ – fre-
to subjugate and oppress non-western peoples. This quently in the service of colonial rule (Driver, 1992;
chapter argues that ‘the Tropics’ were also endowed Watts, 1993a, 1993b; Smith and Godlewska, 1994).
with a similar condition of ‘otherness’ which was What began to emerge was a new spatialised domain
ascribed to tropical peoples and sought to view the of intellectual enquiry and imagined constructions
tropical as a twin to the temperate: the opposite of of otherness around which crystallised a distinctly
all that was civilised, modest and enlightened ‘modern’ set of truths, assumptions and hierarchies.
(Driver and Yeoh, 2000). In his later work Culture Our interest in this chapter is in tracing aspects of
and Imperialism (Said, 1993), Said also makes a how ‘colonial’ and ‘tropical’ geography as practised
passing reference to an ‘Africanist discourse’ which after the Second World War became ‘development
had emerged around the study of Africa, based geography’ in the 1960s and 1970s. This is a com-
upon Orientalist attitudes and practices towards the plex story, related as it is to the varied course of
continent. What is particularly important about radical geography (Power and Sidaway, 2003). This
this reference to an emerging Africanist discourse is chapter shows that from the vantage points of
that it soon became (particularly after 1945) a ‘sys- ‘tropical geography’ or later ‘development geo-
tematic language for dealing with and studying graphy’, important paradigmatic shifts, such as the
Africa’ (Paolini, 1997: 83). What Said was con- rise of quantitative positivist geography, are deeply
cerned with was the Eurocentric discourses which inscribed within other global dramas, notably
enframe regions such as Africa and other parts of decolonisation and socialist revolution. The story
the ‘Third World’ and the way they ‘contain’ and here focuses primarily on the British case but this
‘normalise’ the region through a certain kind of necessarily takes us into other national traditions
hegemony. Through such discourses, acceptable and into the complex spatiality of what have been
ways of speaking about and representing Africa are variously called the ‘tropical/developing/third/
established which were very influential, and postcolonial’ worlds. As Driver and Yeoh (2000: 2)

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have noted, ‘to problematise the notion of “the rendered ‘scientific’ by the cloak of Darwinism.
tropical” is necessarily to open an historical enquiry Geography participated in this via studies of cli-
into the term and its enrolment in a variety of scien- mate and land-use, rendered through theories of
tific, aesthetic and political projects’. ‘determinism’ and ‘possibilism’ (Livingstone, 1992).
This chapter seeks to explore the invention of a After 1945 however, these approaches were fading
particular geographical domain by geographers, as ‘development’ and ‘environment’ began to
‘the Tropics’, and to examine how this defined inhabit the discourse of ‘the Tropics’, defining
and shaped early geographical contributions to the arenas of the discussible for such zones. As a discip-
theory and practice of postwar development. line, geography retained a relatively weak position
Important questions need to be asked about this within British universities at the beginning of the
‘enrolment’ of geography and geographers in the twentieth century and this often extended to the
political projects of intervention in other worlds. newly established colonial universities (Forbes,
How did the geography of the idea of tropicality con- 1984). Despite limited support for overseas research
tribute to the invention of ‘development’ and how during the recession years of the 1930s, some geog-
was this dependent on interactions with indigenous raphers had developed an interest in non-western
peoples and places? What is important here is the geographies, such as Sir Lawrence Dudley Stamp
question of how geographical practices and know- (1898–1966) who went to Burma (then part of the
ledge provided a set of lenses through which ‘the Indian Empire) as an oil geologist between 1921
Tropics’ were known. Although there are a whole and 1923 and was appointed Professor of Geology
variety of geographical traditions of writing about and Geography at the University of Rangoon
development, we will primarily examine the work of in 1923, at the age of 25. Stamp returned to the
geographers in Britain and the United States. University of London in 1926 but went on to
Despite the many opportunities presented by become one of the most well-known British geog-
colonial possessions and emerging debates about raphers writing about ‘the Tropics’ and was
colonial development, few geographers had worked knighted in 1965. Stamp’s regional and economic
overseas by 1939 (Farmer, 1983). Geographers were geographies of Asia were widely read and tended to
thus ‘a bit slow off the mark’ (Butlin, 2000: 10) and run, chapter by chapter, through the main countries
were quite few in number at this time. Many French and regions or were incredibly descriptive in content
and American geographers made important contri- (looking at geology, minerals, soils, vegetation, fish-
butions to these debates and thus it is necessary to ing, industry, communications, population and for-
discuss a range of national ‘traditions’ of geo- eign trade). The concept of the region is central
graphical enquiry about other worlds and to ask throughout, although there is no explicit reference
questions about non-western geographers working to any conceptual material on regions. The material
in the South in contemporary contexts (Cline-Cole, presented is inventory-like, and processes and rela-
1999). The extent to which geography as a discipline tions between the imperial power and the colonised
has itself been decolonised is important here. Inven- are reduced to a summary of trade links of limited
tions and constructions of ‘the Tropics’ have an significance (Forbes, 1984).
important bearing on the contemporary writing of Prior to 1945 it was geographers in a number of
development geographies and on the definition of other European countries, however, who first began
geographers as ‘experts’ in ‘tropical affairs’. The writing tropical geographies. In France much
imagination of tropical worlds and the process of research focused on Southeast Asia through the
inventing ‘others’ that inhabit these spaces requires important works of Charles Robequain and Pierre
a kind of deconstructive engagement whereby this Gourou (Gourou, 1931, 1940; Robequain, 1931,
process is opened up and problematised. What 1958). The Germans also had an imperial interest in
emerged after 1945 was a spatialised domain of Southeast Asia, leading to research on Thailand
intellectual enquiry, research and speculation (Credner, 1935) and the Philippines (Kolb, 1942), as
alongside constructions of tropical difference did Dutch geographers who worked for the Nether-
underscored by notions of certain kinds of ‘truths’. lands Indies Topographical Service and wrote about
In the nineteenth century the tropical had been demographic congestion in Java, for example (Van
enfolded within racial imaginaries, especially in Valkenberg, 1925).
debates about the prospects for white settlement, In each case the connections between geography,
‘degeneration’, evolution and ‘races’ which were geographers and empire was always a close one

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(even if this was not always acknowledged), as the By an accident of war it happened that my first
maintenance of European empires created a num- experience of South-east Asia, which may per-
ber of new opportunities for geographical research. haps be described as a case of love at first sight,
Most of this work was conceived of as part of the came in the course of military service in Malaya
quest for the ‘Enlightenment’ (see Chapter 4) and in 1941–2. Not even the ensuing three-and-a-half
more scientific knowledge of colonial territories years of prison camp life succeeded in appeasing
with rich potential for further colonial progress and my appetite, which had thus been whetted.
development. Particular geographical ideas, to do (Fisher, 1964: vii)
with land-use and agrarian change, population
growth and mobility and environmental conserva- Other geographers worked in England for the Naval
tion, run through much of the early thematic Intelligence Division (NID) which produced a series
approaches of these kinds of geographies. At the of geographical handbooks intended to provide
end of the Second World War many geographers commanding officers in the Navy with information
could easily and immediately see the case for what on countries they might be called upon to serve in.
Gilbert and Steel (1945) called ‘colonial geography’ Farmer (1983: 73) points out that these handbooks
(geography in the service of colonialism) and were ‘were very useful indeed to the first generation of
consequently often uncritical of the impact of colo- post-war British geographers struggling to write lec-
nial rule on indigenous societies. Some geographers, tures in their demob suits and to prepare themselves
such as Robequain (1958), even dedicated large sec- for fieldwork overseas’. Indeed, they were incredibly
tions of their texts to ‘colonial achievement’ and (in influential and possibly also served to inspire geog-
general) viewed colonialism as something of a raphers to enter the brave new world of reconstruc-
material success. tion in the colonies and the newly independent
Pretensions of modernising African and Asian states of India and Pakistan in particular. The Geo-
regions in particular structured many of the early graphical Section of the NID was formed in 1915
postwar assumptions about modernity and progress and from then on the purpose of these handbooks
away from conditions of underdevelopment. This was to provide a discussion of the naval, military
way of viewing non-western regions began to break and political problems of countries such as the Bel-
down and degenerate after 1945 with the wide- gian Congo, Turkey and China. The handbooks were
spread desire to overcome European notions and used in government posts and embassies through-
idioms of imperialism such as ‘the white man’s bur- out the world and were also used widely by the
den’, the ‘civilising mission’ and the idea of ‘civilisa- League of Nations (the UN’s predecessor). The
tion’. In this way social scientists in various western geography, ethnology, government/administration
countries began to adopt much less avowedly pro- and resources of each country were thus detailed in
colonial notions of ‘modernity’ and ‘development’ a convenient and digestible form (Godfrey, 1944).
(Luke, 1991) and to engage with more radical The series of handbooks produced during the Sec-
streams of social theory. In addition, these geog- ond World War thereby drew on the work of geog-
raphers (perhaps more so than many of their con- raphers from universities and military sub-centres
temporaries) were influenced directly by debates and were aimed at military personnel who might be
and publications in other associated disciplines called upon to serve in these locations.
(such as economics, sociology, anthropology, and One handbook (NID, 1944a), concerning the
the emerging fields of development studies and Belgian Congo, constructed a time-scale which
international relations). begins in 1482 and the arrival of Europeans rather
The Second World War was a key turning point than with any of the country’s pre-colonial history.
in that it had led to much wider, unexpected and in It pinpoints ‘typical Arabs of the region’ in one
some cases involuntary foreign travel by geograph- photograph and provides a simplistic map of ‘tribal
ers. A number of British geographers such as C. A. distribution’ in another. The handbook concerning
Fisher (who was posted to Singapore) and B. H. French West Africa which was also written in 1944
Farmer (who served in India, Ceylon and Singa- (NID, 1944b) offers a simple illustration of a thou-
pore) found themselves in the service of the military sand years of West African history condensed into
(often the Royal Engineers or sometimes the Inter- one page, which again has little to say about any-
Services Topographical Department) and even in thing that happened there before 1500. A picture of
some cases became prisoners of war: the ‘natives’ lining up for a census in Togo is

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included, as is a picture illustrating progress in the and conceptions of Truman’s bold new programme
form of improvements to log-hauling, both ‘old’ for eradicating backwardness.
and ‘new’ style. The machinery here will produce a The first part of this chapter is concerned with
much newer and more modern form of transporta- the beginnings and early trajectory of this subdisci-
tion that will supersede the traditions of the pline and looks at the movements and writings of
‘natives’. A further volume, concerned with French Keith Buchanan (a pioneering radical geographer
Equatorial Guinea (NID, 1942), includes a map of trained at the School of Geography at the Uni-
exploration and occupation which only really versity of Birmingham, England, who later worked
begins with the arrival of Portuguese caravels in the in Nigeria, Singapore and New Zealand). Examin-
fifteenth century. The huts of ‘tribal people’ are ing Buchanan’s work, we can formulate a means of
also detailed through a series of pictures and exploring the contested and uneven evolution of
drawings. Another envisions a ‘track through the development geography. The next section of the
forest’, depicting the modern vehicle traversing chapter explores the radicalisation of geography in
the landscape. Out of a total of fifty-eight volumes the 1960s and the emerging engagements with rad-
prepared, some sixteen dealt with parts of the ical streams of social theory. A further section
European empires and colonies (Butlin, 2000). focuses in particular on the emergence of a ‘geog-
Charles Fisher, W. B. Fisher, B. L. Johnson, O. H. raphy of anti-development’ in the early 1970s and
K. Spate, J. T. Coppock, A. T. R. Learmonth and R. examines the possibility of decolonising geograph-
O. Buchanan were all in active service in India, ies. The conclusions return to the theme of the sta-
Africa and the Middle East, and some of the initial tus of development geography today in the context
work on what would be called ‘the developing of key questions of cultural difference and
world’ was conducted by this generation of geog- Eurocentrism.
raphers who had held various roles in the military
services (Butlin, 2000). Spate and Learmonth in
particular both worked on India and Pakistan, GEOGRAPHIES OF COLONIAL
Farmer on Ceylon, Johnson on India and Southeast MODERNITY
Asia and Fisher on Southeast Asia, all of whom
have published in the Geographical Journal. Oskar What has been of special interest for me has been
Hermann Khristian Spate (1911–2000) one of the the extension of post-colonial concerns to the
founders of the discipline in Australia, worked at problems of geography.
the University of Rangoon and published papers on (Said, 2000: 350)
Burma before being conscripted into the Burma
Volunteer Force to work on anti-aircraft artillery Roughly 1955–1975 – from the Bandung confer-
(Ward, 2001). Oskar Spate later worked for the ence to the call by the non-aligned movement and
Inter-Services Topographical Department, studying group of 77 for a new international economic
India and learning Portuguese from a Goanese order – this was a period of extraordinary global
teacher. In his later career Spate advised the change and political realignment. In it, the only
Punjab Boundary Commission at the time of the recently constituted ‘Third World’ became the
partition of India, before writing a ‘General and site of intense debates regarding options for
Regional Geography’ of India and Pakistan (which ‘development’.
was actually banned in India until 1985). From Aus- (Scott, 1999: 221)
tralia he worked on studies of Papua New Guinea
and Melanesia in addition to helping to establish For the next twenty-five years after the end of the
the University of the South Pacific. Spate also Second World War numerous bulky, regional geog-
advised the Fijian government about the country’s raphies of the non-western world were published,
economic problems and prospects in 1959. By the stimulated in large part by the naval handbooks
time of his retirement in 1976 he had written a (under the general editorship of H. C. Darby).
dozen books, on India, Australia, Fiji and the wider Spate’s (1954) volume on India and Pakistan is a
Pacific in addition to work on exploration and Por- good example of this way of writing about ‘the
tuguese poetry (Ward, 2001). The divergent tra- Tropics’ and was part of a series of books written
jectories of postwar geographers such as Spate were by British geographers working in the new uni-
soon to produce a range of important approaches versities of Southeast Asia (Dobby, 1950; Fisher,

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Figure 3.2 A European view of an African ‘time-scale’

Source: Naval Intelligence Division (1944a)

1964). Although more information was available for great deal of this work was a ‘dreary’ descriptive
postwar ‘regional geography’, there was limited nature (Forbes, 1984) or characterised by a ‘deaden-
methodological or theoretical progress (method- ing stylization and factual aridity’ (Farmer, 1973:
ology was largely intuitive and few attempts were 10). It is important to remember here that the
made to elaborate a theoretical context). As such a regions chosen by these authors were not pre-given

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Figure 3.3 A thousand years of West African history

Source: Naval Intelligence Division (1944)

5 1
GEOGRAPHERS AND ‘THE TROPICS’
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but were shaped by each geographer in pursuit of S. J. Baker, for example, worked at the University
knowledge (‘scientific’ rather than indigenous), and College in Makerere and W. B. Morgan worked at
thus there were no formal rules for recognising, the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. This body of
defining, delimiting or describing the region or its knowledge thus represented a particular branch of
broader position within the imagined ‘Tropics’. Orientalism and its archives, bringing together a
Some of these inherent contradictions meant that disparate group of academics, colonial functionar-
by the end of the 1960s (and in the context of a ies, military men, businessmen, missionaries and
move to more quantitative techniques) this kind of adventurers whose primary objective was to recon-
regional geography had become increasingly noitre the ground they were to occupy and to ‘pene-
unpopular, leading some of its leading advocates to trate the consciousness of the peoples to better
mount a stringent defence of its honour. ensure their subjection by the European powers’
Debates revolved around whether regional syn- (Abdel-Malek, 1977: 296). The postwar revival of
thesis was a valid academic study given the ten- Orientalism, area studies and regional geography
dency to divide the world into unique and seemingly could be ascribed to similar motives, although by
unrelated chunks and not to seek to identify more this time the objective was the management of
general laws governing development in all regions. ‘Third World peoples’ through the invented idea of
These kinds of simplified images of difference, ‘development’ (Escobar, 1992). The idea of ‘geog-
which assumed away much of the geographic vari- raphy militant’ (Driver, 2001) is important here:
ation within the world, became less popular partly many of these geographies were written by former
because (despite being very normative) they offered military personnel and in some cases former
no immediate ethical and socially responsible solu- prisoners of war, and they were inspired by war
tions to social ills (Golledge, 2002). For some geog- experiences and geographical handbooks produced
raphers what was lacking was a ‘dedicated special- by military institutions. Each expedition and
ization by area’: exploration of ‘the Tropics’ or its constituent parts
also often represented a kind of militarised crusade
By ‘dedicated specialization by area’ I mean the dedicated to progress and modernity, the realisation
willingness to devote a lifetime, or the best part of of ‘tropical potential’ and to the enlightenment of
a lifetime, to a specific area, so that one becomes darkened tropical spaces.
thoroughly familiar with its physical geography In France and Germany the end of the Second
and natural resources, its civilizations and culture World War also created a new wave of geographical
and its history. research on ‘the Tropics’, among which Pierre
(Farmer, 1973: 11) Gourou’s Les Pays Tropicaux (Gourou, 1947) was
particularly influential and was later published in
Thus the implication was that work conducted English (Gourou, 1953). Gourou offered a powerful
before the early 1970s was characterised by a lack of framework for geographical writing, for geo-
specialisation and depth, or as Farmer (1973: 11) graphing ‘the Tropics’, which impacted on the
put it, by an ‘unsatisfying unreality’. The curiosity postwar work of a number of European
aroused by war travels and experiences, coupled geographers:
with the provision of new funding opportunities for
graduate students at British universities to conduct This book, among other things, presented a
research overseas thus began slowly to increase the framework into which returning warriors could
interest of geographers in other, distant worlds. In place their experience of the humid tropical
addition, the emerging notions of underdevelop- environment and of the societies that wrest a liv-
ment and underdeveloped areas, in conjunction ing from it; a springboard with which some of
with the creation of new national and international them could launch themselves into research in
agencies such as UNESCO and the FAO, also pro- the Tropics. The book strongly influenced my
vided a stimulus to geographical research (see own work in Ceylon in 1951 (Farmer, 1957);
Chapter 4). New universities in the colonies such as though it perhaps gave me too pessimistic a view
the University College of East Africa, University of tropical potential and the notion that the trop-
College of the Gold Coast and the Universities of ics constitute an intelligible field of study, of
Ceylon, Colombo and Malaya in Asia were soon which I am now not so sure.
staffed in whole or in part by British geographers. (Farmer, 1983: 75)

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This question of the ‘springboards’ used by geog- London found, after the spring of 1948, the long-
raphers and the points of entry where they chose to est and fiercest resistance it ever faced in the his-
make their contributions and interventions is tory of its modern empire – from a Malayan
important here. We also need to look at the extent communist party which grew out of the Malayan
to which ‘the Tropics’ and ‘development’ had begun People’s Anti-Japanese Army.
to emerge as ‘intelligible fields of study’. Published (Anderson, 1998: 7)
three years earlier, the final (fourth) English-
language edition of Gourou’s (1953) influential The It is useful here to consider briefly some of the
Tropical World had scarcely a word to say on colo- words and geographical references which were
nialism, its contestation or its legacies. Indeed, made in some of the titles and naming of research
Gourou’s text in many ways tells us as much about a in ‘the Tropics’ (see Box 3.1). This partly reveals the
collective northern-centred worldview as it does predominant focus on the regions of ‘the Tropics’
about the ‘tropical world’ it seeks to depict (Arnold, (Southeast Asia or West Africa) as the primary
2000: 6). Given the impact of earlier editions of focus of analysis. Authors often offered a regional,
Gourou’s book in fostering ‘tropical geography’, it systematic, ‘short’ or tropical geography. Often the
is worth pausing here to consider this final edition, ‘focus’ included whole continents in a single study
published at a time when tropical geography was (as (usually Africa) or authors claimed to know whole
we shall see below) already past its prime. There are worlds (e.g. the ‘Tropical’ or ‘Southeast Asian’
many pages on tropical diseases, soils, plantations world). The geopolitics of naming transnational
and population densities, on the importance of sci- regions was, however, usually led by military strat-
entific knowledge for tropical ‘development’, and egies, as in Southeast Asia and the Middle East
occasional references to the potential for white (Lewis and Wigen, 1997; Philpott, 2000; Sidaway,
settlement and the relations between lesser and 2002). Concerns ranged from a region’s ‘funda-
greater civilisations. mental characteristics’ or its physical geography to
Echoing the ideas of nineteenth-century philo- later work in the 1960s on economic development
sophers, Gourou sees the West as the epitome of and the spatial dynamics of modernisation.
‘civilisation’, with India and China in secondary In the USA, geographers such as William H.
roles and the rest more or less outside history – the Haas, who worked at North-Western University
subjects of ‘tropical geography’. Such ideologies and conducted a Rural Land Classification Project
were soon being contested through the rise of a in Puerto Rico in 1952 (Haas, 1952), drew their
number of national liberation and anti-imperialist inspiration from the work of writers such as Mal-
movements in a variety of locations. An important colm J. Proudfoot, Preston E. James, L. Dudley
backdrop to this was the widening struggle in Stamp and others. Tropical studies of this kind also
the remaining European colonies of Africa (e.g. adopted a sort of ‘inventory mapping’ approach
Rhodesia, Guinea Bissau and Angola), and the (Proudfoot, 1952). Malcolm Jarvis Proudfoot
widening conflict and deepening American inter- (1907–1955) worked for the US War Production
vention in Indochina. In addition, the rise of Third Board between 1943 and 1945 and also served with
World nationalisms which were associated with the allied expeditionary forces in Europe, and later
revolutionary pressures across much of Asia, Africa worked as a consultant to the Caribbean Commis-
and the Americas was also significant. Later on in sion in Trinidad (then the British West Indies) on
Gourou’s book, the rubber plantations of Malaya ‘problems of surplus population, employment
are praised for their positive environmental and opportunity and migration’ (Jones, 1957: 4). Man-
commercial impacts. Next to the type of graphic fred Schaffer was another US geographer (based at
portrayal of population density that peppers the North-Western University) who was influenced by
text (and which became recurrent features of trop- these same types of approach. Writing in 1965, in a
ical geographies), readers learn that ‘as most of the piece entitled ‘The competitive position of the Port
land was underutilized, the establishment of plant- of Durban’ (Schaffer, 1965), his contribution was
ations gave rise to no territorial problems’ (Gourou, based on fieldwork in Johannesburg and Lourenço
1966: 173). No reference is made to the fact that Marques (1959–1961). In the Acknowledgements, a
these were already in the independent state of whole range of influential US geographers such as
Malaysia, or to the fact that after Malaysian William A. Hance (at Columbia) and Edward J.
independence in 1957: Taaffe (Ohio) are credited for their guidance. Again

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in a rather apolitical manner this study looks at the well placed to study factors ‘governing
efficiency of the Port of Durban and at its ‘rich development’:
hinterlands’, and explores its ‘traffic-generating
abilities’ (Schaffer, 1965). For their task the authors are particularly well
One important exception to these kinds of qualified . . . [Buchanan] studied in minute detail
approach came from Buchanan and Pugh’s Land the agricultural geography of Worcester for the
and People in Nigeria (Buchanan and Pugh, 1955). Land Utilisation Survey of Britain. It was natural
The Foreword to the book, written by L. D. Stamp, that when he moved to South Africa he should
affirms the importance of knowledge to enlighten- initiate similar studies, and when appointed Head
ment and progress and, rather oddly for Stamp, of the Department of Geography at Ibadan, he
asserts that ‘no country can be treated as a blank turned his attention to almost untouched fields of
sheet of paper’ (a feature of many of Stamp’s own study in Nigeria.
tropical geographies) (Stamp, in Buchanan and (Stamp, in Buchanan and Pugh, 1955: v)
Pugh, 1955: v). However, the book argued for what
could be achieved by ‘harmonious inter-racial Although the work is still intended for use by offi-
cooperation’ rather than colonial subjugation of cials in British colonial service, Buchanan and Pugh
one group by another. Further, more so than many (1955) appear much less directly motivated than
of its predecessors, it does explore some of the vari- many of their contemporaries (e.g. Stamp) by this
ations in human responses and makes some interest- desire to venture into ‘untouched fields of study’,
ing connections between the authors’ British and often drawing upon local sources of scholarship
African experiences. For Stamp, the combination of and regularly trying to tease out the various prob-
these different worlds meant that the authors were lems and aspirations of different human com-

5 4
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munities. Wellington’s Southern Africa: A Geo- his lectures always stressed the importance of the
graphical Study (also published in 1955) is dedicated human agent in transforming the environment
not to the people of the region about whom he and therefore of the need to enhance the quality
wrote but ‘to the glory of God and to my fellow of this agent through education. We always felt as
workers for the progress of Africa’. Similarly, students that he was already way left of centre in
Stamp (1948) affectionately dedicated his main his general unconventional comportment such as
(encyclopedic) book on Asia to his wife ‘in memory jumping through the window into the lecture
of bullock-cart days and irrawaddy nights’. room when he felt he was late. Even though his
Keith Buchanan’s work provides a rare and strik- lectures were not stridently radical in the sense of
ing contrast to much of the research that was con- being Marxist or socialist, they were not patently
ducted in the 1960s (see Box 3.2). His death in 1998 pro-colonial.
(at the age of 78) produced several obituaries and
retrospectives on his wide oeuvre, including a con- Perhaps, too, Buchanan’s earlier training and
sideration of his satirical critique (written under the experience at Birmingham of geographical field-
name of an ‘exiled celt’) of apolitical regional geog- work and local contextual study generated scepti-
raphies which was published in 1968 (Watters, 1998; cism towards the kinds of (‘scientific’) knowledge
Wise and Johnston, 1999; Johnston et al, 2000; that he would later dismiss as spurious objectivism
Moran, 2000). After graduating from the University in the service of imperial and neocolonial power.
of Birmingham in 1940 Buchanan moved to Africa, The continued attachment to fieldwork in geog-
first to the University of Natal (Durban) (1948) and raphy suggested that there were growing ‘doubts
then to Ibadan in Nigeria (1948–1951), before about the universality of experience upon which
returning briefly to the UK (LSE 1951–1953) and positivist accounts of the other are ordered’ (Phil-
then taking up a post at Victoria University in Wel- pott, 2000: 31). A commitment to fieldwork, in and
lington, New Zealand, where he spent the rest of his on the margins of tropical geography, is one way in
academic career (Buchanan retired early in 1975 which the field maintained links to wider geo-
and went to live in Wales for a time – where he graphical method and debates. Jim Blaut (1953: 37)
continued to write journalism and political com- extended this concern in the first issue of The
mentary – before returning to New Zealand). Sub- Malayan Journal of Tropical Geography where he
sequently, Buchanan’s years in Africa coincided developed a ‘micro-geography’ approach (then
with the beginnings of anti-colonial nationalism. A quite popular in the USA) which he saw as particu-
brief encounter with apartheid South Africa sharp- larly applicable in situations where geographers
ened his distaste for colonialism and his under- cannot obtain adequate background data on the
standings of the logic of racism. Buchanan’s later economic, cultural or environmental characteristics
experience in Nigeria is also significant, for at of a region.
Ibadan he encountered an intellectual milieu where After he left Ibadan, Keith Buchanan soon
nationalist ideas were increasingly influential. became a prolific author. In the early 1950s, amidst
Although there was not as yet an African faculty publications derived from his work in Birmingham,
in the department, geography too registered some- such as agricultural geographies of the English
thing of this shifting orientation – of which Bucha- Midlands (1950a), are early critical papers on the
nan and Pugh’s (1955) Land and People in Nigeria: status of ‘coloureds’ and ‘Indians’ in South Africa
The Human Geography of Nigeria and its Environ- (1950b), on ‘internal’ colonialism in Nigeria (1953),
mental Background is an early manifestation. And followed, in the 1960s, by a steady flow of papers,
while the full radical expression would only come reviews and essays on China, Southeast Asia, revo-
later, Buchanan’s extensive travels in late colonial lution, development and environment, amidst occa-
Nigeria helped to crystallise his later critiques of sional works elaborating the framework of internal
colonial claims. In the words of Akin Mabogunje colonialism with regard to the status of Britain’s
(2002: 1–2), then an undergraduate student at ‘Celtic Fringe’ (Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Corn-
Ibadan: wall). Buchanan was clearly influenced by these
revolutionary transformations and upheavals, and
Buchanan . . . saw the country as . . . being he saw them as directly relevant to the way in which
underdeveloped by colonialism and he was con- he understood and sought to theorise the ‘majority
cerned about how to transform the situation . . . world’. Later, in Singapore, where Buchanan

5 5
GEOGRAPHERS AND ‘THE TROPICS’
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

worked as an external examiner of the Department tropical geography conceived in the tradition of
of Geography at what is now the National Uni- regional analysis (Power and Sidaway, 2003, forth-
versity of Singapore (1967–1970), he clashed dir- coming). Buchanan’s work, however, in particular
ectly with a department that retained a substantial the shift from a traditional regional geography to
foreign (colonial) staffing and a commitment to more systematic treatments of development and

5 6
GEOGRAPHERS AND ‘THE TROPICS’
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

underdevelopment (Buchanan, 1967a), made a sig- ment’. In the same year that Buchanan responded
nificant impact on students reading for geography to some of the criticisms of his work in NLR his
degrees in the department, even if few contemporar- book The Chinese People and the Chinese Earth was
ies embraced the more radical aspects of his work. published (Buchanan, 1966), which focused in some
In some of his teaching and research (and par- detail on the culture and histories of Chinese people
ticularly through his experiences of fieldwork) to a greater extent than had been the norm with
Buchanan sought to disrupt and displace the famil- many traditional regional geographies of Asia. The
iar tropes of development as western modernity, following year Buchanan published Out of Asia:
looking beyond the imagined geographies outlined Essays on Asian Themes (1967a), which also
by many of his contemporaries to alternative read- seemed to further extend his wish for a more
ings and interpretations. In a similar vein, Blaut imaginative study of regions and their peoples and
(1953), who had also worked in Singapore, shared cultures. The year 1968 was an important one for
this experience of having been profoundly influ- China, Vietnam and also the USSR (about which
enced by his research in the field. Both Buchanan Buchanan knew a great deal according to David
and Blaut found in fieldwork a way of disrupting Hooson’s obituary in 1998), while a ‘new geography’
the conventional narrations of development they was also emerging with a concern for quantitative
had encountered, transgressing some of the spatial- knowledge. For Buchanan, these statistics and
ised boundaries that this puts in place and the quantitative methods were of less importance than
imagined geographies of communism. A few years his ‘radical, humanist concern for the people and
previously, Buchanan had published three papers places he wrote about’ (Hooson, 2000: 630) and the
in New Left Review (NLR) (1963a, 1963b, 1966) revolutionary insurgencies across the Third World
shortly after contributing to the journal Monthly (see Chapter 5) whose contours he sought to map
Review (Buchanan, 1963c). Before the 1990s (when and understand. According to Mansell Prothero
interventions and reviews of the work of David and Andrew Learmonth, Buchanan’s work on
Harvey, Mike Davies and Doreen Massey were pub- South Africa and Nigeria was not the only form of
lished) no other geographer had ever been pub- geographical research on political geographies in
lished in the New Left Review, a journal that soon the 1950s and 1960s; Michael Barbour’s work on
became an influential academic/cultural marker of international boundaries in Africa and his work on
the New Left in the UK. Buchanan’s articles are Sudan, Barry Floyd’s work on land apportionment
strikingly at odds with the then dominant tones of in Southern Rhodesia and Victor Prescott’s work
tropical geography and the vanguard of geograph- on boundaries in Nigeria were other (if often much
ies of modernisation (Power and Sidaway, 2003, less critical) examples. None the less, Butlin (2000:
forthcoming). 13) warns of the danger of creating a ‘false counter-
In many ways it is possible that Buchanan’s experi- factual historiography, both in terms of the amount
ences in China were a key turning point in his of work done and the opportunities and the con-
understanding and conceptualisation of ‘develop- text’. Thus, despite the dreary and descriptive
nature of many early ‘tropical geographies’, geog-
raphers such as Buchanan were beginning to
explore other, more radical, approaches.

F RO M T RO P I CA L TO D E V E L O P M E N T
GEOGRAPHY (VIA IMPERIALISM)

It may be asked why British geographers should

devote themselves to overseas areas. Cannot
India, it may be argued, be left to the Indians?
(Farmer, 1973: 13)

Published at the end of the decade, Prothero’s

Figure 3.4 Colonial-style Singaporean building (1969a) edited collection on the Geography of Africa
Source: Lily Kong was a good example of the sometimes superficial

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...............................................................................................................................................................................................

interpretation of ‘backwardness’. Less critical than unevenness of this kind of work in the overseas ter-
Keith Buchanan’s work, it consists of ten ‘regional ritories, locating Africa as the predominant focus of
essays’ and begins from the assumption that ‘our attention. What seems particularly interesting here
former ignorance of Africa has been replaced by a is the persistent lacunae formed by the lack of inter-
great deal of enlightenment during recent dec- est among geographers in the Middle East. In many
ades’ (Prothero, 1969a: xiii). All the authors in this other disciplines the Gulf figured prominently in
collection had taught and worked for considerable debates about world wars, capitalist development,
periods in Africa and the text reflects their concen- imperialism and resource economics (Vitalis, 2002)
tration in British Imperial Africa. In the first chap- but hardly at all in geography.
ter of the book ‘Understanding Africa’ (written by Another important dimension of the history of
Prothero himself) the continent is firmly located in tropical geographies is the impact their construction
the ‘Third World’ which is seen to derive unity and had on the British universities where their authors
coherence from comparable ‘problems’. ‘Under- held teaching and research positions. Steel and Pro-
development’ characterises much of Africa, and the thero’s Geographers and ‘the Tropics’: Liverpool
continent is seen to face five major thematic ques- Essays (1964) highlights the importance of particu-
tions; environmental, historical, social, political and lar institutions and localities in the making of this
economic. The influence of physical factors pre- kind of geographical tradition. The book opens
dominates in a way that frequently verges on with an essay by R. W. Steel on Liverpool and ‘the
environmental determinism. Climates rather than Tropics’ which focuses on Liverpool as a decisive
capitalism impoverish the people of ‘the Tropics’ link in British ‘tropical trade’. Different universities
in these accounts. Historical factors are seen to prioritised the study of particular regions at differ-
consist of large-scale mineral discoveries, historical ent times, but for Liverpool the ‘tropical world’ was
research on deserts and the historical particu- deeply inscribed in the city’s cultural landscapes, in
larity of Egypt and Ethiopia. Neither in the first its economy and across its history.
section nor in subsequent sections on political and This importance of particular places to the mak-
economic change is imperial rule and colonial ing of early geographies of development was fur-
domination elaborated upon as a major influence ther highlighted when, under the chairmanship of
on African geographies. The reasons for this are Sir William Hayter, the British University Grants
complex and multifaceted, however. Geographers, Committee became concerned with the state of
according to Butlin (2000:12), ‘were overtaken by regional studies in British universities from the early
events’. New technologies and new agricultural 1960s and in particular with Oriental, Slavonic,
techniques were seen as the way forward for African East European and African studies. The Commit-
rural economies. Where colonialism is seen as rele- tee’s report of 1961 argues that while enough was
vant the focus is on white settler states such as being done in terms of language and classical litera-
Rhodesia and the needs of white colonists rather ture, ‘modern area studies’ (including geography)
than on African stories of colonial rule. had been neglected and Britain was in danger of
In an interesting review of publications produced falling behind the USA, France, Germany and the
through the Institute of British Geographers USSR in terms of academic studies of the ‘Third
(IBG) between 1946 and 1960, R. W. Steel (himself World’ (University Grants Committee, 1961). The
an Africanist geographer of some distinction) Hayter Committee advocated that a moderate
looked at the geography of areas covered by the amount of finance be made available for this kind
Institute of British Geographers publications and of research and that centres be created within Brit-
discerned an uneven spatial distribution of papers ish universities specifically dedicated to this purpose
(Steel, 1961). Steel identified a strong concentration and adopting an interdisciplinary framework. Fur-
on the British Isles and concluded that the IBG ther support to geographers interested in research-
journal Transactions had included only ten contri- ing ‘the Tropics’ came with the establishment of a
butions on Africa during this period (which he geography department within the School of Orien-
argued reflected university expansion there), a fur- tal and African Studies in London in 1966 under
ther two for Latin America, three for South Asia Charles Fisher (who had worked in Southeast
and two for Southeast Asia, and none for China, Asia). Fisher’s obituary notice in the Geographical
Australasia other parts of East Asia. Steel’s Journal for July 1982 emphasises his ‘anti-parochial
review then highlighted the incredible geographical vision’ and highlights the significance of his ‘first

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hand experience of the problems of de-colonization ‘backward’ regions of the world in his Point IV Pro-
in the tropical world’ (1982: 297). gram (Bilgin and Morton, 2002). Thus specialist
The Hayter Committee drew heavily on their research into ‘backward’ regions began to increase
review of area studies centres in the United States in volume as more disciplinary generalists entered
which had been set up partly to meet wartime needs the debate, ‘initiating the three worlds schema and a
for intelligence reports (Farmer, 1983; Forbes, focus on states within the crude classification of
1984). In America, many geographers worked for “Third World” studies’ (see Chapter 5). During this
the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and provided early period of the Cold War then, development and
intelligence analysis during the Second World War, area studies programmes became increasingly initi-
working with political scientists, historians and ated by US state security discourses which began a
economists such as Walt Whitman Rostow (CIA, certain kind of relationship between scholarship
2001). The OSS’s predecessor, the Office of the and policy-making centred around debates on
Coordinator of Information, had also recruited ‘development’ and ‘modernisation’. These attempts
Americans who had travelled abroad or studied could thus be viewed as designed to produce
world affairs, many of them geographers. Several knowledge which would enable the maintenance of
geographers went on to work for the successor to political control over societies that threatened the
the OSS, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). institutional capacities of certain states (Bilgin and
As Peet (1977b: 10) has argued, the 1950s in the Morton, 2002). A new insistence on the importance
USA was a key period for spatial theory and scien- of strong ‘capabilities’ for postcolonial states thus
tific methods, as geographers ‘responded to the call soon began to be legitimised.
for spatial decision makers like old soldiers return- Not surprisingly, much of the geographic schol-
ing to a long lost army’. arship of the 1950s and 1960s was framed by some
The creation of these area studies centres was variant of modernisation theory, or the presump-
intimately bound up with Cold War geopolitics tion that processes of modernity were shaping
(Pletsch, 1981; Luke, 1991) and impacted upon a indigenous institutions and practices (see Chapter
wide range of social sciences. Geographers soon 4). Many geographers interested in Africa sought to
became active in many such centres and also found model modernisation surfaces and attempted to
roles in newly established schools of development map patterns of modernity by charting the diffu-
studies. Many others remained convinced, however, sion of indices of modernity (such as schools or
that geographies of ‘the Tropics’ were of little mailboxes) through the settlement pattern (Soja,
interest to their contemporaries (who supposedly 1968; Riddell, 1970). This work at best raised only
preferred Somerset to Somalia) and bemoaned the limited questions about the legacies of colonial
continued absence of sufficient scholarship in this transport systems or the character of African
area (Woodridge, 1950; Steel, 1961; Farmer, 1973). urbanism. Geographers (some local, some expatri-
Some critics had more fundamental problems with ate) also worked on sub-national studies, sometimes
the very conception of these centres, for example H. adopting ethnographic approaches based around
Brookfield, who argued that area studies, as then careful local empiricist research. One important
practised (particularly in the USA), was ‘colonially focus was marketing (Hodder, 1965; Scott, 1972),
conceived’ (Brookfield, 1973b: 1) and that the ‘appro- another the question of urbanisation and human
priate centres of Asian studies are in Asia, or Pacific mobility (Prothero, 1957; Mabogunje, 1962, 1968).
Studies in the Pacific’. Until the 1940s the study of For both British and French geographers land-use
foreign cultures in the USA remained an intellectual was perhaps the most important object of study
enterprise pursued largely by ‘amateur enthusiasts’ (Sautter and Pelissier, 1962; Hunter, 1967; Morgan,
(McCaughey, 1984; Bilgin and Morton, 2002). 1969; Benneh, 1972). The more influential work
A lack of area experts to inform policy was focused increasingly on ‘modernisation’, seen less as
noticed during the 1940s as ‘the War and the Armed a tropical phenomenon and more as part of a uni-
Forces reawakened students to study geography and versal process of ‘development’ (Gould, 1960, 1970;
to learn about the “funny people” of the world’ Soja, 1968; Riddell, 1970; Berry, 1973). Peter
(Wallerstein, 1997: 199–200). In the 1950s six area Gould’s study of transportation patterns in Ghana
studies associations were formed in the USA as (1960) is a good example of this approach. Written
social scientists took up the mantle laid down by while Gould was at North-Western University in
President Truman’s injunction to reach out to the 1960, the study is dedicated to his ‘Geography

5 9
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...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Master’ at Nautical College in Berkshire. Also structuralist explanations of the causes of ‘under-
influenced by the work of US geographer E. J. development’, and the idea of development as
Taaffe, it explores shipments, commodity flows, ‘economic growth’ had been subjected to radical
road and rail networks, passenger and traffic flows critique by theorists who sought to locate the pro-
and imports/exports for Ghana. This work starts duction of dependent relations within the nature of
historically with the arrival of Portuguese traders the capitalist world economy.
and theoretically with the modernisation Although we will later consider geographers’
approaches to economic development where trans- readings of and contributions to dependency
port is singled out as being one of the most import- theories, we must leave aside the wider evolution
ant keys to the development process. Geography and trajectory of dependency theory here. Brazilian
would, therefore, help to ‘unlock’ such potential. geographers, for example, provided one pathway
Despite the civil war in Nigeria in 1966, despite through which dependency ideas and geography
the emergence of political corruption (very relevant were articulated – but the points of contact and cir-
to the pursuit of tropical potential) and despite the culation were complex. Development promised
manipulation of ethnicity by leaders such as Amin ‘trickle-down’ effects which never materialised and
in Uganda, Bokassa in Central Africa and Nguema hence attention began to shift to the material sphere
in Equatorial Guinea, geographers had little or and the provision of basic needs. Development pro-
nothing to say about these themes. Many of the grammes, however, continued to fail to induce sub-
contributions to what was becoming known as stantive improvements in the well-being of the
‘development geography’ lacked any major theor- world’s poorest countries, which were gradually seen
etical undercurrents (Forbes, 1984) and often con- less as anomalies of modernity or ‘special’ problem
centrated on broad, traditionally defined questions. cases and more as part of a global system which
During this time however, the number of geograph- actively produces inequality.
ers based in the South began to increase, in coun-
tries such as Nigeria, partly as a consequence of the
establishment of new universities in what was F RO M ‘ P I O U S E U RO C E N T R I S M ’
becoming the British Commonwealth. These geog- TO GEOGRAPHIES OF
raphers had an increasingly important impact on ‘ANTI-DEVELOPMENT’
the formation of national development policy (par-
ticularly in the area of planning) from the late 1960s These shifts in development thinking during the
and early 1970s onwards (Cline-Cole, 1999). As the 1960s and 1970s had a profound impact on geog-
numbers of geographers from non-western regions raphers, particularly after the establishment in 1969
began to increase, so the theoretical impoverish- of the radical journal Antipode, which soon began to
ment of development geography was soon brought publish important articles about geography and un-
into stark relief: even development (Slater, 1973, 1976, 1977; McGee,
1974; Peet, 1977c). This journal was founded, upon
There was no substantial, explicit discussion of principles of radical geography, by a group of fac-
theory until the early 1970s . . . but, by then, there ulty and students at Clark University in Worcester,
had been a notable shift in the nature of devel- Massachusetts in 1969 (Peet, 1977a). Ben Wisner,
opment studies and, simultaneously, in develop- editor of the first issue, argued that value questions
ment geography. needed to be asked within geography and that geog-
(Forbes, 1984: 58) raphers should focus on institutions and ‘their rates
and qualities of change’ (Wisner, cited in Peet,
Major shifts in development thinking were thus 1977b: 11). The discipline’s traditional concerns
beginning to influence researchers in a number of with descriptive and apolitical methods were thus
disciplines and the way they viewed the hallowed increasingly being seen as ‘eclectic irrelevancies’,
‘development process’. In the 1960s this began to quirks of interest which might include, for example,
change the nature of the discipline as geographers a study of the ‘Goldfish Industry of Martinsville,
were ‘propelled into a heightened state of social West Virginia’! (Peet, 1977b: 11). The importance of
awareness’ by political and economic events around ‘relevancy’ was thus being increasingly highlighted
the world (Peet, 1977b: 10). Dependency theorists by ‘action-oriented geographers’ in the words of
such as A. G. Frank had begun to offer popular Richard Peet, editor of Antipode in the mid-1970s.

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Many of these geographers met in the United States typical of that used in a number of development
from 1967 onwards at the annual geography confer- debates at this time). McGee also talks of the
ences, but the discipline of geography in the USA importance of understanding development ‘in each
was slow to respond to their radical discussions, ecological milieu’ (McGee, 1974: 42). Instead this
dominated as it was until the early 1970s by ‘the work called for a broader ‘geography of anti-
quantifiers’ and a kind of ephemeral spatial science. development’, arguing that most of the geographers
The work of Buchanan, for example, only really of the western world ‘have been educated in the lib-
became known in the USA from about 1972 eral ethos that development is a necessity’ (McGee,
onwards (Peet, 1977b), but his work and that of 1974: 30) as if they had all somehow been collect-
other geographers such as Jim Blaut (1970, 1973) ively duped. In his article McGee criticised the
began to illustrate a new awareness of the ethnocen- modernisation approach for its reassertion of the
trism of ‘western development’ (issuing from a primacy of the ‘American-European experience’
‘white North’ as Buchanan put it). In addition, (McGee, 1974: 31) and argued that it was important
David Harvey’s writings about social justice (1972) to remember that other regions had different ‘tem-
raised associated issues about cities and the uneven- poral, demographic, economic and social dimen-
ness of capitalist development. Suddenly, dis- sions to that of the American-European experience’
enfranchised groups were offered geographical (McGee, 1974: 31). Gould’s (1970) uncritical list of
‘expertise’ by a community of geographers seeking modernisation variables presented in his study of
to become less engaged with states and other mon- Tanzania included, for example, such things as the
opolisers of power. number of high court circuits, churches, the size of
Some geographers studied Wales (Buchanan, the prison population and the number of criminal
1977a) and the Republic of Ireland (Regan and cases. This approach was criticised by Brookfield
Walsh, 1977), illustrating how cases of poverty and (1973b) and McGee (1974) for failing to recognise
underdevelopment were not exclusive to the ‘Third that these ‘variables’ were conditioned in part by the
World’. Radical geographers also raised questions legacies of colonialism and because there ‘was no
about warfare in North Vietnam (Lacoste, 1973) real questioning of whether these so-called “mod-
and the geopolitics of imperialism (Abdel-Malek, ernization variables” are functioning in the same
1977). Other accounts (Cannon, 1975) were con- manner in LDCs as they are supposed to do in the
cerned with exploring the geographies of depend- West’ (McGee, 1974: 32). Quite interestingly,
ence. One of these articles, by Terry McGee, was McGee refers to these geographers as the ‘distance-
subtitled ‘Towards a geography of anti- decay geographers’ that:
development’ (McGee, 1974), which the author rec-
ognises must have seemed ‘positively reactionary’ at Are like pre-historians plotting the distribution
the time. The phrase ‘anti-development’ only really of some artefact whose function they assume
appears again in the final sentence of the paper. from analogy with a similar artefact found in
McGee explains how geographers interested in another culture.
development and modernisation needed to rethink (McGee, 1974: 32)
their typically narrow and negative approach to
‘tradition’ in non-western countries: Thus some geographers were looking to reconstruct
the history and geography of non-western areas
This then is an appeal for geographers who work from the artefacts of their own past, from the
in LDCs to return to the grassroots; to reassert experience of their home countries and western
the ‘tradition’ and core of the discipline as a field regions. McGee tries to argue that through his work
subject, not simply a data manipulation subject; in Hong Kong and the informal sector it had
in this fashion I believe we can contribute. become clear that there was ‘no neat unilinear
(McGee, 1974: 42) change from traditional to modern systems’
(McGee, 1974: 41). The hybrid forms of tradition/
Geographical research in the years leading up to modernity in ‘the Tropics’, he argued, had not
McGee’s article is depicted rightly as based around been adequately theorised by geographers and
a notion of the discipline as some kind of ‘data deserved further attention. While McGee was
manipulation’ subject, adrift from the ‘grassroots’ pointing to other directions that would emerge
concerns of LDCs (the language used here was very more fully only in the 1990s amidst debates about

6 1
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‘postcolonialisms’, ‘post-development’ and (alter- raphers influenced by Marxist thought have thus
native) ‘modernities’ (which we explore later in the illustrated how capitalism attempts to surmount
book), the critique of geographies of modernisation problems by expanding and shifting production
proved effective. By the 1980s, renditions of ‘devel- into new territories and forming new international
opment geography’ could not credibly ignore power divisions of labour. Indeed, the very expansion of
relations, dependency and imperialist legacies. At European empires into Africa, Asia and the Ameri-
the same time ‘modernity’ and ‘modernisation’ were cas from the fifteenth century onwards is seen as
increasingly being seen as multiple, hybrid and het- driven by this desire to expand capitalism, to extend
erogeneous. Radical geographers had pointed to production into new territories, to open up new
resistance, disjuncture and difference amidst the markets for capitalist goods and to find new global
enduring power relations (Buchanan was not reti- sources of profit. The development of central
cent to call these ‘imperialist’) of domination and regions was therefore seen as predicated on the
dependency. underdevelopment of peripheries in all capitalist
The philosophical and theoretical foundations societies.
for this radicalism were found in the work of Marx, The idea of a ‘map of development discourse’
which radical geographers began to study seriously (see Table 3.1) developed by Michael Watts (Watts,
in 1972 (Peet, 1977b: 21). As outlined in the work of 1993b) is useful here in furthering our understand-
Karl Marx, capitalism was commonly understood ing of the emergence of Marxist debates in devel-
as a system of economic production which thrives opment geography during the 1960s and early
on the inequality arising from the continual need to 1970s. Marxist development writings suggested that
develop production forces (labour power, raw conditions in what were then often termed ‘LDCs’
materials, transport and machinery) and to make could not be understood without an examination of
commodities which can be sold at a profit. This sys- their roots and basis in a global system of exploit-
tem is shown in Marx’s work to be inherently ation and unequal exchange. Although maintaining
growth-oriented and prone to crisis. Many geog- a notion of a ‘Third World periphery’, they focused

TA B L E 3 . 1 A M A P O F D E V E L O P M E N T D I S C O U R S E
N O R M AT I V E A S P E C T O F D E V E L O P M E N T T H E O RY

PERIODISATION The State1 Civil Society2 The Market3

(Market failures, regulations for (Association life, households, (State failures, separability of
growth with equity, institutional communities, lobbies, non- equity and efficiency, harmony)
and political capacity) governmental organisations, non-
state economic and cultural
production)

Phase 1 Relative backwardness and Marx proto-socialists and Classical Political Economy
1760–1890 catching up European populists Laissez-faire division of labour,
First Industrial Protectionism, forced savings comparative advantage (Smith,
Artisanal production, small-scale
Revolution (Meiji reforms, Witte’s Russia, Ricardo, Malthus)
co-operatives, collective control
List and Bismark in Germany)
(Sismondi, Owen Proudhon,
Fourie, Herzen)

Phase 2 Soviet Keynesianism Gramsci, Arendt, neo-Marxist Neoclassical Economies

1890–1945 Socialism State role in theory Harmony and just returns, general
Classical Nationalisation, crisis equilibrium models (Marshall,
Autonomy of civil society
imperialism central regulation Austrian School, Schumpeter,
solidarity, pluralistic rights
planning, through fiscal Pigou)
collectivisation and monetary Neo-populism
and primitive policy (Keynes, Russian populists, Narodniks,
socialist Gerschenkron) East European Green uprising,
accumulation Gandhism (Chayano, Gandhi,
(Preobrazhen- Chernyskevski)
sky, Stalin)

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THE ‘DEVELOPMENT’ REVOLUTION

Phase 3 Third World Development Development Weberian Neoclassical Modernisation

1945–1980 socialism and economics and populism, modernisation economic theory
Growth to crisis radical growth with agrarianism, development
dependency equity small is Rationality, Human capital,
beautiful calculability, Pluralist state formation,
Maoism, Ho Import modernity, theory, stages of
Chi Minh, Che, substitution Community institutional agriculture and growth,
Debray, Indian industrialisa- development capacity innovation, aid diffusion,
Marxism/ tion protection, informal sector (Hirchmann, and trade savings, need
Nehru, Komai bug push, appropriate Elias, Pye, Ong, (Bauer, Schultz, achievement
(delinking, linkages, technology, Buttel) Ruttan, Myint, (Rostow,
basic needs, (Lewis, Myrdal, African Jorgensen) Chenery,
central Mahalanobis, socialism Rodgers)
planning) Economic (Nyerere,
Commission for Lipton, Mellor)
Latin America),
redistributive
strategies, basic
needs

Phase 4 New political economy New The public Neoliberal counter revolution
1980–1990 institutional sphere
Crisis, Developmental New growth economics Price distortions, rent-seeking,
stabilisation, state: theory: Local market strategies, trade theory
adjustment neo-Weberian endogenous Transaction cost knowledge/ (Timmer, Krueger, Berg Report,
state capacity, government approaches, peasant science, Lal, Little Balassa, Bauer)
relative behaviour, imperfect and new social
autonomy, collective action asymmetrical movements, non-
embeddedness theory, multiple information governmental
(Wade, Chalmers equilibria (Stiglitz, organisations/
Johnson, (Becker, Bates, Bardhan, private
Evans, Amsden) Krugman) Nugent, de voluntary
Janvry, organisations,
Williamson) feminisms, post-
Marxism
(Escobar, Shiva,
Hettne, Offe,
Laclau, Kothari,
Habermas)

Notes: 1 The State is understood as a set of institutions which act as a system of political domination/regulation with specific effects on
class and class struggle (see Jessop and Brown, 1990: 28).
2
Civil society is understood in the Gramscian sense as a non-state sphere of organisation – ‘the ensemble of organisms commonly called
private’ – where hegemony and consent are organised, possessing the potential for rational self-regulation and freedom (Gramsci, 1971).
3
The market is understood as a nexus between buyers and sellers (but an institutional nexus that has to be made, that is to say, an auction
in which buyers and sellers bid against one another or as a broker-organised market).
Source: adapted from Watts (1993b).

on the supply of raw materials to the metropolitan during which different streams of radical depend-
countries, pointing out that core and periphery were ency and ‘Third World’ socialisms impacted upon
‘locked together’ by the need for accumulation and the way in which social scientists viewed (capitalist)
to appropriate surplus value from the periphery development. Although the intellectual origins of
(and all the contradictions this involves). The peri- development have a long and complex genealogy or
odisation formulated in this map begins in 1760 intellectual history (Rist, 1997), the cartography of
with industrial revolutions in Europe but discerns a development discourse constructed here highlights
‘growth to crisis’ period running from 1945 to 1980 the fruition of ‘development’ as an idea after 1945

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and outlines some of the complex contextuality of nomic and political restructurings in Southern
its invention and institutionalisation, through eco- Africa and often involved off-campus participation
nomic crises and depressions, through anti-colonial in political struggles throughout the region. The
struggles across the ‘Third World’ and as a response neglect of the Middle East continued however,
to the revival of neoclassical economics: ‘the naked which was strange and difficult to explain given the
emperor of the social sciences’ (Keen, 2001). importance of OPEC members (e.g. Saudi Arabia)
Human geographic scholarship was thus always a in the emerging world economy of the 1970s when
part of these dynamic contexts: oil price rises had given rise to debates about multi-
national corporations, the ‘relative decline’ of
Human geography was part and parcel of these America, and (particularly on the Left) debates
transformations which were both in a sense about ‘dependency’ and the ‘internationalisation’
rooted in the world system: foreign aid in the of capital (Vitalis, 2002).
choppy waters of Cold war geopolitics, and the- Selected British geographers continued to debate
ory in the growing sensitivity to the demands the perceived parochialism of their contemporaries
imposed by the world market and by dependent into the 1980s, however (Farmer, 1983; Johnston,
locations in the world system of transnational 1983; Potter and Binns, 1988; Potter and Unwin,
capitalism. 1988). Examining the 1987 Register of Research
(Watts, 1993a: 180) Interests for the Developing Areas Research Group
of the IBG, Potter and Unwin (1988) found that
Africa was central to some of the quite ferocious relatively few British geographers were working on
debates which began to emerge within geography development topics and that planning, industrial-
about the political economy of underdevelopment isation and physical-environmental issues had been
(Cooper, 1980), led in part by the work of Dakar- neglected. Interestingly the geographical coverage
based African scholar Samir Amin. Work by of this research appears to have changed only very
Wisner (1976, 1977) and O’Keefe and Wisner (1977) slightly from that of the early 1960s (the leading
grounded the impact of recent droughts not in trop- countries for research projects in 1987 DARG regis-
ical climate variations but in class relations, looking ters were Nigeria (6), Kenya (5), India (3) and South
at famine as socially and politically produced. Other Africa (3), although Brazil (5) and China (3) had
work on dependent industrialisation, peasant dif- been chosen more frequently as project locations.
ferentiation, state intervention and African/global One geographer, David Stoddart (1996), wrote a
accumulation thus began to emerge alongside some- letter to the Editor of the Geographical Journal in
thing resembling a rewriting of colonial history. response to a review of British geography published
Watts (1983), for example (working in Northern between 1992 and 1996. The only locality identified
Nigeria), traced the history of famine and food specifically during this period (other than Europe)
security by drawing upon Marxist debates about was Antarctica, leading Stoddart to ask the ques-
agricultural modes of production and markets. A tion: ‘Has British geography forgotten the world
kind of new ‘political ecology’ approach had thus exists?’ (Stoddart, 1996: 355). Thrift and Walling
emerged (Blaikie, 1985), combining work on natural (2000) and Potter (2001b) have picked up these issues
hazards with theories of political economy. in their work, looking at the virtual demise of many
Francophone geography was also important here area studies departments in British geography
with new work undertaken during the 1970s on the departments. Thrift and Walling (2000: 106) write:
dynamics of rural space in Sahelian communities ‘much is written in theory concerning the necessity
and on the problems of urban growth and health. In to appreciate difference, but this is too rarely articu-
theoretical terms the 1980s and 1990s witnessed a lated in practice.’ These authors also talk of a kind
retreat from structural Marxism and dependency of ‘pious Eurocentrism’ that characterises much of
theory to a concern for gender, social history, and com- the discipline, similar to what Potter (1993, 2001b)
munity-level and household dynamics (often linked calls ‘Little-Englander’ geography. Potter (2001a)
to agrarian issues). Human geography also emerged also notes that many geographers are not cited in
more prominently during this decade in a number development-oriented social science journals
of parts of the non-western world such as with the (Potter, 2001a: 189). None the less, the insightful work
‘new wave’ of South African geography (Crush, of geographers such as Richard Peet, Mike Watts
1986) which raised important questions about eco- and Jonathan Crush is being read and cited in other

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social science disciplines and there are signs that 2001b: 424). Thus many themes of interest to con-
geographers are beginning to become more in- temporary development geographers (e.g. globalisa-
fluential in debates about development theory and tion, neoliberalism, postcolonialism) should ‘also
practice. The critical approaches to studying devel- be seen as fertile grounds for sub-disciplinary inter-
opment geography that emerged in the 1980s and action’ (Potter, 2001b: 424). Referring to the
1990s are explored in further detail in later chapters. important work Geographies of Development (Pot-
Potter (2001a) makes some concluding points which ter et al, 1999) Potter writes:
are particularly interesting, referring to a confer-
ence he attended recently where one delegate had Thus, Geographies of Development, specifically
argued ‘vociferously’ that geographers concerned took this remit and stressed that the study of
with development issues could not possibly be com- inner city areas, lagging regions and Eastern
pared with the luminaries of other disciplines in Europe are all part of development geography . . .
terms of their overall impact on the study of the text uses as examples the case of aboriginals
development: in Australia, and mass tourism and Southern
Europe via the case of Spain.
It seems that some geographers think dichoto- (Potter, 2001b: 425)
mously about the contributions made by those
who work in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the In a similar vein Potter (2002) argued in a recent
Caribbean. This seems oddly misplaced in a editorial of the new journal Progress in Develop-
world system dominated by globalization and ment Studies that the journal was keen to publish
transnationalism, together with their highly materials that deal with issues of development and
uneven geographical outcomes. change in all areas of the globe ‘including eastern
(Potter, 2001a: 189) European states, the post-Soviet arena and, indeed,
development issues in so-called “developed soci-
In a further article published later the same year eties” ’ (Potter, 2002). This work suggests that geog-
Potter (2001b) explains how those who specialise in raphers interested in development must move to
what are known as ‘peripheral’ areas are often seen ‘encompass issues and policies of development
to belong to some distant relative of the discipline, wherever they occur’ (Potter, 2001b: 3) and also
to area specialities which mark their contributions mentions the need for ‘ “more talk about develop-
out from other parts of the discipline. For example, ment” in Geography’ (Potter, 2001b: 425). In a
Alan Gilbert (1987) has observed that had he done related sense, Robinson (2002) writes of the persist-
the bulk of his work in the UK, he would be ence of a split in geography and other disciplines
described as an ‘urban geographer’, but because he between accounts of cities in countries which have
has carried out most of his urban research in South been labelled ‘Third World’ and those of the ‘West’,
America he is seen as a ‘Latin-Americanist’. Potter’s indicating how these sharp divisions in scholarship
critique suggests that it is necessary to ask why so can reinforce the notion of these two categories
many texts on urban and social geography neglect being entirely distinct. Focusing in particular on the
the ‘majority world’. Why examine only those areas vast and expanding ‘world cities’ literature, Robin-
of advanced capitalism? (Sidaway, 1994). Potter son looks at the continuing importance of categor-
(2001b) argues that ‘the world’s “have nots” also ies in thinking about urban areas which ‘privilege
receive a disproportionately low share of the atten- the West as the source of economic dynamism and
tion of geographers’ (Potter, 2001b: 423) and asks globalisation’ (Robinson, 2002: 539). By contrast,
why it is that China and India (with a combined the ‘developmentalist’ approach to cities sees all
population of over two billion people) receive rela- poor cities as infrastructurally poor and economic-
tively little attention by geographers in comparison ally stagnant. Robinson’s work calls for a more
to the attention focused on European and North cosmopolitan approach focused on what can be
American countries. Mansell Prothero is also learned in each context, with US and African
quoted as sharing Potter’s sense of dismay with examples informing each other rather than being
contemporary attitudes, arguing that ‘they are kept separate:
much more endemic and have characterised British
geography over all the time that I have been One of the consequences of these overlapping
involved, from 1947 onwards’ (quoted in Potter, dualisms, is that understandings of city-ness have

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come to rest on the (usually unstated) experiences it recalls a telling complex of metaphors inherited
of a relatively small group of (mostly western) from empire.
cities, and cities outside the West are assessed in (Redfield, 2000: 21, emphasis in original)
terms of this pre-given standard of (world) city-
ness, or urban economic dynamism. For a few short years development geography was
(Robinson, 2002: 539) infused with the sort of spatial algebra and ‘math-
ematical mystification’ then driving the ‘new geog-
Thus substantial areas of the globe are confined to raphy’, and some development geographers did
structural irrelevance in much contemporary begin to map out the optimistic logic embodied in
thought about cities and urban life. Robinson thus the linear stage theories of the modernisation
calls for ‘views from off the map’. This has particu- school (Corbridge, 1986). However, this ‘marriage
lar relevance to our discussion of the changing map of statistics and space’ was short lived, as it became
of development geography and suggests the need to apparent that this perspective was ‘blind to the his-
focus on wider issues about so-called ‘alternative torical reproduction of systems and processes of
modernities’ (Ganokar, 2001) and on articulations inequality’ (Corbridge, 1986: 4–6). The ascendancy
of ‘race’, development and postcolonialism (Peake of alternative approaches was characterised by fur-
and Kobayashi, 2002). In this way it may be possible ther work on the urban informal sector, the
to extend the lines of enquiry anticipated by increased study of rural problems (a countenance
Buchanan, McGee and other radical geographers. to the idea of ‘urban bias’), by a concern for
Feminist accounts of tropical and development decentralisation of planning and population and
geography have also yet to be written, but important by theoretical work on regional development pol-
feminist work on the wider history of the discipline, icy. There was often a policy and planning rele-
such as that of Domosh (1991), Rose (1993) and vance to some of this work and an emerging focus
McEwan (1998), are relevant and instructive here. on small groups, communities and local issues
The male domination of development geography (Forbes, 1984). As we shall see in Chapter 4, two
comes through quite clearly in some of the mascu- major theoretical traditions initially included the
linist assumptions made about ‘development’ and ‘basic needs approach’ and work emanating from a
its subjects. Even the brief and partial account Marxist and neo-Marxist perspective (Watts,
offered here indicates the consequences and merits 1993a, 1993b).
of beginning to take into account the margins in One account of the remaking of the sub-
histories of twentieth-century geography. discipline of economic geography in the 1960s sug-
gests that the conventional understanding of the
emergence of spatial science ‘is interesting for all the
CONCLUSIONS: GEO-WRITINGS AND places not included . . . Africa . . . Asia or Austral-
T H E T RO P I CA L WO R L D S O F asia’ (Barnes, 2000: 18). Thus standard histories of
DEVELOPMENT the discipline focus on the movements of texts, ideas
and individuals between key nodes such as Cam-
bridge and Bristol (England), Lund (Sweden),
Rather than an objective, detached intellectual
Washington, Iowa, Michigan and Chicago (USA),
endeavour, international relations scholarly dis-
but focus much less on the making of the discipline
course on North–South relations becomes
in Ibadan or Durban, Singapore or Rangoon. What
imbued through and through with the imperial
was being suggested by McGee in his anti-
representations that have preceded it.
development critique was that the whole post-
(Doty, 1996: 161)
Second World War movement for the political
‘The Tropics’ . . . on a metaphorical level this ‘development’ and ‘modernisation’ of the ‘Third
phrase partially substitutes for the Third World – World’ was based on the assumption that this was
that is to say, ‘developing’ regions, largely com- ‘right for everyone’ and that other paths, trajector-
posed of former colonies. While not always ies and concepts must therefore be ‘wrong’. In this
geographically accurate (any more than the sense we might ask what happens, for example, to
terms the Non West or the South), it serves as a the geography of Africa (conventionally scripted as
reminder that people and machines operate in dif- the ‘least developed’ continent) when Africa is seen
ferent natural and cultural environments, even as as rich in economies, connections, cultures and lives

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whose contributions, diversity, wealth and worth

are not captured adequately by being imagined as
more or less developed (Myers, 2001).
Alternatively why are poverty, racism, marginal-
ity and deprivation (or, for that matter, excessive
consumption among the affluent) in Europe, North
America or Russia and post-communist ‘transition
economies’ not seen foremost as issues of ‘devel-
opment’ (Wood, 1998; Jones, 2000)? In this sense we
need to understand how geography and geograph-
ers created a space in which only certain things
could be said or even imagined about tropical
‘others’ (Escobar, 1995). It is this notion of the
unique and distinctive space(s) and processes of ‘the
Tropics’ that is the ghost of development geography
today. People in the West had supposedly ‘mobil-
ised’ themselves into forming nations and building
sovereign states around these nations; so too there-
fore must the lagging and ‘backward’ ‘Third World’.
Modernisation theories of development envisaged
rational bureaucracies, legal systems and military
institutions in addition to periodic elections (similar
to those of Washington or Westminster, for
example), but as Lummis (2002: 67) has argued:
‘calling this “development”, which would mean the
unfolding of the possibilities latent in the indigen-
ous cultures, was simply a way of concealing the
violence being done to these cultures’.
Fieldwork in ‘developing countries’ is today
being increasingly recognised as deeply problematic;
yet for geographers such as Jim Blaut and Keith
Buchanan, fieldwork was to be embraced as an
opportunity to transgress the imagined geographies
Figure 3.5 Objective Decolonisation 2000: the UN and freedom to
of tropical development and engage wider, more
choose
revolutionary ideas. Their work spoke of planning Source: UN Department of Public Information
research with people rather than for them. In this
chapter we have sought to highlight the value of rather than assume that they are immature ver-
recovering and reworking the diversity of fieldwork sions of some master western prototype.
traditions in geography, such as those that charac- (Ong, 1999: 31)
terise this domain of tropical/development geog-
raphy. By confronting the problematic of fieldwork This then was a key weakness of the geography of
(and the uneven power relations that structure these modernisation school (McGee, 1974) and its ‘pre-
experiences) geographers can engage more fully in Historians’ that had sought to map and interpret
ongoing projects of decolonisation and the wider the regions they encountered by analogy with other
deconstruction of development geographies. In this cultures. In addition, most of the academic
project of decolonising development geography we researchers who went to study the ‘problems’ of ‘the
need to look beyond the idea of a master western Tropics’ located themselves in what we might refer
prototype: to, following Yapa (2002: 35), as the ‘realm of the
“non-problem” ’. In this way these researchers often
We need to attend to how places in the non-West located themselves in privileged epistemological
differently plan and envision the particular com- positions outside the problems they studied. Thus
binations of culture, capital, and the nation-state, few geographers saw themselves as implicated in

6 7
GEOGRAPHERS AND ‘THE TROPICS’
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

colonialism and the underdevelopment they sought determinism and other passé modes of geo-
to write about and map. With the radicalisation of graphical thought/analysis has proved enduring. As
geography in the 1960s and 1970s many geograph- the 1960s progressed and revolutionary pressures in
ers began to adopt different and more critical ways the South accelerated (epitomised by the insurgen-
of looking at colonialism and its legacies in the cies in Vietnam and the Portuguese colonies and the
Third World. Blaut (1976) argued, for example, lurch into Mao’s ‘cultural revolution’ in China),
against the idea of the ‘European miracle’, showing Buchanan embraced them – some years before a
that Europe was not superior to other regions prior wider development geography (or indeed wider
to 1492 and that colonialism and the wealth plun- human geography) was recast as ‘radical’. Buchan-
dered from the Third World had led to the rise of an’s renditions of the achievements of Maoism have
Europe rather than any scientific process of ration- not stood the test of time – or rather the exposé of
ality (Peet with Hartwick, 1999). the devastating impacts of Maoist politics on
Buchanan’s later work on the Southeast Asian China’s environment (Shapiro, 2001). Ray Watters’
world also drew an important distinction between a (1998) obituary appreciation of Buchanan details
concern for description and a concern for ‘trends some of the difficulties that Buchanan’s radicalism
and forces that have shaped and are continuing to produced in the Cold War climate of New Zealand’s
shape the turbulent and diverse nations and the universities in the 1950s, among them the cancella-
region’ (Buchanan, 1967b: 11). Buchanan also made tion of exchanges with China.
a number of important connections between his It is also useful to think about the ways in which
research on the West Midlands and that concerning geographers sought to provide descriptions of the
‘the Tropics’, locating the major features of human spaces and places of (economic) development and,
geography in Southeast Asia within a wider sense of from the early 1960s, to combine these with pre-
underdevelopment: scriptions of what was involved in ‘catching up’. The
interventions of radical geographers were thus
by comparison with the developed nations of the beginning to show that these prescriptions for ‘trop-
West their [Southeast Asian] social and economic ical’ and ‘backward’ countries were not a neutral,
structures have been warped and retarded and rational enterprise that was untouchable but rather
these processes have resulted in an impoverished something which was very much caught up with the
and marginal quality of life for the great majority strategic political interests of the USA during the
of their peoples. Superficial observers have been Cold War. According to Peet with Hartwick (1999:
inclined to explain away this backwardness as the 90), the ‘modernisation’ framework was a ‘cold war
result of a tropical environment or the alleged attempt at legitimating US domination of the
lethargy of tropical peoples. [These are] environ- global system’. This chapter has tried to excavate
mentalist-racist assumptions [of] little validity. the genealogies (or intellectual histories) of devel-
(Buchanan, 1967b: 20) opment geography, relating it to geopolitical, eco-
nomic and social traumas of decolonisation. While
What was important about the work of radical interested in such a ‘big picture’, we can also
geographers such as Buchanan (and he was not approach this story in part through engagements
alone in this) was that earlier, descriptive geo- with the works of a series of radical geographers,
graphical approaches to tropical areas were taken to among them Keith Buchanan. Buchanan was one
task for the way in which they sought to ‘explain of several radical geographers working in the late
away’ the supposed backwardness of tropical zones 1960s and 1970s, and his ideas were formulated
in an apolitical fashion which was, at core, deeply largely through conversations with other radical
racist and shot through with the language of earlier geographers and other disciplines. Studying the
imperial endeavours. Most of the other geo- particular movements and writings of Buchanan, it is
graphical work on issues of development at this possible to reflect on the connections between local
time was either a more or less direct link to tropical cultures, economies and philosophies of geographical
geography, or part of the vanguard of positivism field-work and teaching (Power and Sidaway, 2004).
and quantification. Notwithstanding some work on Through these various paths, the (postcolonial)
geographies of modernisation (see Chapter 4) which present of development geography can thus be
gave this a special character, the legacy of descrip- investigated. More recently, Rob Potter (2001b) has
tive tropical geography and its association with argued that today geographers once again need to

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enhance their sense of responsibility to other Empire focusing on the ‘Vietnamisation of the
geographies: world’, the ‘Intellectual pace of the Third World’
and ‘the Economic pattern of Empire’. Moreover,
What is needed is an enhanced responsibility to an examination of Buchanan’s departures suggests
distant geographies. Such distant geographies are the value of biography as a mirror to disciplinary
not lacking in intellectual challenge because they (and other) histories and the study of movements,
are encountered far away; they are not irrelevant places and departures as a counterpoint to the more
to us because they emanate from other societies familiar big stories (metanarratives). There is a
and cultures. danger, however, of representing this radicalisation
(Potter, 2001b: 425–426, emphasis in original) of geography as a straightforward and simplistic
undertaking when actually it was a slow process
Although it can never be straightforward or simple given the ‘ostrich-like’ behaviour of some (liberal)
to conduct, the point here is not to reiterate the geographers who buried their heads in the sand and
argument that crops up from time to time about the refused to engage with politics or the politicisation
focus of geography on examples from Europe and of geography (Peet, 1977b: 26). In one of his later
North America and the neglect/marginalisation of essays entitled ‘Reflections on a “dirty word” ’
the rest of the world (a point that Buchanan made Buchanan captured how many geographers had
so fluently). Instead we can argue, in the light of begun to be critical of the ‘magic’ of development
Bayart (1993) and others, that it is precisely this medicines:
western modernity and its economic, cultural and
political geography that can be creatively ‘deepened’ a decade or so ago, as the ‘underdeveloped’ were
by engagement with the norms of what are usually administered larger and larger doses of the magic
scripted as its margins. Thus the story of ‘tropical’ medicine of ‘development’ [geographers] began
and later ‘development’ geography can be enhanced to notice how this therapy always – and strangely
by considering the role of marginal or peripheral – enriched the developers and impoverished the
spaces and peoples in allowing geographers to rep- supposed beneficiaries of the process.
resent the world and its changing political and eco- (Buchanan, 1977b: 363)
nomic systems. Typically this story has focused
largely on white, male, western academics and much Thus, writing in 1977, Buchanan noted how the
less has been said about the role of women or non- term had become a ‘dirty word’ and how geograph-
western geographers in shaping development ers were seeking increasingly to build critiques of
debates in geography and in defining the nature of the ‘generation of smooth-talking, formula fixated
its methods and agendas. Thus there remains con- and model-making technocrats’ (Buchanan, 1977b:
siderable scope for more sustained and direct 364) based in the ‘white North’. Their prescriptions
engagements with feminist readings of the history were seen to be failing with monotonous regularity
of these sub-disciplinary specialities and with ‘post- and were shown to be rejected increasingly by the
colonial’ approaches to thinking about the col- ‘patients’ they were aimed at. Radical geographers
laborations and ‘partnerships’ that were formed thus sought to illustrate the limitations of assuming
between western and non-western geographers in
the new universities of Africa, Asia and Latin
America from the 1960s onwards.
In the spirit of Buchanan, and his moves between
Asia, Africa, Oceania and Europe, it is possible to
invoke an ongoing crisis of and therefore a struggle
for new representations and understandings of
global geographical difference. If we look, for
example, at Buchanan’s (1972) map of what he
termed ‘The cultural empire’, what today might be
obscured in analyses of ‘globalisation’ is indicated
in quite interesting ways by the global geography of
Coca-Cola bottling plants that he constructs. This
was among a trilogy of articles on the geography of

6 9
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that ‘pie-in-the-sky’ levels of affluence (proposed by to view development as liberation, rejecting ortho-
modernisation theorists) could be enjoyed in the dox development patterns and emphasising the
periphery, calling for a fresh look at theory and development of people rather than the development
practice. Some of these geographers sought instead of economies.

7 0
4
D e v el o p m e n t Thin k ing a n d t h e
Mystical ‘Kingdom of
Abundance’

From the unburied corpse of development, every kind of pest has started to spread. The time has come to
unveil the secret of development and see it in all its conceptual starkness.
(Esteva, 1992: 6)
[S]ocial scientific enquiry regarding social problems is deeply implicated as a causative agent in the
very problems it is designed to address.
(Yapa, 2002: 33)

I N T RO D U C T I O N : K N OW L E D G E A N D capacity to bring about ‘positive change’.

THE ERA OF MODERNITY Enlightenment ideals seem to have exerted a power-
ful influence on postwar conceptions of develop-
The origins of development theories and ideas ment and are also related to the wider question
about progress and modernity are an important of whether modernity is still an unfinished project
part of understanding the ‘invention’ of develop- in the South. To what extent do theorisations
ment as an arena of enquiry and state practice. For of development become caught up in a ‘western’
many commentators, this begins with the postwar perception of reality?
creation of ideas and discourses about ‘under- One discussion of ‘development thinking’ (Het-
developed areas’ (e.g. in Truman’s ‘bold new pro- tne, 1995) has argued that ‘development’ principally
gram’) but we can trace this emergence back further involves three main parts: development theories,
still, to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of development strategies and development ideologies.
European Enlightenment rationality in particular. The first grouping (the subject of this chapter)
Development studies itself must be seen as a legacy refers to sets of logical propositions about how the
of the Enlightenment in its rejection of artificial world is structured which explain past and future
disciplinary boundaries and its search for common developments. The second grouping discusses strat-
and collective approaches to problems and egies of development adopted by actors and agents,
dilemmas of development. What we are interested ranging from the grassroots to central states. Differ-
in here is the extent to which deep-rooted ‘western’ ent agendas reflect different development ideologies
and ‘Eurocentric’ traditions have cast their ‘domin- which constitute the third grouping that Hettne
ant shadow’ over development thinking. The idea (1995) identifies. Various different ideologies of
of progress forged in the Enlightenment era remains development have been formed and have come to
an article of faith in development thinking, while the shape a number of struggles around the world.
idea of development has since taken on a ‘quasi- Interestingly, Hettne also talks about the ‘tendency
mystical connotation’ (Munck, 1999: 198). What of social science paradigms to accumulate rather
emerges therefore is a kind of mystical belief that than fade away’ (Hettne, 1995: 64). Thus different
the project of modernity has not exhausted its streams of development thinking are not always

7 1
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...............................................................................................................................................................................................

entirely distinct, with one simply replacing another, To do this, we need to trace the ‘genealogy’ or
but rather have often overlapped and sought to intellectual history of development over several cen-
interact with one another in a kind of chessboard of turies, not just in the imaginary ‘West’ but also
philosophical positions. Where the idea of devel- around and along its fictitious borders. This chapter
opment comes together most often is around the begins with a broad brushstroke history of
notion of ‘organized intervention in collective ‘Enlightenment’ thinking in the eighteenth and
affairs according to a standard of improvement’ nineteenth centuries, examining the important con-
(Pieterse, 2001a: 3). Each theoretical approach ceptions of progress and forms of knowledge that
therefore has its own vision of ‘collective affairs’ emerged from this era. We then move on to examine
and what types of intervention are necessary to the beginnings of modernity and the rise of mod-
bring about an improvement locally, nationally or ernism and the social sciences, looking at how these
globally. Development theory is thus partly about ideas were then institutionalised and professional-
the negotiation of what constitutes ‘improvement’ ised. It is necessary here to examine the implications
and what ‘appropriate’ intervention means. Differ- of the Eurocentrism of these early theorisations.
ent epistemologies, or ‘rules’ of what constitutes The latter part of the chapter explores three central
knowledge have come into play as a result of this approaches to the theorisation of development, dis-
and the relationship between knowledge and power cussing the modernisation, dependency and post-
has emerged as a central issue. A key thematic in development perspectives. We need to ask how these
these debates is the contestation and conflict around different schools of thought and bodies of theory
these ‘rules’ for improvement: ‘[D]evelopment is imagined very different scales and spaces in their
struggle. To be precise, development is struggle conception of development’s geographies. In add-
over the shape of futures, a dramatic and complex ition, each envisaged quite different political and
struggle’ (Pieterse, 2001a: 1). economic mechanisms in their understandings of
A range of approaches to development thinking progress, imagining different spatial scales and
have been relevant since 1945 and it is not possible assuming particular kinds of links between peoples
to cover each in equal depth here, but these have and places. Finally, this chapter seeks to outline the
included the regional tradition (of chorology or div- theoretical foundations for rethinking development
iding global space into a plethora of unique and geography, arguing for alternative and more radical
unrelated chunks), quantitative spatial science, approaches.
Marxism, humanism, structuration theory, realism
and postmodernism (Cloke et al., 1991). The sub-
themes associated with these streams of thought THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE
have included: economic geography as influenced by T H E O R I S AT I O N O F D E V E L O P M E N T
neoclassical economics, radical geography founded A S P RO G R E S S
on Marxist geography, sustainable development,
political ecology and recent work on post- The term ‘Enlightenment’ usually refers to a period
development. The intention of this chapter is to in European intellectual history which began in the
focus on a small group of some of the most influen- mid-seventeenth century and continued through
tial and enduring perspectives, moving towards a most of the eighteenth century in which new atti-
discussion of the post-structuralist approach tudes to work and capital were formulated (Rist,
developed by scholars such as Foucault and Der- 1997). It emerged during a century of commitment
rida, which have been drawn upon in this book. A to enquiry and criticism, of a decline in mysticism,
central objective here is to question the very frame- of growing hope for life and trust in effort (Hamp-
work from which the two terms ‘more’ and ‘less’ son, 1968). Enlightenment thinkers were concerned
developed derive their authority: namely the econ- to place the idea of progress on a more rational
omistic logic of development with its assumptions footing. Underlying these debates was a concern for
about hierarchies and continuums. Post- social reform and the idea of a progression and
structuralism seeks to repudiate grand or master development of societies built around an increasing
narratives of history and geography, focusing on secularism and a growing willingness to take risks
‘local’ narratives and stories while drawing atten- (Gay, 1973). It is difficult to summarise these ideas
tion to the gaps and fissures in these stories and and writings when they actually comprised quite a
narratives. diverse and heterogeneous group, but there was in

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many ways an interconnected set of ideas, values, pre-eminence of empirical, materialist knowledge
principles and facts which ran through them and (with scientific method as the model), an enthusi-
provided both an image of the natural and social asm for technological and medical progress (with
world and a way of thinking about it. In its simplest scientists, inventors and doctors depicted as the cure
sense the Enlightenment was the creation of a new for society’s ‘ills’) and a desire for legal and consti-
framework of ideas about the relationships between tutional reform (Hall and Gieben, 1992: 36). In add-
humanity, society and nature, one seeking to chal- ition, this intelligentsia expressed a search for new
lenge some of the existing traditional worldviews forms of political organisation which could estab-
which were dominated by Christianity. In this way, lish new ‘civil liberties’ and freedoms in these rap-
Europeans expanded their sense of knowledge as idly changing societies. The Enlightenment thinkers
power: sought then to redefine what was considered as
socially important knowledge, to bring this outside
In the century of the Enlightenment, educated the sphere of religion and to provide a new meaning
Europeans . . . experienced an expansive sense of and relevance.
power over nature and themselves: the pitiless There is a risk, however, of applying the term
cycles of epidemics, famines, risky life and early ‘Enlightenment’ too loosely or too widely, as if it
death, devastating war and uneasy peace – the had touched every intellectual society and every
treadmill of human existence – seemed to be intellectual elite of this period equally (Power,
yielding at last to the application of critical 2001). In referring to this period and these ideas a
intelligence. process of simplification is at work which denies
(Gay, 1973: 3) that the Enlightenment was an amorphous, hard to
pin down and constantly shifting entity (Porter,
Geographically centred in France but with varied 1990). There were, however, many common
foundations in many European states, ‘the ‘threads’ to the evolving ‘patchwork’ of Enlighten-
Enlightenment’ was thus a sort of intellectual fash- ment thinking such as the championing of new
ion which held the attention of many European freedoms, the primacy of reason/rationalism, the
intellectuals. This was not some kind of singular or concept of universal science and reason, the idea of
unanimous viewpoint shared by all in the eight- progress, a belief in empiricism, the ethic of secular-
eenth century; indeed there were many differences ism and the notion of all human beings as essen-
and disagreements. According to Black (1990: 208) tially the same (Hall and Gieben, 1992: 21–22).
the Enlightenment is therefore best regarded as ‘a The idea of development can thus be seen partly
tendency towards critical inquiry and the applica- to have emerged from the crucible of these early
tion of reason’ rather than a singular or coherent debates, particularly the Scottish Enlightenment
intellectual movement or institutional project. and the work of Adam Smith, that had postulated a
Again we see that the historical (as well as geo- ‘theory’ of development embodying a series of
graphical) beginnings of the idea of development ‘natural’ or ‘normal’ stages of human activity and
can be traced not to some singular movement or progress. Smith’s writings in particular were to
project but rather to this tendency to form wider become highly influential in the articulation of
critical enquiries about the organisation and struc- neoliberalism after the Second World War, where
ture of societies and to apply reason and rationality the basic liberal notions of free trade and the liber-
to such social scientific enquiries. This persistent ating potential of free, self-regulating markets have
metaphor of the ‘light of reason’ shining a powerful come to dominate development institutions such as
torch into the dark recesses of ignorance and super- the World Bank. Cowen and Shenton (1996: 13)
stition in ‘traditional’ societies was a powerful and remind us that the beginnings of the modern ‘sub-
influential one at this time. In some ways the term discipline’ of development economics are located as
‘Enlightenment’ refers to a secular intelligentsia much in the ‘rough and tumble of early industrialism’
that had emerged across Europe and that was as in the work of Scottish Enlightenment writers
powerful enough to challenge the clergy and the such as Adam Smith. Thus these texts were them-
authority of the Catholic Church (Porter, 1990). In selves a product of their times and must be seen as
this sense what distinguishes the thought of the emerging from the ‘rough and tumble’ of industrial-
Enlightenment from earlier intellectual approaches isation in a particular region of the world which
(in addition to anti-clericalism) was a belief in the they attempted to naturalise and make sense of.

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The Enlightenment writers adopted a very clear could be ‘entrusted’ with such a role (Cowen and
position on some of the important transitions Shenton, 1996). Property, for example, needed to be
underway with European societies at the time, placed in the hands of ‘trustees’ who would decide
particularly the transition from the tradition and where and how society’s resources could be most
mysticism of the past to the modernity of effectively utilised. The changing social orders
Enlightenment thought and the potential it offered brought about by the making of European modern-
for progress in the future. They sought to make their ity and the transition from feudal to capitalist
writings relevant and contemporary, linked closely modes of social organisation could thus be man-
to the political and economic challenges of the day. aged by ‘trustees’ who had the power to harness
This darkened past traditional social order was these capacities for societal good. Interestingly,
often counterpoised to the bright progressive future some degree of attention was focused on the role of
promised by scientific understanding which meant banks and bankers that might be made fit for
that by concentrating on the future as a realm of trusteeship, using their knowledge to support
unrealised possibilities there was a ‘corresponding industrialists.
depreciation of the past’ (Gay, 1973: 92). These new In eighteenth-century France, the changing social
writings and ideas thus profoundly challenged the organisation of the country was represented as
traditional role of the clergy as the keepers and three ‘Estates’ – the Clergy, Nobility and the ‘Third
transmitters of knowledge, constructing distinct- Estate’, which comprises everyone else, from
ively ‘modern’ approaches to thinking and knowing wealthiest bourgeois to poorest peasant (Hall and
the world and an individual’s place within it. The Gieben, 1992: 33). This gap between enlightened
emancipatory potential of this knowledge turned thinkers (who were often members of the second
out to be limited however, in that it was conceived Estate) and the peasantries of European eight-
of partly as quite abstract and utilitarian, as a kind eenth-century societies is an important part of the
of mastery over nature which thus becomes charac- historical context of Enlightenment thinking.
terised by relations of power. As we saw in Chapter Although they appeared to represent a threat to the
3, many geographers subscribed to this idea of established order, these ideas and writings sought
knowledge as a form of mastery over nature which evolutionary rather than revolutionary change,
was based around binaries, hierarchies and illusions arguing that progress and development could come
of power over natural change. About the about within the existing social order through the
Enlightenment writings, Doherty argues that: spread of ideas among ‘men of influence’ (Hall and
Gieben, 1992).
Knowledge is reduced to technology, a technol- It also follows that Enlightenment notions of
ogy which enables the illusion of power and of truth and objectivity (which continue to underwrite
domination over nature. It is important to stress much contemporary development thinking) actu-
that this is an illusion. This kind of knowledge ally mask underlying power relations. The claim to
does not give actual power over nature. . . . What speak legitimately for others has to be viewed in this
it does give in the way of power is, of course, a context. Various different forms of development
power over the consciousness of others who may have thus carried an implicit assumption about their
be less fluent in the language of reason. . . . right and authority to represent and speak for
Knowledge thus becomes caught up in a dialectic others. The Enlightenment is also important here
of mastery and slavery. because for some critics of developmentalism, the
(Doherty, 1993: 6; emphasis in original) post-1945 development project is ‘the last and
failed attempt to complete the Enlightenment in
One of the main Enlightenment concepts related to Asia, Africa and Latin America’ (Escobar, 1995: 2–
this question of harnessing nature and natural 4). In addition, many postcolonial theorisations of
resources for social change came in the late eight- development (see Chapter 8) have sought to critique
eenth and early nineteenth-century debates about this Enlightenment project generally and the fail-
‘trusteeship’. In this way, many Enlightenment ures of national development projects that it has led
thinkers viewed the remedy for the disorder brought to more specifically (Berger, 2001). Perhaps the
on by industrialisation as related to the ‘capacity’ to clearest indication of the continued importance of
use land, labour and capital in the interests of soci- the Enlightenment I can offer here comes from the
ety as a whole. Only certain types of individual following quotation from a speech by World Bank

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President James Wolfensohn in 1996: world, where they would replace the backwardness
of tradition. Modernist thought also envisaged a
Knowledge is like light. Weightless and process of Enlightenment, of becoming more mod-
intangible, it can easily travel the world, ern and less traditional and also saw a group of
enlightening the lives of people everywhere. Yet enlightened western scientists ‘guiding’ the paths to
billions of people still live in the darkness of pov- progress of distant others.
erty – unnecessarily. One of the major implications of the Enlighten-
(Wolfensohn, quoted in Patel, 2001: 2) ment was that it firmly rooted in the popular
imagination the notion that the ‘West’ was superior
Once again, development philosophies such as that to other societies and that there were ‘stages’ of
of the Bank see knowledge as something which progress with all nations travelling the same road to
travels easily (business class perhaps?) with limited the modern. No society, however, could hope to
baggage, enlightening wherever it shines. For the match the pace of western modernity, where ‘scien-
Bank, the ‘darkness’ of billions of people’s lives tific reason’ was seen to play a more dominant role
demands that that this light should not be extin- (Rist, 1997: 40). The emergence of an idea of ‘the
guished. It also requires that the Bank be estab- West’ was also important to the Enlightenment in
lished as the organisation ‘entrusted’ with the task that it was a very European affair which put Europe
of harnessing this light for the improvement of and European intellectuals at the very pinnacle of
societies in the South. The foundations of many human achievement. There has been a commonly
social sciences were therefore intimately bound up held view that sees ‘the West’ as the result of forces
with the Enlightenment’s concept of progress and largely internal to Europe’s history and formation
the idea that development could be created through (Hall, 1992) rather than as a ‘global story’ involving
the application of reasoned and empirically based other cultural worlds (Said, 1978). As we saw in
knowledge. Science would improve the practice of Chapter 3, the making of nineteenth-century Euro-
agriculture and industrial organisation, harnessing pean ‘modernity’ established a sense of cultural and
natural forces for human interests and cushioning economic difference from other worlds and geog-
the path through the ‘treadmill of human existence’. raphies which shaped the ways in which other (e.g.
The Enlightenment had forged the intellectual condi- ‘tropical’) spaces were viewed as belonging to dis-
tions in which the application of reason to practical tant, uncivilised and immature stages in the pro-
issues could flourish through such ‘modern’ institu- gress of humanity. The establishment of modern
tions as the academy, the learned journal and the con- modes of scientific enquiry, of modern institutions
ference. In turn social and political ideas could be and the modern ‘development’ of societies in nine-
disseminated to a ‘modern’ audience that was consti- teenth-century Europe, was based around a con-
tuted in relation to a class of intellectuals writing trast with the ‘savage’ and ‘uncivilised’ spaces of the
about future progression (Hall and Gieben, 1992). non-western world, a feature of ‘development
Thus what begins to emerge here is the arena of thinking’ that has proven particularly enduring. The
‘development’ constituted through a group of pro- notion of ‘civilisation’ is crucial here in that there
fessional, ‘learned’ individuals who seek to dis- are many similarities with the idea of
seminate their knowledge of progress and freedom. ‘development’:
This emerged directly from a growing concern
about the formations of modernity being made in Like ‘civilization’ in the nineteenth century,
Europe at this time. The very idea of modernity is ‘development’ is the name not only for a value,
central to the foundation of many disciplines such but also for a dominant problematic or interpre-
as geography and sociology (Spybey, 1992). In tive grid through which the impoverished regions
terms of the links between Enlightenment ideals of the world are known to us. Within this grid a
and modernist thought there were a number of host of everyday observations are rendered intel-
important legacies here. Knowledge continued to be ligible and meaningful.
seen as a kind of technology based around the lan- (Ferguson, 1990: xiii)
guage of reason and rationality. The highest forms
of knowledge were scientific and rational; dis- This interpretive grid was very clearly shaped by
embodied ‘science’ would shine the ‘light of reason’ Enlightenment thinking and languages. The para-
into all the darkest ‘underdeveloped’ corners of the digms and philosophies of ‘the Enlightenment’

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influenced Hegel’s nineteenth-century writings, for this nation, and the British ideology of difference
example, on the history of human civilisation and has also survived and flourished after independence
progress. Hegel was also particularly interested in (Chaturvedi, 2000). Reason can be imperialist and
the question of mastery over nature and placed racist (as in the making of the idea of ‘the West’),
European civilisation as the furthest advanced taking a specific form of consciousness for a uni-
along a scale of world historical development. By versal, a standard that all must aspire to reach. Rea-
contrast, Hegel saw Africa as a dark, ‘unhistorical son was also a potent weapon in the production of
and undeveloped land’, a singular space far social normativity during ‘the Enlightenment’, driv-
removed from the awakenings of self-consciousness ing people towards conformity with a dominant and
among ‘learned’ Europeans. Like the philosophers centred ‘norm’ of behaviour (Doherty, 1993). Mod-
of the Enlightenment, Hegel articulated the view ernist reason was structured around a process of
that there was an underlying unity or seamless con- ‘othering’ of nonconformists, cultures and societies
tinuity to human history and believed firmly in the that were not informed by this reason and these
possibility of an ambitious, all-encompassing or social norms, and were thus banished to the lower
‘totalised’ human history (Doherty, 1993). History echelons of humanity, defined as ‘undeveloped’ or
was written ‘from above’ by enlightened philo- ‘uncivilised’. The emergence of new ideas about
sophers then, according to this view, rather than social, political and economic development was
from below in the everyday or popular realm. For therefore bound up with these pressures to conform
Hegel, this unifying thread that ran through all his- to particular rules of what constitutes knowledge,
tory was related to the ‘principle of development’ reason and progress and with the making of a
which dominated his thinking about world histor- ‘Third Estate’ or ‘Third World’ of nonconformity
ical truth and freedom in self-determination. as the alter-ego of a developed ‘West’ (see Chapter
Karl Marx disagreed with the fundamental prem- 5). The rise of the social sciences is one aspect of
ises of Hegel’s approach to world history but none that broad set of changes to which we often refer as
the less drew upon the Hegelian ‘principle of devel- the ‘rise of the modern world’. During the nine-
opment’ to explain the genesis from feudalism to teenth century in particular, the rise of the social
capitalism and his notion of historical materialism. sciences took place in the context of accelerating
Marx reread history and was also interested in the military and economic colonisation of the non-
laws behind the ‘rough and tumble of early indus- western world, of nation-building in the First World
trialism’ in Europe, beginning to raise important and more generally the development of modernity
questions about the structure of societies and the (Schuurman, 2001). This context heavily influenced
organisation of industry and agriculture. Marx’s the theorisation of progress as something which
narrative of emancipation of the working classes, centred upon nation-states, on new forms of collect-
oppressed by the extraction of value from their ive national identity and on national markets and
labour, also operated like Enlightenment reason in transfers. The work of social scientists was thus
abstracting meaning from diverging local histories concerned with understanding and ordering the
and traditions and translating them into the terms many different changes which had been set in
of a meta-narrative or ‘master code’. Marx’s atti- motion. The shift from agrarian feudalism to indus-
tude towards the bourgeoisie was interesting in that trial capitalism in Europe was accompanied by a
on the one hand it was full of admiration for its growth in the social sciences – many of the indi-
‘civilising energies’ and yet on the other it was crit- viduals and organisations that brought about this
ical of its ‘incipient barbarous tendencies’ (Doherty, shift were also enthusiasts for social change. The
1993: 11). growth in the social sciences was thus closely bound
Modernist reason was not as inherently good as up with the emergence of the biological sciences –
the ‘enlightened’ thinkers believed and has been which had clear and lasting implications.
used for a wide variety of purposes. Chaturvedi Metaphors of organic change in the natural
(2000) argues, for example, that the British started world were adapted for the explanation of social
constructing ‘their India’ during the later nine- change. The growth from an acorn into a tree or
teenth century ‘as an integral part of the larger from a seed into a plant implied biological and
Enlightenment project’ which attempted to control organic changes that were used to explain the
non-European peoples and order them within a growth of industrialisation and other man-made
colonial nation. Independent India has inherited social changes. Evolutionary theory also had a key

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impact on the formulation of theories of social although the ways in which people should benefit
change. Thus social development or the develop- from ‘trickle-down’ or ‘redistribution’ is often much
ment of societies was likened to the process of less clear (Sylvester, 1999). This is partly a con-
evolution that Darwin outlined – with its natural sequence of the emergence of these approaches at
succession or progression through a series of stages. particular historical conjunctures and geopolitical
What is interesting is that few analysts followed moments.
these metaphors through to their conclusion, which In the twentieth century, specific western theories
is decay, decline and eventually death and finality of development first began to emerge as a result of
(Wallerstein, 1994). This kind of developmentalism the great recession in trade in 1930s Europe and
sees non-western spaces and their inhabitants as North America and again at the end of the Second
essentialised, homogenised entities and pointed up World War, which had illustrated the need for
the ‘makeability’ of their societies. This was to be an reconstruction and development as very important
enduring legacy of the organicist and evolutionary in a Europe ravaged and devastated by conflict. In
thinking of the Enlightenment. the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s political ‘winds of
Marx’s interpretation of capitalist modernity in change’ were sweeping across many regions of the
particular has continued to be relevant to the theor- South and many new and exciting ideas about social
isation of ‘development’ well beyond 1945 (see and economic progress were in the air. None the
below), and ideologies of Marxism have been drawn less, many of the theories still carried implicit
upon in development strategies in a variety of dif- assumptions about western economic, social and
ferent historical and geographical settings. cultural superiority. However, they were still taken
up by many nationalists struggling for the develop-
ment of a new nation and for a new sense of national
T H E ‘ S I N AT R A D O C T R I N E ’ A N D T H E identity. As we will see in Chapter 5, many of these
C O L D WA R movements and struggles for national independence
in the 1960s and 1970s drew strength and unity
Before development, there is nothing but from the idea of the Third World and its under-
deficiencies. Underdeveloped areas have no his- development by ‘westerners’. The resulting forms of
tory of their own, hardly any past worth recall- nationalist developmentalism that emerged illus-
ing, and certainly none that’s worth retaining. trate further the various ways in which development
Everything before development can be aban- ideas became a common ideological space in which
doned, and third world countries emerge as different movements (on both the left and the right of
empty vessels waiting to be filled with the devel- the political spectrum) came to fight their battles and
opment from the first world. to justify their struggles. In discussing these different
(Abrahamsen, 2001: 19) conceptions it is important to think about where
and when they emerged. Most conceptions reflect
‘Development thinking’ (Hettne, 1995), or the sum some of the priorities of development thinking
total of ideas about development theory, ideology characteristic of their era and the particular time
and strategy, went through a variety of twists and and space in which they were written. According to
turns in the twentieth century. With the end of the Allen and Thomas (2001) the practice of construct-
Second World War, ‘machineries of decolonisation ing development theories generally involves an
were set in motion by colonial states’ (Sylvester, attempt to respond to different perceptions of
1999: 704) and, with the establishment of the ‘development challenges’ at different historical
United Nations, this gave a decisive stimulus to the- moments.
orisations about the political and economic tra- The simple ‘task’ of development, for some mod-
jectories of non-western others. Growth theory and ernisation theorists, was to provide ‘an ethos and
development planning had thus become ever more system of values which can compete successfully
contested theoretical domains. Many development with the attraction exercised by Communism’ (Wat-
approaches, however, share a belief that ‘develop- nick, 1952: 37). Morris Watnick called for the mod-
ment’ is a process which has industrialisation as its ernisation of ‘underdeveloped areas’, painting a
culmination, its end-point or ultimate outcome. picture of ‘underdeveloped peoples’ (Watnick,
Resource distribution has also often tended to be 1952: 22) confined to ‘backwardness’ but somehow
seen primarily as linked directly to the state, torn between the appeal of communism and the

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prospect of western modernisation. This was a key

characteristic of what has become known as the
modernisation school, which was often dualistic,
opposing ‘traditional’ to ‘modern’ lifestyles and
‘indigenous’ to ‘westernised’ cultures, as if nobody
could belong to both categories. Hirschmann (1958)
was another key proponent of modernisation ideas,
voicing the optimistic view that the forces of con-
centration (‘polarisation’) will ‘trickle down’ from
the core to the periphery at national, regional and
global levels. In some of his work Hirschmann
explained how development economics might ‘slay
the dragon of backwardness’ (quoted in Rist, 1997:
219). Governments were advised not to intervene in
this polarisation process despite the fact that Hir-
schmann (1958) was advocating ‘a basically unbal-
anced economic growth strategy’ (Potter et al.,
1999: 46). Gunnar Myrdal (1957) adopted a more
pessimistic view, arguing that capitalist develop-
ment produces deepening regional and social
inequalities. This happens when population migra-
tion, trade and capital movements come to focus on
the key growth points of the economy, such as the
largest urban areas. As we have seen, geographers
contributed to the mapping of a ‘modernisation
geography’ (Peet with Hartwick, 1999), a spatialisa-
tion of these visions of growth and a geopolitical
imagination of development as pro-capitalist.
Geographies of modernisation (Gould, 1960, 1970;
Friedmann, 1966) would seek, therefore, to map Figure 4.1 Join us: it’s only a step! Just a small step to progress?
modernisation ‘surfaces’ and the spatial diffusion Source: South: The Third World Magazine
of progress as something ‘cascading down urban
hierarchies, and funnelling along transport systems’ approach favoured by Rostow, the focus was on a
(Peet with Hartwick, 1999: 84). top-down ‘trickling’ of capitalist development from
Another modernisation theorist who identified urban-industrial areas to other regions (Stöhr and
stages of growth in the development process was Taylor, 1981). Rostow (1960) predicted that nations
Walt Rostow (1960), who outlined them in his book would ‘take off’ into development, having gone
The Stages of Economic Growth. According to through five stages which he likened to the stages an
André Gunder Frank (who later became one of the aeroplane goes through before take-off. Ranging
most vociferous critics of this approach), Rostow from stage one, ‘traditional society’, to stage five,
had lofty objectives for his anti-communist vision, the ‘age of high mass consumption’, the theory
confiding to Gunder Frank that since the age of 18 assumes our faith in the capitalist system since Ros-
he had made it his ‘life mission to offer the world a tow argues that all countries will be in a position to
better alternative to Karl Marx’ (Frank, 1997: 2). ‘take off’ into development. Radical geographer
First drafted as a series of lectures presented at Keith Buchanan was particularly critical of the
Cambridge University in 1958, this notion of devel- formula-fixated, model-making technocrats such as
opment displayed a strong organicism, speaking of Rostow whom he saw as largely irrelevant:
laws applicable to all societies and degrees and
stages of development. The theory advanced by the Rostovian comet (The Stages of Economic
Rostow permeated the practice of international Growth) has flashed across our horizon, finally to
relations and the international structure of devel- vanish into the academic haze of some US uni-
opment in various ways (Rist, 1997). Again, in the versity – and the poor are still with us, poorer and

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more numerous, while the economic systems development. Traditional society for writers such as
which were to offer the magic escape from pov- Rostow was a kind of ‘degree zero of history
erty have been crippled by the war which Rostow corresponding to a natural state of “under-
himself helped to shape and their imperial development” ’ (Rist, 1997: 95). Progress was to get
nakedness is finally exposed for all to see. away from this ‘natural’ state. USAID also later
(Buchanan, 1977b: 364) drew on expertise from the Adam Smith Institute
and has recently promoted privatisation in the
What is particularly interesting about Buchanan’s South of the national industries that were once
reading of the ‘Rostovian comet’ is the sense in viewed (by the same agency) as the leading lights of
which this is seen to have encoded a notion of find- modernising forces (George, 2001).
ing a ‘magic’ escape while masking imperial naked- The advanced state of modernisation was nearly
ness and the motives of Cold War geopolitics. The always represented as ‘western modernisation’ and
fifth stage of ‘high-mass consumption’ seemed to be so non-western traditional societies seem like dis-
characterised by American Fordism (Rist, 1997). In tant poor relations. Modernisation interventions,
addition, the role of the western technocratic despite the desire to create modern capitalist econ-
‘expert’ was crucial to modernisation theorists such omies, also often produced a variety of modernities
as Rostow. The analysis that Rostow provided was and of non-capitalist classes and activities which
heavily taken up by the United States Agency of were in many cases closer to ‘traditional’ modes of
International Development (USAID) and other social organisation (Gibson-Graham and Ruccio,
international aid agencies in the early 1960s 2001). Thus there were a variety of economic land-
(USAID, 2002a). Many expert ‘missions’ were sent scapes created in the wake of colonial capitalist
to Saudi Arabia in the 1950s and 1960s, for development and not always a universal reduction
example, to ‘guide’ the creation of national-level to homogeneity in the wake of an all-conquering
policy agencies and practices so that the country capitalism or modernisation. In fact this was pre-
could harness the potential of its oil resources cisely the ‘mission’ of development thinking during
(Vitalis, 2002). Here, oil companies (many of them the first decades of the Cold War, to produce and
US-owned) constructed themselves as ‘engineers’ of achieve the same kinds of capitalist relationships
modernisation in the Saudi kingdom and foreign and ‘steady state’ institutions in the periphery as
interventions of all kinds were prescribed to help were obtained in the ‘core’ of the world system.
transform the Saudi economic landscape. By follow- What soon began to emerge was an ideology based
ing the ‘rationality’ of modernisation: upon the ‘mission to secure a “fit” between struc-
tural, normative and behavioural components’ of
[A] country afflicted by underdevelopment could political development (Apter, 1987: 16). This
hope to move briskly into the modern tempo of enabled a mutually reinforcing vision of core–
life within a relatively few years, perhaps a dec- periphery relations and statehood so that the West
ade. The state would be the key monitor of devel- could seek to achieve the same ‘steady state’ in the
opment, economic growth and macroeconomic ‘periphery’ as obtains in the ‘metropole’ (Apter,
policy its main concerns. 1987: 16).
(Sylvester, 1999: 705) This mission to secure a ‘fit’ between core and
periphery is crucial to the very formation of devel-
States therefore could work together with oil com- opment thinking. In one sense, then, modernisation
panies, for example, to help this brisk quickening of theory (and the various attempts to apply it to
pace towards a modern tempo of life. Modernisa- ‘Third World’ contexts) involved the idea of repli-
tion has also to be understood partly as a response cating and mimicking the development of others.
to the failures of aid programmes in the As Gunder Frank has argued, they can also be
1940s, in the first cases of decolonisation such as understood as reflections of the ‘Sinatra Doctrine’:
India (Leys, 1996). Enshrined in the World Bank
and the USAID, modernisation discourses therefore Do it my way, what is good for General Motors is
assumed a brisk and instant leap into the modern. good for the country, and what is good for the
Like many other modernisation approaches, United States is good for the world, and espe-
Rostow’s model devalues and misinterprets ‘trad- cially for those who wish to ‘develop like we did’.
itional societies’ which represent the lowest form of (Frank, 1997: 13)

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Geographies of modernisation, as we saw in Chap-

ter 3, were a popular product of geographers work-
ing in Africa, Latin America and Asia during the
1950s and 1960s. Geography was thus quite an
important question in modernisation theory. Slater
(1976), writing in Antipode, argued that this repre-
sented a kind of ‘bourgeois social science’ which led
to what he called the ‘hitherto banal orthodoxy of
Anglo-Saxon geography’ (1976: 88). The modern-
isation school also often talked about the ‘diffusion’
of development from what were known as ‘spread
effects’. Thus a factory might move to a particular
location and this might in turn spur development
elsewhere. This notion of ‘trickle down’ was very Figure 4.2 Women in urban Africa
important to the modernisation writers. The core– Source: Environment & Urbanization (2001)
periphery model which came out of this (Frie-
dmann, 1966) represented the city as constituting a tinued to be the case through much of the twentieth
very important development region – diffusing century (the ‘American century’) and had
modernisation and modern social organisation to important implications for the shaping of develop-
peripheral areas (especially those with traditional ment thinking about the ‘Third World’ (Sidaway,
societies). Geographies of inequality and develop- 2000). The USA sought to address the concerns of
ment cannot be summarised neatly as a set of pre- what it called the ‘Free world’ which would be fur-
scriptive stages however, and neither was the city thered by a crusade against colonialism and later
always the development Mecca it was frequently communism. The USSR also became a major centre
constructed as. Urban areas are themselves subject of power after 1945 and its rivalry with the USA in
to uneven development and inequality and did not the Cold War is an important feature in the making
always disseminate development. Modernisation of development theory. Thus in the 1950s, when
approaches also failed largely to address the modernisation theory first emerged, the ‘model of
importance of gender and gender relations, assum- the modern’ was the image of the USA writ large
ing that men and women occupied equal positions (Luke, 1991). Modernisation ideas were most popu-
in terms of power relations and decision-making lar and at their zenith throughout the 1960s (Esco-
within the household. The ‘trickle-down’ effect has bar, 1995), which was also a decade of considerable
often failed to materialise among those who have upheaval and conflict around the world. Rostow’s
been the subject of modernisation projects. Mod- book was subtitled A Non-Communist Manifesto
ernisation discourses also assumed that all human and comprised an anti-communist focus with the USA
beings/agents were the same and that the interests as the base of modernisation theory. In the 1950s
and needs of men and women were essentially the poverty was thus widely regarded as a breeding
same. Important questions were also not raised ground for the spread of communism as many west-
about where the ‘core’ ends and the ‘periphery’ ern policy-makers worried that continued material
begins or about the wider links to the geopolitics of deprivation ‘would drive third world countries in
liberal cold warriors: ‘modernization theory was so to the hands of Moscow’ (Abrahamsen, 2001). Also
popular [in the United States] in the aftermath of during this time western countries supported and
World War II that it approximated a civil religion armed some of the world’s most oppressive dicta-
championed by liberal Cold warriors’ (Nashel, tors, sponsored anti-socialist guerrilla movements
2000: 134). as in Angola, Afghanistan and Nicaragua and
It is difficult to forget that the background of the intervened directly to defend dictatorships as in
modernisation school is dominated by the USA. Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964) and
The Second World War had undermined the global Chile (1973).
importance of a number of European countries, Traditional societies were, however, infinitely more
while bringing about the rise of countries such as complex than was acknowledged in some of the
the USA and Japan. After 1945 the USA became areas about which geographies of modernisation
the centre of power in the world system, and this con- were produced. These societies were not as ‘back-

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D E P E N D E N C Y: J U S T A N O T H E R
N A R R AT I O N O F T R A D I T I O N V S .
MODERNITY?

The dependency approaches that emerged in the

1960s and 1970s set out to oppose the modernisa-
tion approach point by point to such an extent that
Rist (1997) argues that in a way they ended up offer-
ing only a variation of the tradition/modernity
dichotomy of earlier approaches. Although there
were important variations in focus on internal and
external factors, both approaches saw an imperialist
centre and a (post)colonial periphery, reflecting and
reproducing long-standing historical divisions.
Figure 4.3 Peace demonstrations in Luanda, Angola, after dec-
Theorising the manipulation of the periphery by the
ades of war (April 2002) core was an important process given that at this
Source: Humana People to People (Angola) time a variety of state socialisms had begun to
appear (e.g. in Cuba, Angola, Mozambique, Tanza-
nia and Vietnam). The dependency approach has
ward’ and irrational as they had been portrayed. As important roots in the USA, Brazil, Chile and
Abrahamsen (2001) argues, in the modernisation Colombia and later opened out into a variety of
schema there is nothing before development that is regions including Africa, the Caribbean and the
seen as worth retaining or recalling, only a series of Middle East. The economic programme pursued by
deficiencies and absences. The approach was also in Iran in the 1980s, for example, reflected many of the
a sense very much based around a ‘top-down’ rather ideas on ‘de-linking’ and self-sufficiency propagated
than a ‘bottom-up’ approach, implying that the by dependency theorists such as Samir Amin and
process could be brokered by states or development André Gunder Frank (Halliday, 2000). This work
institutions rather than emerge from the ‘grassroots’ emphasised the growing dependence of Third
struggles of ‘Third World peoples’ as had been World economies on the structure of international
called for in some more radical approaches. In capitalism and occasionally drew upon Marx’s
terms of common criticisms, the division of the writings about the unevenness of capitalist develop-
world into modern and traditional has often been ment, calling attention to the manner of incor-
seen as problematic (Pletsch, 1981). Modern soci- poration that each country had into the world
eties were much more fractured and were divided by capitalist system as a cause of this exploitation.
race, class and politics, and were not as united and Latin American countries had been independent
responsive to the blueprints of planners as was for nearly a century, yet many Latin Americans
often assumed. The scale of modernisation pro- remained poor despite the multiple promises of
grammes was also often a problem in that they modernisation and its mirages. Questions were
assumed that ‘big is beautiful’ (e.g. large dam- asked about how colonies had been stripped of their
building and irrigation projects). Further, the resources and had their land systems reorganised
school and its practitioners often depoliticised and labour relations reconfigured by colonialism,
development, making few if any references to his- and the ‘parasitic’ and exploitative relations it had
tory and culture. Rostow in particular was able to put in place between core and periphery. None the
say little about the ‘final stage’ of the organic model less, the dependency school continued to focus on
of development since its underlying principle was the nation-state and the international economy, on
that growth has no limits (Rist, 1997); instead he the roles of states in preventing inequalities and
simply discussed a number of very generalised scen- urging states to reform land structures and on
arios. Like so many theorisations of development redistributing wealth. Towards the end of the 1960s
that followed, it ended with a creed, a set of prin- a growing disillusion with the laissez-faire and dif-
ciples about what was to be done and heavily fusionist approach of modernisation theory began
invested faith in the goals of mass consumption and to emerge as it became clear that there had been a
westernisation. failure to deliver the promised ‘nirvana of material

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benefits’ (Sylvester, 1999: 707). A more wide-ranging (Frank, 1969). Frank argued that the relations
critique of development theory had evolved which between what he called the Metropole (North) and
was also firmly rooted in the ‘Third World’ and in the satellite countries (South) were exploitative,
certain traditions of Thirdworldism (see Chapter 5). pointing out that any surplus generated in the satel-
The dependency school contended that depend- lite countries was siphoned off to the North, breed-
ency on a metropolitan ‘core’ (e.g. Europe, North ing conditions of underdevelopment. Frank saw this
America) increases the ‘underdevelopment’ of satel- exploitation happening on a variety of spatial scales
lites in the ‘periphery’ (e.g. Latin America, Africa). (national, international, provincial, regional, etc.).
Unlike many modernisation approaches, depend- Theoretically, the dependency debate was an
ency theorists sought to view development in a histor- assault on the conventional wisdom concerning the
ical context, arguing that colonialism had helped relationship between international trade and the
put in place a set of dependent relations between development process. The neo-Marxist aspects of
core and periphery. These peripheral satellites, it its critique offered a revolution against capitalism as
was argued, were encouraged to produce what they a way out, highlighting the weakness and vulner-
did not consume (e.g. primary products) and con- ability of western capitalist economies and their
sume what they did not produce (e.g. manufactured/ dependence on the labour and resources of others
industrial goods). The promised altitude that was as well as focusing on the political role of a local
the fifth stage of Rostow’s model envisaged an (comprador) bourgeoisie in the process of under-
urban-based, western lifestyle of consumption, but development. In terms of its core versus periphery, a
the dependency scholars showed that the planes of focus on the centre would benefit the wealthy, while
the South had been stalled on the runway by the peripheral countries suffered and were actively
unequal relations and a history of colonialism, impoverished as a result of this. The development
denying them a chance of ever being airborne or strategy of the dependency school was formed
‘industrialised’. Unlike the modernisation theorists, partly by an institution set up in the 1950s, known as
the dependency scholars focused more on the the Economic Commission for Latin America
international and global scales and spaces of devel- (ECLA, or CEPAL in Spanish). ECLA emphasised
opment, examining the structural relations of industrialisation by import-substitution (ISI) as
nation-states to the world economy. Just as the well as planning and state interventionism in gen-
modernisation approach was adopted in a variety eral and the need for regional integration in particu-
of ways by international institutes and bilateral lar. For a few years, as Leys (1996) has shown,
donors, the dependency school was made up of all dependency approaches held the initiative, and
those opposed to US policy and by groups of what eventually even the international development
were called ‘Thirdworldists’ (Rist, 1997). community was obliged to accommodate at least
Towards the end of the 1960s a growing disillu- some of its critique: the International Labour Office
sion with the laissez-faire and diffusionist approach called for ‘redistribution with growth’, for example,
of modernisation theory thus emerged as it became in 1972 (Sylvester, 1999).
clear that modernisation had failed to deliver the Key criticisms directed at the dependency
promised flowering of modernity. The dynamism of approach were that the theory represented a form of
the Chinese socialist state had encouraged a number ‘economic determinism’ and overlooked social and
of new countries (especially in Africa, Latin Amer- cultural variation within developed and under-
ica and Asia) to adopt a more socialist agenda for developed regions. The term ‘dependence’ had
change. New countries such as Tanzania, Mozam- also been used immoderately and had led to over-
bique, Vietnam and Cuba all tried socialist experi- simplification (Rist, 1997). It may have said much
ments. Moreover, many Marxist social scientists in about the origins of underdevelopment but a clear
the West had begun to show that development statement of what ‘development’ itself might be
planning and aid was not a neutral process as it had was obscured by a rigid core–periphery model
been portrayed in modernisation theory but actu- which some have read as a simple inversion of the
ally involved exploitation of the Third World in tradition–modernity binary of modernisation dis-
favour of the West. In Latin America, André course. Another point of contention was that the
Gunder Frank made the relations between ‘North’ dependency theorists seemed to be calling for a de-
and ‘South’ a key point of focus in the study of linking from the world capitalist economy at a time
Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America when the world economy was undergoing further

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globalisation. Furthermore, the notion of under- approaches, which meant that there was some con-
development in a way endorsed concepts of First fusion and misrepresentation in early exchanges
World–Third World or core–periphery rather than between these approaches partly because modern-
seeking to fundamentally challenge this schema and isation and dependency ‘seemed to checkmate each
begin a search for alternative ways of differentiation other’ (Schuurman, 2001: 6). There was also confu-
(Palma, 1981). In this sense the dependency school sion around the links that the dependistas had to
‘preserved the dualist simplification of the domin- Marxism and a misguided belief that what was
ant discourse’ (Sharp, 1988: 120) and reinscribed a being offered in their critiques represented a radical
sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’ rather than acknowledg- departure from the existing theoretical and political
ing that the world does not involve an undifferenti- co-ordinates of modernisation approaches (Munck,
ated ‘us’ and a uniform ‘them’. The main proposi- 1999). The development of Marxism in these
tions of the dependency scholars could also be debates and its links to anti-colonial struggles
counterpoised ‘point by point to Rostow’s theory’ deserves much wider recognition, however (Laïdi,
(Rist, 1997: 110). 1988). In many parts of Africa, anti-colonial
While Rostow’s was a history ‘from above’, a nationalisms found in Marxism a code of legitim-
philosophy even, the dependency scholars raised ation against imperialism, a justification of power,
questions about the making of history by real the promotion of new structures of rule and the
people in definite circumstances. Where Rostow saw possibility of ‘catching up with history’ (Laïdi,
colonialism as part of an ‘awakening’ of modernity, 1988: 11). By the early 1980s many commentators
the dependency approach highlighted how colonial- noted the diminishing returns of the dependency
ism underdeveloped the periphery (Rist, 1997). Its critique and pointed to an impasse because there
final aim was also to modernise and industrialise seemed no way to go beyond the theoretical co-
and, as with modernisation approaches, ‘solutions’ ordinates of these previous approaches. While some
to problems were often rather vague and thin on the writers have since sought to ‘go beyond the impasse’
ground. There is also a sense in which the depend- (see Schuurman, 1993), it has been more common to
ency framework left the impression that there was see a return and retreat to liberal orthodoxies
an ‘evil genie who organizes the system, loading the (Hettne, 1995; Munck, 1999).
dice and making sure the same people win all the
time’ (Rist, 1997: 122). In a way this idea of an ‘evil
genie’ is very simplistic. Arguably the break with IMAGINING A POST-DEVELOPMENT
Enlightenment ideas and modernist rationality was ERA
therefore incomplete, in that there remained a focus
on industry and industrialisation based around In some ways much of the relevant literature groups
long-established binaries and dualist divisions of writings about ‘anti-development’, ‘post-
the world. In addition, the economy (rather than the development’ and ‘beyond development’ together
culture or politics of individual spaces and places) as if they were all exactly the same in their signalling
was still seen as of primary importance by the of the end of development. Pieterse (2000), for
dependency scholars in a way which lacked nuance example, groups all three together as ‘radical reac-
and verged on the deterministic. Despite its appeals tions’ to standard and conventional development
dependency also did not inspire many policies of rhetoric and practice. These are not three fully indi-
development except for short periods in Chile and vidual or separate theorisations of development
Cuba. however; neither do they represent some singular
In the early 1980s some authors began to perceive reactionary stance. The mindset, intentions, world-
an impasse in development theory, the topic of sev- view and results of development are rejected by
eral books (Booth, 1985; Schuurman, 1993) from these radical reactions, starting from the basic
where it has since become a ‘landmark in the teach- theme that attaining a middle-class life of high mass
ing of development studies’ (Munck, 1999: 199). consumption for the majority of the world popula-
Development pessimism had thus set in by the early tion is impossible (Pieterse, 2000). These writers
1980s with the realisation of the ever-increasing gap have also sought to problematise ‘poverty’ and the
between rich and poor. Essentially, the dependency portrayal of development as westernisation along-
theorists had stood on its head and inverted the side a critique of modernist, scientific reasoning.
long-standing supremacy of modernisation Poverty is seen here as a culturally, geographically

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and historically variable notion (Rahnema, 1992), Instead knowledge comes to represent the object-
while an attempt is made to show how people are ive ‘truth’ that the World Bank and others con-
often misrepresented through distorted images por- cerned with development have discovered and
trayed by global poverty alleviation campaigns. The accumulated about the third world and
economics of development is seen as truly pauperis- underdevelopment.
ing in this regard (Pieterse, 2000). Development is (Abrahamsen, 2001: 13)
thus seen as the ‘new Religion of the West’ (Rist,
1997). These key questions about knowledge and ‘truth’ in
A key starting point is the idea that a western, development are associated very much with the
middle-class lifestyle is not a realistic or desirable post-development school. Post-development writ-
goal for the majority of the world’s population ings have ‘more than a whiff of counter-modernism
(Pieterse, 2000: 175). These writings could also be about them’ (Munck, 1999: 200) and tend to be
read as a critique of the idea of ‘three worlds’ which sceptical towards grand and all-encompassing stor-
continues to shape ‘western hegemony’ in Africa ies and narrations of development, while the theor-
and other world regions (see Chapter 5). This and etical frames it brings to examine these are quite
some of the other representational practices we novel (Sidaway, 2001: 17). For post-development
have considered so far continue to confer upon writers there are no easy answers and the whole
western countries the right to administer develop- question of development needs to be further prob-
ment and democracy to the ‘South’, on behalf of lematised or rejected altogether. In addition, a key
the (already) developed/democratic world of free- thematic in these debates has been the focus on the
doms. Thus, it is often argued, Africa can be role of human beings as agents or ‘subjects’, explor-
‘delivered’ from its ‘current underdeveloped stage’ ing how their ‘subjectivity’ is socially constructed in
only by First World modernisers. As we shall see in development discourses. ‘The subject’ is a term that
Chapter 7, this good governance agenda is not a refers to individual human beings as agents and the
neutral humanitarian effort to promote develop- ways in which they think their place in the world.
ment and growth/democracy but rather a particular There are a variety of theories of subjectivity, each
discourse which has tapped into larger discursive imagining the subject in different ways, for example,
practices through which global power and domin- as bounded, unique and contained or self-knowing.
ation are exercised (Abrahamsen, 2001). There is no subject prior to knowledge according to
Modernisation is thus still an important idea and post-development theorists; rather subjects are
is very influential among a number of senior world produced by power and discourses. The post-
leaders, political officials and their discourses. development writers have examined the ways in
Modernisation was at the very heart of the UN sys- which subjects are used to justify discourses or to
tem when it was formed and it still is in a way, dom- produce stable grounds of knowledge. This was
inating the ways in which UN organisations view itself quite a major point of departure from earlier
the transfer of knowledge and technology between streams of development thinking and the ways of
regions, for example. Despite all the empty promises knowing constructed in previous approaches which
of development, G8 states still account for 40 per had seen people as the ‘objects’ of development,
cent of the voting power in the World Bank, com- rather than as its active subjects and agents. Thus
pared to just over 4 per cent for the whole of sub- the kinds of analyses of development geographies
Saharan Africa. Politicians like Tony Blair in richer being produced in such perspectives were very dif-
countries such as Britain still have the power to ferent in that they re-centred attention (to a degree)
influence and define the ideological contours of on people, places, subjectivities and identities rather
development policy within the IMF and World than assuming homogeneity and downplaying
Bank and there is now an increasingly close corre- difference.
lation between the policies of the major G8 Post-development writings also seek a critique of
countries and those of Bretton Woods institutions the key assumptions of progress and modernity
(Abrahamsen, 2001). Moreover, positivist and which are formulated alongside a concern with the
empiricist epistemologies still predominate within technocratic measures and definitions of previous
these global institutional sources of power and the approaches. Development is seen here as a particu-
‘knowledge bank’ they have assembled is still seen lar vision, a set of knowledge, interventions and
as ‘objective’: worldviews or as discourses which are related to the

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power to intervene, to transform and rule over power relations? For post-development writers,
‘others’. Thus, rather than seeing knowledge and conditions of deprivation are understood partly as
science as disembodied and all powerful, this a form of socially constructed scarcity:
approach recognises knowledges of development as
situated and partial (Yapa, 1996, 2002). Arturo Discourse is deeply implicated in creating poverty
Escobar, a Colombian anthropologist and one of insofar as it conceals the social origins of scarcity.
the leading contributors to these debates, argues Although the experience of hunger and malnutri-
that different discourses of development have cre- tion is immediately material ‘poverty’ exists in a
ated a ‘regime of truth’, an accepted way of speak- discursive materialist formation whereby [the]
ing about and acting towards ‘developing’ or ‘Third material, discourse and power are thoroughly
World’ countries (see Escobar, 1995). The work of intertwined.
Escobar looks at the ‘kingdom of abundance’ (Yapa, 2002: 36, emphasis in original)
promised by theorists and politicians in the 1950s,
highlighting the failure of developmental benefits to Thus the geographical discourses of tropical devel-
materialise. Escobar (1995: 4) argues that the dis- opment produced from area studies centres (see
course and strategy of development has produced Chapter 3) could be seen as examples of this impli-
its opposite ‘massive underdevelopment and im- cation of social scientific discourses in the creation
poverishment, untold exploitation and oppression’. of poverty. This is not to suggest that poverty is not
In order to see the ‘achievements’ of development also and in a very real sense a material process (like
(if we agree there are any) Escobar argues we must development itself), but rather to signal that it is also
also explore the ‘dark side of domination’, looking simultaneously a discursive process, involving an
at how subjects become the objects of development, enunciation through discourse of what ‘problems’
‘normalised’ in a global push for rationality. or ‘opportunities’ a country or region faces. This
Following the work of post-structuralists such as also means that it is necessary to acknowledge
Michel Foucault, Escobar views development as a the situatedness of post-development writings as
discursive field or system of power relations which well, to be reflexive and to understand how such
produces domains of objects and rituals of truth. post-development critiques emanate from certain
His work focuses mainly on the post–1945 period in (sometimes privileged) positions grounded in a par-
which the objects of development internalise and ticular time and place. As Sidaway notes of Arturo
come to define themselves in development’s terms Escobar’s work, it is worth remembering that this
and looks in particular at how the ‘Third World’ work offers a particular rendition of contemporary
became a global domain ripe for developmental Colombia that cannot be generalised easily, reflect-
intervention. Escobar also raises questions about ing his experience as an anthropologist and his take
the relations between knowledge and power in on Colombia as ‘a society of ongoing violent civil
development, asking by whom and for what pur- war and foreign intervention, whose main export
poses is development knowledge produced and (by value) is cocaine’ (Sidaway, 2001: 18). Escobar’s
how does this knowledge put in place particular critique of development is suggestive, but there is a

Figure 4.4 Post-structuralism and geographers

Source: © David Griffith and Rob Kitchen

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risk that it assumes that all experiences of develop- gestion here is that the the poor were denied a
ment are as traumatic and problematic as that of chance to define themselves, changing their names
Colombia (Sidaway, 2001: 18). and identities such that all backward peoples were
These particular ways of thinking and speaking united by being labelled and lumped together as
about the ‘Third World’ have in turn made possible ‘underdeveloped’. Their identities were forfeited
and legitimised certain practices and interventions (along with their autonomy) and they were now
towards these parts of the globe. Most usefully for ‘forced to travel the “development path” mapped
our purposes, Escobar (1995) argues that thinking out for them by others’ (Rist, 1997: 79).
about development in terms of discourse enables us Instead of asking the question ‘Why are poor
to maintain a focus on power and domination, people poor?’, post-development writings suggest it
while looking also at how that discourse is made is better to ask why particular groups in specific
possible and what its effects are. In President places experience hunger, homelessness and so on.
Truman’s famous speech of 1949 which spoke of The answers to the latter question are very different
‘bold new programs’ and ‘scientific advances’, post- from those to the question ‘Why does poverty exist?’
development readings of this discourse have (Yapa, 2002: 36). When studying the history of
focused on the portrayal of ‘underdeveloped areas’ development geographies and writings about ‘the
as passive victims of disease, poverty and stagna- Tropics’, we are interested in how these works stood
tion. As Abrahamsen (2001: 16) has argued, the as focal points for the thinking of a wider scholarly
inertia of underdevelopment was seen in modern- community of geographers. There is clearly much
isation approaches to stand ‘in sharp contrast to the of value then in Escobar’s critique and his sugges-
dynamism and vitality of the “developed areas” and tion that through North–South relations, ‘develop-
the USA in particular’. Happiness can be delivered ment’ has facilitated control of the ‘Third World’
to underdeveloped areas that live in ‘misery’ by the (and intervention therein). For Roxanne Doty, this
advancing and expanding western world, through has important implications for the issues of repre-
its better technical knowledges and scientific ration- sentation, in that the ‘Third World’ was often
alities. By coupling development and under- seen as a space with a ‘formless’ population of poor
development, Truman thus justified the possibility and destitute people (Doty, 1996). Both Escobar
and necessity of intervention despite the fact that and Doty contest the idea that all Third World
underdevelopment appeared in his speech to have countries are homogeneous and that all are there-
no cause and poverty was seen as a ‘handicap’ that fore ‘primitive’, poor, illiterate and lacking in devel-
produces ‘victims’ (Rist, 1997). opment. As Escobar’s work shows, the structuring
Poverty was a ‘handicap’ and a ‘threat’ both to of a series of absences and deficiencies reinforces
poor people themselves but also to the prosperous the idea that this world needs to be reformed and
and prosperity itself. Truman’s interventions meant improved by regions that are not lacking or
that it was impossible to do nothing. Development deficient in some way. Escobar also recognises that
then has often been considered a humanitarian and even those opposed to conventionally defined
moral concern by the wealthy to help and care for development have remained until recently trapped
the needy and less fortunate, an idea contested within its language and imagery. In this sense as
in post-development writings. Post-development objects of Third World development, governments
writers such as Gustavo Esteva have shown that on have internalised these categories and seen them-
that important day in 1949 of President Truman’s selves in these terms.
speech about a ‘bold new program’ some ‘two bil- These identities are thus not forced on to passive
lion people became underdeveloped . . . trans- recipient countries; they can find leverage in them,
mogrified into an inverted mirror of others’ reality’ access to international aid resources as well as a
(Esteva, 1992: 7). It seemed to matter little if these common sense of shared experiences and trajector-
people were African, Asian or Latin American since ies. Images and hierarchies in development dis-
they were all ‘underdeveloped’ at the end of the day. course are also reinforced continually by the media,
Post-development seeks to focus in part on the where stereotypical images of poverty overshadow
‘social technicians of the development apparatus’ alternative representations of non-western societies.
(Escobar, 2002: 198) and looks to map the com- In the same way that colonialism sought to con-
plex of knowledge–power and the work of those struct the colonised as ‘degenerate’ and in need of
‘doing the developing’ (Ferguson, 1990). The sug- instruction and administration, contemporary

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development discourses have produced knowledge creation of a ‘politics of truth’ about the ‘Third
and institutions which support (and normalise) World’ has conditioned a considerable portion of
western intervention in ‘developing countries’. The the debate about ‘development’. Escobar argues
post-development thinkers in particular have shown that underdevelopment is a fictitious concept, lead-
that development, for all its power to control other ing to a discourse which instilled in Third World
worlds and peoples, is not immune to challenges countries ‘the need to pursue [development] and
and resistance. Much attention centres on the way provided for them the necessary categories and
in which development discourses have depoliticised techniques so to do’ (Escobar, 1988: 429). A par-
the meaning of these debates and privileged the role ticular reality is thus made visible through this fic-
of states and state institutions in what Ferguson tion and discourse, leading to specific ‘treatments’
(1990) refers to as the ‘anti-politics machine’: and ‘solutions’. Some post-development writers
have shown that the material and discursive aspects
[Development] agencies present the country’s of development are thus thoroughly intertwined
economy and society as lying within the control and have sought to show how the labels, images and
of a neutral, unitary and effective national gov- goals of development have infiltrated local mental-
ernment, and thus almost perfectly responsible to ities, philosophies and epistemologies (Marglin and
the blueprints of planners. The state is seen as an Marglin, 1990; Van Ausdal, 2001).
impartial instrument for implementing plans, and One idea that runs through much of this work is
the government as a machine for providing social that there has been (in Escobar’s words) a ‘triumph
services and engineering growth. ‘Development’ of the Western economy’ and the creation of an
is, moreover, seen as something that only comes economic rationality, with subjects subordinate to
about through government action; and lack of capitalism, which is seen to spread globally through
‘development’ by definition, is the result of gov- the ‘guise of development’. Escobar also refers to
ernment neglect. the need for a ‘discursive insurrection’ (1995: 17)
(Ferguson, 1990: 226) which is capable of disrupting the powerful blinders
of development theory and practice, to displace its
In some ways, Ferguson’s work was more categories and therefore open up a space for alter-
‘grounded’ than some of Escobar’s later contribu- natives. Much attention has been focused in this
tions. Ferguson had looked at the specific discourses regard on the role of minority cultures and social
of development that had enframed Lesotho in cer- movements, which are discussed in more detail in
tain ways. Focusing in particular on agencies such Chapter 9. One of the major problems with this
as the World Bank, his work provided strong work, however, is that it often creates an image of
examples of how this approach could be drawn upon development as based on an exogenous model of
in order to understand power relations, subjects and the industrialised world, and this has been taken by
discourses as they are constructed in various critics to mean a prejudicing of the local over the
localities (see also Box 4.1). Many institutions, it global, a kind of return to ISI days. We need also
was argued, positioned the state as the neutral and then to think here about the multiple centres and
natural arbiter of progress within national territory regions that shape development discourse (includ-
in ways which played down the importance of polit- ing those in the South) – not just about ‘westernisa-
ics and struggle. Ferguson (1990: 256) thus suggests tion’ (and obvious icons or centres of consump-
that poverty is depoliticised by the ‘hegemonic tion). What about the East Asia ‘miracles? What of
problematic of “development” ’. Post-development the role of Japan or the Middle East? We may also
writers thus seek to remove the mask of neutrality question the assumption that the “worship of pro-
that is cast over multiple developers and develop- gress” (Rist, 1997) is simply a western preserve.
ment agencies. These perspectives attempt in par- Resistance to western discourse (as we shall see in
ticular to ‘unveil the shroud of humanitarianism Chapter 9) occurs within as well as between
that obscures the way the Third World has been countries.
produced and controlled by the discourses and Development has none the less been character-
practices of development’ (Van Ausdal, 2001: 578). ised by post-development writers as a kind of
They also explore the power relations of develop- ‘Frankenstein-type dream’, an ‘alien model of
ment, the construction of its categories, codes and exploitation’, and what is needed (especially for
truths. Truth is a key question here, in that the Escobar) is not more development but rather a ‘new

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regime of truth and perception’. Post-development given to local and grassroots initiatives is seen as a
ideas more generally have also been criticised for weakness by Pieterse and other critics of this
ignoring discontinuities in the World Bank’s dis- approach. Many focus on the way in which Escobar
course over time and for drawing upon dependency confers enormous power on the external world sys-
approaches very closely, focusing on external rela- tem, privileging certain localities and cultural iden-
tions, but now taking those ideas further to a view tities. In this sense, as Watts (2001: 171) has argued,
of development as an international power– Escobar replicates the weaknesses of the depend-
knowledge regime (Pieterse, 2000: 181). The priority ency scholars’ arguments in that the nature of

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external power is ‘crudely articulated in bold out- Agricultural Development (IFAD), Van Ausdal
line’. While appearing to be concerned with a var- found that far from there being a ‘depoliticisation’
iety of spatial scales and with rooted, embodied of development through agencies such as these, the
knowledge and place-specific practices, critics have IFAD project inspired a greater politicisation of
argued that there is a simplification and homogen- land claims. In this way the attention of post-
isation in seeing development in this way, which development writers to discourse and alternative
aggregates development in ways that prioritise the visions is welcome but may be problematic in that
foreign and the exogenous and see this as uniform ‘[m]ore often than not, however, their conclusions
or monolithic. Post-development is seen to have are overstated’ (Van Ausdal, 2001: 580). Interest-
constructed a rather basic model of development as ingly, Van Ausdal concludes with a warning of the
social engineering, as the ambition to shape econ- dangers of generalising from the Belizean case.
omies and societies in interventionalist and mana-
gerialist ways. As Pieterse argues, for writers such as
Escobar: CONCLUSIONS: DECONSTRUCTIONS
AND RECONSTRUCTIONS OF
It [development] involves telling other people DEVELOPMENT
what to do in the name of modernisation, nation-
building, progress, mobilisation, sustainable The theoretical criterion [for rethinking devel-
development, human rights, poverty alleviation opment] is to enable observers to transcend the
and even empowerment and participation. immediacy of events and see alternatives and
(Pieterse, 2000: 182) possibilities not visible on the ground or to the
naked eye. Such a goal is itself a political matter.
The post-development approach has thus been seen It assumes that by ‘rethinking’ development, we
as essentialising development, misrepresenting its can treat it as a fund of knowledge, a form of
history (and its claims to progress) and under- intellectual capital. . . . Its potential value as a
estimating the complexity of ‘motives and motions constituted perceptual universe is a reordering of
in modernity’ (Pieterse, 2000: 183). Some even experience, the revaluation of case materials, and
say the approach is centred on ‘language games’ the derivation of new comparative hypotheses. In
rather than on any form of critical analysis. In the last analysis we are talking about the power to
terms of ways forward, Escobar mentions three appreciate the larger picture.
major discourses – democratisation, difference and (Apter, 1987: 15)
anti-development – which can serve as the basis for
radical anti-capitalist struggles (Escobar, 1992). Theorising about development is . . . a never-
These struggles, Escobar has argued, need to ending task.
be expanded and articulated, although the agenda (Hettne, 1995: 15)
for this is not especially clear. Escobar’s work is seen
by some to romanticise local/social movements and It is impossible to cover so many centuries of intel-
the wider process of resistance which is dismissed lectual history in such a short space but it is possible
by Pieterse as ‘quasi-revolutionary posturing’ to draw out some of the major notions of growth,
(Pieterse, 2000: 186). Other critics of the approach progress and development that have been formu-
also argue that it presents ‘a conventional and nar- lated. There have been important continuities and
row view of globalisation, equated with homogen- breaks between Enlightenment thinking and what
isation’ (Pieterse, 2000: 188). Development is seen followed, but what does come through loud and
to be ascribed a single and narrow meaning and a clear is the persistent influence of the ways in which
simplistic conception of power which ignores its western societies have conceptualised their relation-
‘polysemic realities’ (Pieterse, 2000, 2001a). ship to the past and future and how this has closely
To some extent a few of these reservations about shaped contemporary ways of envisaging history
post-development/anti-development writings are and geography (Rist, 1997). In addition, all theories
shared by Van Ausdal (2001) who tries to use the and all forms of geographical writing about devel-
framework to explore development discourse and opment have, to different degrees and in various
practice among the Maya in Southern Belize. ways, assumed some theory or notion of subjectiv-
Examining a project by the International Fund for ity of the role of the individual human being as an

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agent of this process. Each also articulates certain it does not imply that these writings are not rele-
visions of power and a sense of the spatiality of vant. Rather we must seek to understand how their
power and development, and each is based on par- conclusions should be qualified and their know-
ticular epistemologies or senses of what constitutes ledge situated and located in particular spaces and
knowledge. These are key themes in rethinking places. Post-development writings do not seek to
development. In Chapters 1 and 2 we recognised the deny globalisation and modernity but instead aim
possibilities of deconstruction as a method of to find new ways to imaginatively transcend them
thinking about development, and what this move- (Hoogevelt, 1997).
ment of ideas and writings shows is that critical dis- It is important therefore to recognise that these
courses can themselves easily slip into and adopt the various schools of thinking never had a singular or
assumptions, postulations or positions that they simplistic ‘theory’ but rather a series of prescrip-
seek to contest (Manzo, 1991, 1995). A good tions or recipes for change which was never uniform
example of this process at work comes from our among its proponents. They have also emerged from
analysis of the dependency approach which shared different spaces and different times, which, in tan-
the same theoretical and discursive spaces as mod- dem with changing geopolitical relations, changes
ernisation approaches, prioritising the national the meaning and theorisation of development over
scale and national territory and foregrounding state time across spaces and ‘worlds’. None the less, it is
intervention. These two approaches have been sin- important to point out that in the specific case of
gled out here because they remain ‘inextricably modernisation theory one of the most important
intertwined in one another’s assumptions’ (Munck, unifying factors that brings the school together is
1999: 203). As Slater (1993) has argued, however, Eurocentrism. Modernisation theory implied that
dependency approaches represented an important the history of Europe or of the West more generally
attempt to ‘theorise back’, as a response to the could be read on to the future history of the Third
assumptions of modernisation theorists about World. Dependency and post-development writings
growth and the diffusion of progress. attempt to disrupt and dislodge this overwhelming
The extent to which alternative (postmodern or theorisation of development from ‘the North’.
post-structuralist) approaches can go beyond these However, even here some traces of Eurocentric
discursive spaces and these familiar theoretical co- thinking did still resurface. In some ways this is not
ordinates remains to be seen. Another key question surprising given that the predecessor of modern
concerns the extent to which deconstructions of development economics was colonial economics
development can be drawn upon to formulate (Pieterse, 2001a). Radical dependency theory
reconstructions of development and attempts to turned attention ‘from top to bottom’ and shifted it
build another or alternative strategy of resolving towards attacks on authority and power relations
material scarcity and inequality. As Munck (1999) rather than on how to establish and maintain them
points out, one of the main reasons to be positive while arguing ‘against the state rather than for it’
about anti-/post-development discourses is that (Apter, 1987: 48). In Middle Eastern geographies,
they give a voice to the excluded and they seek to the politics of development and underdevelopment
break with the dominance of western rationality have also been debated widely: ‘Writers from pre-
and some of the legacies of Enlightenment ideals. dominately Islamic countries (most notably Iran)
Geographers in particular, concerned with the saw the obsession with development as part of a
aftermath of colonialism, might welcome the new misplaced “intoxification” with the West’ (Dabashi,
emphasis on identities and place-specific practices. 1993).
The emphasis on national communities and Marshall (2001) also examines dependency
national identities is now being opened up to con- debates in a Caribbean context, noting the par-
sider a wider range of spatial scales and wider forms ticular connotation that these ideas acquired in
of identity formation. These writings are also useful that setting over time. Geographers even applied
in that they highlight the universalist pretensions of dependency theory to an understanding of Britain’s
the Enlightenment (and its reinstatement through relationship with the Republic of Ireland (Regan
postwar development). They seek a radical break and Walsh, 1977) and Wales (Buchanan, 1977a).
with existing mainstream global development dis- Thus an important question here is the extent to
course, but just because this break is incomplete or which different development practices and theories
still operates within older binaries and frameworks, have sought to map and represent ‘developing

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sequences. For this reason, many critics of the post-

development approach are perhaps somewhat pre-
mature in the dismissal of what they term as its
‘quasi-revolutionary’ postures. As Esteva and Pra-
kash (1998) have pointed out, not all post-
development writing involves a simplistic romanti-
cisation of the indigenous or a privileging of the
local over the global.
The important point to consider is why develop-
ment’s discrepancies have been so common and so
widespread. Discrepancies between policies and
concrete results have been so great and experiences
so often disastrous that ‘another round of [devel-
opment] thinking is called for, this time in transdis-
Figure 4.5 Geopolitics as power/knowledge ciplinary rather than interdisciplinary terms’
Source: Gearoid Ó Tuathail (Apter, 1987: 14). Post-development writings do
build on previous streams of development thinking
and this should not be seen as a weakness but rather
regions’. Mitchell (1995) argues that many devel- as an important attempt to re-engage development’s
opment agencies tend to portray a region they have past. The ‘postmodern’ foundations of post-
targeted in ways that seemingly justify predeter- development contributions have also been seen by
mined sets of prescriptions. With respect to Egypt, some as Eurocentric and therefore not relevant. For
Mitchell argues that many development texts Simon (2001: 122), ‘[f]ew theoretical propositions
invariably begin with a kind of opening snapshot have elicited such strongly polarised views’ as post-
emphasising the country’s natural resource limits or modernism. Simon (2001) also asks, if post-
an image of the population squeezed by the desert modern literally means ‘after the modern’, then how
into a narrow river valley. Through such imagery, he relevant is postmodern thought in the global South
argues, USAID-led modernisation proposed to where the majority of people are ‘still poor and
overcome the country’s physical geography through struggling to meet basic needs’ (Simon, 2001: 123)?
technology and management. In countries such as Indeed this is precisely where post-development
this, however, the experience of postwar develop- writers seek to intervene, in this social and geo-
ment has been highly contested and has been lit- graphical construction of the ‘poor majority’ and
tered with unintended and often disastrous con- their struggle to meet their needs. This approach
TA B L E 4 . 1 D E V E L O P M E N T T H E O R I E S A N D G L O B A L H E G E M O N Y

Development thinking Historical context Hegemony Explanation

Progress, evolutionism Nineteenth century British Empire Colonial anthropology,

social Darwinism
Classical development 1890–1930s Latecomers, colonialism Classical political economy
Modernisation Post-war boom US hegemony Growth theory, structural
functionalism
Dependency Decolonisation Third World nationalism, Neo-Marxism
NAM, G77
Neoliberalism 1980s> Globalisation, finance and Neoclassical economics,
corporate capital monetarism
Human development 1980s> Rise of Asia and Pacific Capabilities, developmental
economies, ‘emerging state
markets’
Source: Adapted from Pieterse (2001b: 9).
Notes: Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Group of 77 (G77) countries favouring non-alignment with Cold War powers.

9 1
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9 2
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seeks to focus on the agents, methods, objectives development thinking (see Chapter 8). Escobar’s
and values of different discourses of development. work also seems to suggest that it is necessary to
Postmodernism refers in part to an intellectual take a step back and make room for other ways of
movement which rejects periodisation, the search knowing, other kinds of conceptual mappings of
for origins and, most significantly, the idea of pro- the world: ‘imagine moving away from conventional
gress – all of which were important modernist prob- Western modes of knowing in general in order to
lematics. Postmodernism also celebrates fluidity, make room for other types of knowledge and
ambiguity and difference and rejects the normalis- experience’ (Escobar, 1995: 216).
ing tendencies of Eurocentric discourses with their In Chapter 5 we will be looking at the idea of
grand, universalising claims. ‘three worlds’, an important conceptual mapping in
Although many critics are sceptical of the rele- a variety of debates about the theory and practice
vance of postmodernism in the South, feminist of development. Various debates have focused on
geographers have been attracted to the way in which the utility of this term in allowing collective projects
reason is seen as gendered and ethnocentric rather of development and in encouraging debate and dis-
than disembodied and neutral (McDowell and cussion. Over time, international development
Sharp, 1999). Simon (2001) shows that postmodern- organisations have formulated newer terms and
ism has been considered by some as ‘yet another languages however, and have occasionally co-opted
Northern paradigm’, a kind of ‘Northern intel- progressive-sounding ideas into their conceptions
lectual toolkit’, mentioning how postmodern of development, using terms such as ‘endogenous’,
writers often also fall into the trap of exclusivist ‘sustainable’, ‘popular’ or ‘human’, integrated’ or
modes of argument (Simon, 2001: 125). None the
less, it is the contention of this book that post- TA B L E 4 . 2 G E N E R A L T R E N D S I N
development writings are critical to any attempt at D E V E L O P M E N T T H E O RY OV E R T I M E
rethinking development geographies and offer cru-
From To
cial new perspectives about power and knowledge
which deserve much further engagement rather than Macro-structures Actor-orientation, agency,
casual dismissal as ‘utopianism’. The approach to institutions
development issues adopted in this book is closely Structuralism Constructivism
informed by post-structuralist thought, in particu- Determinism Interpretative
lar the work of Jacques Derrida. In his writings, Homogenising, Differentiating
Derrida claims that western philosophy is founded generalising
on the programmatic logic of opposites which he Singular Plural
suggests we should not seek to reverse or invert but Eurocentrism Polycentrism
rather to destabilise, upsetting the simplicity of bin-
ary divides which structure much contemporary Source: Adapted from Pieterse (2001b: 3).

9 3
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TA B L E 4 . 3 M E A N I N G S O F D E V E L O P M E N T OV E R T I M E

Period Perspectives Meanings of development

1850> Latecomers Industrialisation, catching up

1870> Colonial economics Resource management, trusteeship
1940> Development economics Economic (growth) – industrialisation
1950> Modernisation theory Growth, political and social modernisation
1960> Dependency theory Accumulation – national, autocentric
1970> Alternative development Human flourishing
1980> Human development Capacitation, enlargement of people’s choices
1980> Neoliberalism Economic growth – structural reform, privatisation, deregulation
1990> Post-development Authoritarian engineering, disaster
Source: Adapted from Pieterse (2001b: 7).

‘comprehensive’ development (Munck, 1999) partly ideology of transnational liberalism or neo-

as a way of masking the lack of any real transform- liberalism. The fundamental principle of such an
ation of core assumptions. For geographer Neil approach is that economic liberty must be preserved
Smith ‘the paradigm of modernisation has been and that an economy must be free from the
reinvented as globalisation, but they both issue social and political ‘impediments’, ‘restrictions’ and
from the same mouth’ (Smith, 1997: 174). Similarly, ‘fetters’ placed upon it by states that seek to regulate
Dirlik (2002) refers to the replacement of the para- markets in the name of public interest (Routledge,
digm of modernisation with the paradigm and 1998). The connections to the Enlightenment and to
models of (neoliberal) globalisation. the writings of Adam Smith are thus enduring,
There are, however, important differences between and continue to shape development thinking and
modernisation approaches and neoliberalism and it practice today in a number of ways.
is important to recognise that one consequence of
the perceived and imagined ‘impasse’ in develop-
ment thinking was that modernisation orthodoxies
were reinscribed, dusted off and dressed up in new
clothes but were never copied and mimicked in their
entirety through neoliberal ideologies. This is an
important contention none the less, that the prom-
ised kingdom of abundance envisaged by modern-
isation has been reinvented and reconstructed into
contemporary neoliberal discourses which issue
from the same sources, roots and voices as those of
the modernising agents of the early postwar period.
If modernisation was a Cold War attempt at legit-
imating US domination of the global system, then
(as we shall see) neoliberalism is a continuation of
this project in the ‘era of market triumphalism’
(Peet with Hartwick, 1999: 90). In this way
the contemporary world order of international
development involves an important geo-economic
dimension in that it is based upon this doctrine or

9 4
5
Thi r d w o rldi s m a n d t h e
I m a gin a t io n o f G l o b a l
Development

I N T RO D U C T I O N : A C R I T I CA L of fantasies and myths about the mystic ‘East’

GEOPOLITICS OF THIRD WORLD (Hall, 1992). Our ideas of ‘East’ and ‘West’ have
DEVELOPMENT never been free of myth and fantasy and even to this
day they are not primarily ideas about place and
At times the ‘West’ excludes Latin America, geography. These terms or cardinal points have
which is surprising since most Latin Americans, important and complex lines of descent (geneal-
whatever their ethnic origin, are geographically ogies). The contrast between ‘East’ and ‘West’ is
located in the western hemisphere, often speak very old, but it has changed its content repeatedly
a European tongue as their first language, and and has been transformed into the contemporary
live in societies where European modes remain contrast between ‘North’ and ‘South’ (Williams,
hegemonic. Our point is not to recover Latin 1983). Some commentators have argued that in a
America – the name itself is a nineteenth century way we have no choice but to use phrases such as
coinage – for the ‘West’ but only to call attention ‘Western’ or ‘Third World’, but it is also important
to that arbitrariness of the standard cartogra- to remember that these terms represent very com-
phies of identity for irrevocably hybrid places like plex ideas and have no single or simple meaning.
Latin America, sites at once Western and non- The idea of the West then is as much an idea as a
Western, simultaneously African, indigenous, fact of geography (Hall, 1991). These terms are not
and European. some universal shorthand but rather must be viewed
(Shohat and Stam, 1994: 13, emphasis added) as dynamic and complex representations related to
important and changing geopolitical discourses and
It is strange to interpret a political world through languages. In order to understand the use of terms
cardinal points. such as ‘the West’, ‘North’/‘South’, ‘First World’/
(Williams, 1983: 200) ‘Third World’, it is necessary to develop a critical
geopolitics of development, which raises questions
Where and what exactly is ‘the West’? This question about states, territories and the geographical nature
puzzled Christopher Columbus and in a way of power relations.
remains quite puzzling today. It is important when Political divisions between Western and Eastern
thinking about ‘development’ to consider the extent Europe at the end of the Second World War were
to which countries aspire to become ‘western’ – at soon generalised into what was then offered as a
least in terms of achieving ‘western’ standards of larger ‘universal contrast, between political and
living. Although it should have become clear to economic systems of different types’ (Williams,
Columbus that the New World into which he had 1983: 201). Thus where once there had been a long-
stumbled was not the ‘East’ at all (with its many standing division of ‘East’ and ‘West’, after 1945
sources of wealth and richness in resources), he these were in a way transformed into a kind of
none the less still peppered his reports with a range North–South opposition. According to Raymond

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Williams, the ‘East’ is generally perceived negatively of the geopolitical world while examining the dis-
in this binary framework and it is generally an courses of geopolitics which underpin the produc-
advanced capitalist economy that is seen to qualify tion and reproduction of geopolitical spaces such as
a country as ‘western’: ‘Third World’ (Johnston et al, 2000). Political geog-
raphers have identified patterns in the development
Thus the North–South contrast is either: (a) an of international politics (which have been called
absolute contrast between industrially developed geopolitical world orders) and have thus tried to
(rich) and underdeveloped (poor) economies; or understand the geopolitical transition from one
(b) an extension of this to the terms of the East– order to another (e.g. before and after the Cold
West polarisation, as this primary competition War). Adopting a critical geopolitics perspective, it
extends itself to the ‘South’, which can go either is necessary to avoid major generalisations across
way; or (c) an ideological form of relations ‘Third World Politics’ (and the assumption that
between ‘the West’ (the capitalist world) and the ‘Third World’ political systems are essentially the
exploited ‘South’, with the ‘East’ (the socialist same) and thus we should begin by distinguishing
world) as the ‘South’s’ natural ally. between nations and states. Nations are defined on
(Williams, 1983: 202) the basis of culture, religion and ethnicity, for
example, whereas states represent political units
In some ways it could be argued that this image of whose authority is bounded by other political
an ‘exploited South’ relates to a wider tendency to spaces. The ‘critical geopolitics’ literature explores
see what Willliams (1983) refers to as a ‘blocked and the rights and abilities of each state to control the
generalised’ image of poverty outside the West or territory encompassed by its boundaries or to gain
the ‘first world’, one which plays down complex dif- international recognition for its territorial author-
ferences between and within regions. This chapter ity. Relationships between power and territory can
seeks to highlight the Eurocentrism of many sys- be observed at all geographical scales:
tems of ordering the world and also aims to show
that these systems of ordering are partial and fre- The study of geopolitics involves considerations
quently negative truths which deny cultural differ- of territory, power and conflict between nations
ences and stereotype the ‘Third World’ as a kind of and states. In international relations, control of
overpopulated world of problems. Further, the territory usually increases power, while increased
chapter illustrates that the terms ‘First World’, ‘Sec- power can expand control of territory. More
ond World’ and ‘Third World’ all reflect important powerful states exercise direct or indirect terri-
Cold War conceptualisations of space and systems torial control over weaker ones. In many cases,
of ordering the world that themselves quickly power implies direct, formal political sovereignty
became important (geo)political projects. The label- over designated territories.
ling of certain regions of the world is a complex and (Braden and Shelley, 2000: 9)
contested process which has involved the formation
of various kinds of important alliances. More
importantly, this chapter seeks to show how dis-
courses surrounding the term ‘Third World’ have in
many ways represented, embodied and eventually
reproduced many of the inequalities present in (and
characteristic of) colonial relationships of power.
The word ‘geopolitics’ is now familiar to many
people but remains quite difficult to define. The
term refers largely to the way in which space is
important in understanding the constitution of
international relations. A critical geopolitics of
development may offer some useful ways forward in
understanding the history and geography of the
‘Third World’ as a political idea. As a school of
thought this approach focuses on political meanings Figure 5.1 A critical theory of geopolitics as a set of practices
and representations and explores the contestation Source: Gearoid ÓTuathail

9 6
THIRDWORLDISM AND GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT
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It is thus necessary to examine how international explore further the relationships between ‘other-
political relations have been geographically pro- ness’ and territory or the ways in which an ‘inside’
duced. Rather than assuming a fully formed state and an ‘outside’ have been created across the world
system and state-delimited territories, the concern political map. It is also possible to focus on the his-
of a ‘critical geopolitics’ perspective is thus with the torical and geographical patterns of inclusion and
power struggle within and between different soci- exclusion after 1945 and to point to the ways in
eties over the right to speak sovereignly about geog- which the world political map was manipulated in
raphy, space and territory (Ó Tuathail, 1996: 11). order to enforce internal/external boundaries dur-
What is particularly interesting and important ing the Cold War. The USSR in particular played
about this perspective is that it argues that territory on its ambiguous position as both ‘inside’ the inter-
can never be understood in isolation from a wider national system and ‘outside’ it, presenting itself as
complex of state power, geography and identity (Ó the natural ‘midwife’ for completing the independ-
Tuathail, 1999: 140). This complex interaction ence of newborn states (Laïdi, 1988). With the
between geography, power and identity shows how accelerating pace of decolonisation and the creation
everyday life can and has been defined and of independent states in the South, geopolitical
delimited around concepts of spatial divides, bor- questions were addressed from a set of new or
ders and boundaries and at different spatial scales. ‘Third World’ perspectives, a kind of North–South
Through such processes as class, wealth, gender, geopolitics which emerged from the legacies of
race, citizenship and political power, borders are colonialism and the perception that ‘under-
being produced continually (Ó Tuathail, 1999: 150) developed’ countries had distinct geopolitical con-
in ways which have important implications for the siderations from those of western societies. The
changing spatiality of global inequality. In South Cold War was an important backdrop to all this, as
Africa, for example, territorial control was central non-western countries debated their relations to
to the privileging of whiteness and certain versions Cold War geopolitical discourses emanating from
of national identity during the apartheid era. As the USA and the USSR and sought to position
Luke (1993) has argued, states have often sought to themselves in relation to these discourses. In add-
establish their power by in-state-ing themselves in ition, as we have already seen, debates about the role
space, imprinting a mark of their territorial presence. of geopolitics, foreign aid and development remain
The form of in-statement of power and authority central to the post-Cold War geopolitical world
through political space varies considerably, reflect- order.
ing the variety of historical struggles that have gone Many questions have been posed here about the
into the creation and maintenance of states as role of the state as the primary actor in geopolitical
coherent territories and identities seeking inter- relations, leading to enquiries about whether this is
national legitimacy (Ó Tuathail, 1996: 12). The shifting in the context of globalisation (Braden and
‘scramble for Africa’ in the late nineteenth century Shelley, 2000). In sub-Saharan Africa, states have
is one important example of this surrounding and
enclosure of political space. More recently, in Mex-
ico, this process of in-state-ing power in space has
been resisted strongly by the Zapatistas in the state
of Chiapas (see Chapter 9). The way in which geo-
politics works ‘from below’ is a crucial theme in this
book which can allow for an understanding of how
grassroots resistance serves as a response to devel-
opment theories and practices and can change or
modify these theories and practices. In addition,
Cold War geopolitics is also particularly important
here, constituting as it did the ‘Third World’ as an
‘ideological battleground’ (Rist, 1997: 80) where
new states and liberation movements would have to
seek allegiances between the USA and the USSR,
between capitalism and communism. Examining Figure 5.2 Photo of Havana skyline
the ‘Third World’ as a geopolitical space, we can Source: Alix Wood

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been described variously as ‘failed’ or ‘collapsed’, as This assumed moral relationship between peoples
‘patrimonial’ or ‘clientelist’, ‘kleptocratic’ or and the states that control them is often extremely
‘predatory’/‘extractive’ and even ‘vampire-like’ weak (e.g. in terms of ethnicity). Colonialism cre-
(Frimpong-Ansah, 1991; Englebert, 1997; Gold- ated artificial territorial boundaries and African
smith, 2001). The notion of a ‘vampire-like’ state states in particular have to deal with the con-
dramatically illustrates the idea of the state as fun- sequences of their lack of territorial legitimacy
damentally extractive, draining away the very life- today. The international recognition of state
blood of the nation and its people. To attach a par- authority is important here, but it does not depend
ticular label to a state is to ignore the variations of on a consistent set of criteria but rather on fluctuat-
ideas and opinions that can exist within the state ing and historically dynamic international criteria
apparatus: there are often conflicts within the state of legitimate statehood. Although African states,
and opposition to corrupt practices, for example. In for example, appear to be like states everywhere else,
focusing on geopolitics in the so-called ‘Third the reality is not so simple. The state in Africa is
World’ there are important questions to be asked thus partly the result of protracted historical pro-
about the role of a variety of states in ‘Third World cesses (of colonialism or nationalism). While all
development’ and about the representation of African states seem to look alike, their genesis differs
‘failed’ or ‘weak’ states in particular as they have markedly (Bayart, 1993). The political communities
been represented by global development agencies which formed in each colonial territory and the
since 1945. principles of legitimacy established between the
Politics in the ‘South’ is fundamentally about governed and government in that territory (in colo-
conflict, territory and boundaries, and about access nial/postcolonial times) is therefore historically
to power structures which benefit some groups and specific and difficult to generalise.
disadvantage others. States can govern partly Political parties, governments, parliaments and
because their people recognise their own identity as ideologies have tended to dominate our understand-
citizens of that state and identify with the govern- ing of politics outside ‘the West’, suggesting that
ment of national territory as their government. This this is much more state-centred than in reality. The
recognition of statehood, both internally and exter- term ‘civil society’ is often used to point to the
nally, entitles governments to act on behalf of the interactions between states and societies and to
people in internal and external transactions. The groups that are somehow supposedly outside the
lack of correspondence between national territories state, but also aggregates together all those who are
and state boundaries is a significant issue in many seen to have become excluded, disenfranchised and
non-western societies since boundaries were often powerless. Although often without formal power
drawn up ‘at conference tables in European capitals structures however, civil societies do have informal
by diplomats with little or no knowledge of local power and can respond to the power of the state in a
conditions’ (Braden and Shelley, 2000: 8). All over variety of ways. Although a European construct, if
the world there are peoples who do not recognise reworked and seen as case-specific, this concept is
the authority of the state that claims them. Gov- useful in allowing us a partial understanding of
ernmental legitimacy therefore does not always exist geopolitics in non-western contexts. Because polit-
(e.g. in countries ruled by military regimes). In this ical independence was a goal shared by many
chapter we can begin to raise questions about how peoples in the South, nationalist politics has often
‘Third World’ states sought to build this popular been seen to dominate the politics of civil society.
legitimacy in conjunction with other states or found Indeed a ‘postcolonial’ order in many societies has
their territorial authority undermined by national been constructed on the assumption that national-
and international conflicts. In referring to a ‘state’ ism was the only unifying force in civil society
one is often talking only about the group which (Ahluwalia, 2001). When ethnic politics flashes up
owns or dominates its apparatus at that particular in postcolonial Africa it is often understood as part
historical conjuncture. What we need to examine of the contest between state and civil society (see
here therefore are the aims and objectives of groups Chapter 9). In relation to notions of the Third
which sought to control the state and its ‘technolo- World and traditions of ‘thirdworldism’ a key issue
gies of domination’ (if we follow Foucault’s notion thus concerns the extent to which new kinds of
of power/knowledge) in each ‘Third World’ ‘Third World’ elites came to power after decolonisa-
country. tion and relates to the ways in which these elites

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sought to interact with and represent their (often which the concept of three worlds is intimately
divided) societies as well as issues of national iden- related. Through the age of Empire the idea of
tity and belonging. East/West divisions (as we have already seen) was a
The number of sovereign states has increased crucial one and raises critical questions about being
steadily since 1945 as a result of the independence inside/outside world systems and the mutuality of
of many former colonies, with important implica- relations between insiders and outsiders, coloniser
tions for the spatial imagination of global develop- and colonised. The second section focuses more
ment. The breakup of a ‘second world’ of states specifically on the concept of three worlds,
after 1990 with the collapse of state socialism is also examining its emergence and varied connections to
very relevant here. Geographers have explored the geopolitical struggles and to movements against
relations between societies and spaces quite fre- neocolonialism. The sense in which this term
quently and are also now beginning to explore the acquired a revolutionary vision of internationalism
relations between power and spatiality. Indeed, spa- is important here but did this bring with it other
tiality is a central component of state power and associated problems of representing people and
space is used strategically in relation to the use of places? The penultimate section goes on to explore
the concept of ‘territoriality’. The definition of the the possibility of alternatives to the three worlds
word ‘territory’ relates to attempts by an individual schema and looks at the politics and practice of
or a group to ‘influence, affect or control objects, what has been called ‘worlding’, focusing on how it
people and relationships by delimiting and asserting might be possible to go beyond the arbitrariness of
control over geographic area’ (Braden and Shelley, standard cartographies of global development and
2000: 9). States are thus defined partly by their ter- identity.
ritorially based claims to sovereignty. State power is
then exercised across this territory, giving a very
geographical focus to the state’s activities. Geopolit- ‘THE WEST’ AND ‘THE REST’
ics is thus relevant to the formulation of spe-
cific plans for territories undergoing ‘development’, In many ways ‘the West’ is a historical rather than
such as, for example, Mexico, India and Brazil (see a geographical construction. By this we mean that
Chapter 9). This chapter seeks to examine in more that ‘western societies’ first emerged at a particular
detail the geopolitical imagination of development phase in world history – closely associated with the
in particular contexts, exploring how the definition rise of the ‘modern world’ and the making of ‘mod-
and representation of the worlds of global devel- ernity’ in ‘western’ or European/North American
opment (the Third World, the South, and the Rest) contexts. According to Stuart Hall (1992), the idea
are imbued with geopolitical discourses and mean- of ‘the West’ has four main functions:
ings. Formal geopolitical theories often ignored
non-western societies, assuming that these societies 1. It allows for characterisation and classification
were of limited overall importance to the changing of societies into different categories – i.e. ‘east-
nature of the world political map. In one study of ern’, ‘non-western’ and so on. It is a kind of
perceptions of geopolitics among US undergradu- ‘tool’ to think with.
ate students it was found that the USA, Russia, 2. The West is an image or set of images. It con-
China, Japan and the countries of Western Europe denses a number of images in our mind’s eye
were ranked as very important compared to states (e.g. the multiplicity of different societies, cul-
such as Mozambique, Uganda, Sri Lanka and tures, histories, peoples, places). It works in con-
Burma (Myanmar), which were ranked near the junction with other images and ideas (e.g.
bottom of this global order (Braden and Shelley, urban, developed, industrial) which back it up
2000: 36). In this chapter we will be examining the and reinforce it.
geopolitical spaces and positions of so-called ‘Third 3. The West provides a standard or model of
World’ countries, exploring the views of geopolitics comparison. It allows comparison between dif-
and the forms of geopolitical reasoning that have ferent societies; it permits an explanation of
emerged from these countries and the idea of Third economic or political difference or how and
World territories as geopolitical spaces. why countries differ in terms of development.
The first section of this chapter examines the 4. It provides criteria of evaluation against which
invention of ideas about the West and the Rest, to other societies are ranked and around which

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powerful positive and negative feelings cluster. tion, the dependency scholars focused in turn on the
It functions as an ideology, imbuing certain period during which the scramble for colonies, mar-
parts of the world with good attributes (West = kets and raw materials reached its climax. This was
good, non-West = bad), while denying them to the ‘high noon of imperialism’ and led into the First
others. World War at the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury. As we shall see in Chapter 6, there are also
Keywords such as condense, criteria, characterisa- important debates about the continuing relevance
tion and comparison seem to dominate the way in of colonialism in a supposedly ‘postcolonial’ world
which the Rest are represented through images and when much of the ‘South’ remains economically
ideas, always in relation to other (western) places dependent, even when formally independent and
and spaces and often through a simplification of decolonised.
complexity. It is important to remember then that These different phases and periods of Empire
the idea of the West did not simply reflect an produced different representations of non-western
already established western society – rather it was peoples which had an important bearing on the
essential to the very formation of that society. The scripting of postwar development in the ‘Third
idea of the West since then has had real con- World’. These representations (along with associ-
sequences – organising global power relations and ated ideas about the potential of ‘the Tropics’) have
enabling certain kinds of knowledge – like the the- not disappeared entirely or been decolonised fully
ory and practice of international development. The and continue to shape popular imaginations of
so-called uniqueness of the West was, in part, pro- ‘other’ regions in a variety of ways. In the earliest
duced by European contact and self-comparison phases of colonialism non-European peoples were
with other, non-Western societies (‘the Rest’) which regarded initially as exotic cultural equals (Hall,
were very different in their histories, ecologies, pat- 1992). Later, in the period of the Enlightenment
terns of development and cultures from the Euro- (see Chapter 4) as trade and commerce grew, non-
pean models of modernity. It was in this context Europeans were taken to represent innocence, and
that the idea of the West took shape and meaning ideas of the ‘noble savage’ were presented. In the
(i.e. in comparison and contrast to its other, its nineteenth century, as European colonial holdings
alter-ego), and the non-western societies that there- in the Third World grew and became tied more
fore lay outside the map of global modernity. A key closely into European systems of trade, investment
part of this process involved ranking regions and and commerce, the imagery of the colonial world
countries and the establishment of hierarchical and of colonial peoples shifted once more. Ideas of
structures and oppositions. This chapter examines ‘uncivilised savages’ were represented just as Euro-
how these hierarchies work alongside others such as pean countries began to have more direct and
First World/Third World in establishing the spatial- practical responsibility for the supposedly ‘less
ity of contemporary development theory and practice. advanced’ people of the world. By the beginning of
In order to think about these issues in more depth the twentieth century this concern for the colonies
it is necessary to ask further questions about the and their peoples expanded into a wider sense of
nature of European expansion and imperialism. It responsibility for the development of colonial
is difficult to summarise some five hundred years of territories.
contact, conquest, settlement and the colonisation Some of the initial voyages of discovery gener-
of ‘new worlds’ in which overseas territories were ated images of non-European peoples as fascinating
first annexed to Europe as possessions, or harnessed simply for curiosity value, as people untainted by
through trade. What tends to emerge much more the distortions of ‘civilised life’. As Europe’s inter-
prominently in the literature is the period in which ests in the non-European world began to grow, so
permanent European settlement, colonisation or the imagery surrounding colonialism began to
exploitation was established (e.g. through planta- change. Non-European peoples began to be por-
tion societies in North America and the Caribbean, trayed as ‘uncivilised’ or ‘backward’ peoples, thus
mining and ranching in Latin America, or justifying the control that incoming Europeans
the rubber and tea plantations of India, Ceylon and exerted over them. In this sense it is important to
the East Indies) (Hall, 1992). With a concern to remember that European images of the non-
show the way in which capitalism emerged as a European world were often deeply racist. Frantz
global market and the shape of wealth concentra- Fanon, an important and well-known writer about

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European colonialism in Africa, once argued that ideas rooted in Islamic texts and traditions rather
‘Europe is literally the creation of the Third World’ than in western canons and doctrines (Dabashi,
(Fanon, 1967). This seemed to suggest that it was 1993). The ‘Islamicity’ of the revolution was a cru-
impossible to understand ’First World’ histories or cial question here then, providing a ‘theology of
cultures without reference to their experiences with discontent’ by calling on Islam and Allah in the
colonialism, but Fanon also meant that Europe drafting of a political agenda. This ‘Islamic ideol-
has been built up partly with the blood, sweat and ogy’ was the ‘inevitable off-spring of an unwanted
toil of Third World peoples. Having an under- marriage between “Islam and the West” ’ (Dabashi,
developed, savage or backward world gave to 1993: 499). Both are important contemporary cul-
Europe and Europeans a sense of (and confidence tural constructs and are products of the universal
in) the idea of Europe or the West as ‘modern’ and need to produce a self and an ‘other’, an inside and
fully developed spaces of identity and economy. an outside:
As the Second World War approached, more and
more colonial powers began to see their mission as As ‘the West’ created ‘the Orient’ to complete its
one of bringing colonial peoples towards independ- ‘Self’ imagination, Muslims, in collaboration
ence. In many ways the Second World War des- with their European and American counterparts,
troyed colonial systems around the world, ushering invented ‘The West’ for precisely the same
in a post-war period of quite rapid decolonisation purpose. While in ‘The West’, ‘The West’ was the
or the withdrawal of European colonial powers self-congratulatory pronouncement of all things
from colonial territories. The UN-centred system of good and admirable, for Muslims it became the
nation-states facilitated a construction (or symbolic construction of corrupted excellence,
reconstruction) of nation-states and national iden- an object of discrete adoration and manifest
tities then in a variety of locations. Between 1945 hatred.
and 1981, UN membership rose from 51 to 156 (Dabashi, 1993: 500)
nation-states (Berger, 2001a: 216). The USA in par-
ticular took on the mantle of ‘leader of the free For many parts of the Islamic world, ‘the West’ has
world’ and applied pressure to European colonial also served as a stark cardinal point of contrast to
powers to speed up the process of decolonisation. something else, to the self-imagination of non-
The USA wanted to rid the world of Empire- westerners. Thus the West became an imaginative
centred trading blocs so free trade could rule in a geography from which radical ideologies spread to
free world. This was in turn related to the emerging ‘conquer the world, Islam and all’ (Dabashi, 1993:
importance of trusteeship as a model for ushering 500). A repulsive rejection of the West animated the
the newborn states towards progress. revolution in Iran as this construct became the epit-
One important theme that this book tries to ome of moral corruption, of illegitimate global
explore is the extent to which it is possible to think domination and of plundering the wealth and sov-
beyond the West and the power of western hegem- ereignty of other sovereign states. In this way the
ony. The inextricable linkages of West and non- ‘West’ was the ‘cause of all ills, the mother of all
West are difficult to disentangle however, especially corruptions, the condition of all despair, the father
in regions such as the Middle East, where there has of all tyrannies’ (Dabashi, 1993: 507). It is necessary
been something of a collective discontent against an to be conscious of these kinds of fictitious anima-
imaginative construction called ‘the West’ which tions of western cultural or economic difference.
has animated many revolutionary movements as in Similarly the idea of ‘westernisation’ is not without
Iran (Dabashi, 1993). The leader of the Iranian its own limitations. There are implicit assumptions
revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, demonstrated an about the values of western modernity that run
exceptional ability to build and maintain a broad through a number of contemporary discourses of
base of support for the revolution, including the development, some of which point to the supposed
young and poor whom he called the ‘disinherited’. total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to
The Islamic ideology promoted in the Iranian revo- western liberalism. The ‘triumphs’ of western mod-
lution included important texts on ‘Westoxification’ ernity in the so-called ‘Third World’ are also said to
(Gharbzadegi) which had argued that alternative illustrate this point, allowing another backdrop to
political systems to those developed in the West the stories and dramas of western progress and
were needed and could be based around political enlightenment.

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THE CONCEPT OF THE THREE More recent attempts to assess and describe
WORLDS national differences on a world scale have tried to
recognise the problem of cultural prejudice implied
The division of the planet into three worlds is by the term ‘Third World’. This comes back to
based on a pair of very abstract and hardly pre- questions that Fanon raised about guilt and inno-
cise binary distinctions. First the world has been cence. The important question here is not how far
divided into its ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ parts. Europeans have been ‘guilty’ and Third World
Then the modern portion has been subdivided inhabitants ‘innocent’ but rather how guilt and
into its ‘communist’ (or ‘socialist’) and ‘free’ innocence are measured by certain criteria and
parts. These four terms, underlying the idea of determined and constituted historically (Asad,
three worlds may be thought of as an extremely 1993). The concept of the three distinct worlds has
general social semantics. a long historical pedigree. Not surprisingly (given
(Pletsch, 1981: 573, emphasis added). the imprecise nature of the term itself) there are
several competing explanations of the term’s ori-
We did not try to represent ‘the real’ (of the third gins. Fieldhouse (1999) has claimed that the term
world). This was everybody else’s project, and can be traced back to a British Labour Party
part of the problem from the post-development pamphlet written in 1947 which had suggested that
perspective. a ‘third force’ was needed to avoid polarisation in
(Escobar, 2000b, 13) world politics between eastern and western, social-
ism and capitalism. Worseley (1979) credits Claude
Europe has been seen as the world’s centre of grav- Bourdet who in 1949 had described the French pol-
ity, as ontological ‘reality’ to the ‘rest of the world’s itical left as a ‘third force’ separate from communist
shadow’ (Shohat and Stam, 1994: 2). Eurocentric parties but opposed to the capitalist right. The
thinking attributes to the ‘West’ an almost ‘provi- majority view seems to be that the term was first
dential sense of historical destiny’ which illustrates used in France in the 1950s (‘Tiers Monde’/
that colonial and Eurocentric discourses are thus Tiersmondisme) to refer to the poorest elements of
intimately intertwined. Eurocentric discourses are French society (Hadjor, 1993; Mason, 1997). It was
complex, contradictory and historically unstable, coined by French demographer Alfred Sauvy in the
but we are left with a kind of ‘composite portrait’ 1950s by analogy to the revolutionary ‘Third
with the idea of linear trajectories towards progress Estate’ of France – that is, the commoners, in con-
and democracy in the West. Thus in rethinking trast with the First Estate (the nobility) and the
development many have been tempted to simply Second Estate (the clergy). Once again the history
invert this ordering of the globe and posit Europe or and culture of non-western worlds were interpreted
America as the source of all social evils in the world. by analogy.
In Derrida’s words this is Europe ‘exhibiting its own The term posited three worlds: the capitalist First
unacceptability in front of an anti ethnocentric mir- World of Europe, the USA, Australia and Japan;
ror’ (Derrida, 1976: 168). ‘Third World elites’ the Second World of the socialist block (China’s
beyond the West have also been an important part position within the scheme was much debated) and
of the subordination and impoverishment of Third the rest of the world that remained, the ‘Third
World peoples. As we shall in Chapter 6, this was a World’ (Muni, 1979). What is interesting about the
common feature of debates about neocolonialism term is its continued usage and popularity, in spite
which focused on the connections that capitalism of its over-simplification (Roy, 1999). The term is
made locally with Third World economies and poli- also often used in conjunction with other terms
ticians. Eurocentrism works by mapping the world such as ‘poor’, ‘non-industrialised’, non-white/non-
in a cartography that centralises and augments western, with cultural categories like ‘backward’ or
Europe while literally ‘belittling Africa’ (Shohat and geographical frames of reference like ‘East’ or
Stam, 1994: 2). The important point to take on ‘South’, all of which are constructs. Rethinking
board here is that in thinking about geographies of development geographies involves an awareness of
development we need to make connections in spatial how these terms are deployed in different contexts
and geographical terms, to place debates about rep- and acquire different meanings. A wide variety of
resentation in the ‘broader context of the Americas, debates began between about 1955 and 1975 – from
Asia and Africa’ (Shohat and Stam, 1994: 5). the Bandung Conference (see Box 5.1) to the call by

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the non-aligned movement and the Group of 77 for the stage for arguments of what came to be called
a New International Economic Order (NIEO). . . . a ‘non-capitalist path to socialism.’ . . .
Development was still seen as necessary here within Moreover, from the late 1960s through the 1970s
a perspective of economic co-operation, integration there emerged a number of radicalizations of the
and modernisation. This was a period of extra- Bandung project – Salvador Allende’s Chile,
ordinary global change and confrontational polit- Julius Nyerere’s Tanzania after the Arusha Dec-
ical realignment. Most of the original participants laration, Michael Manley’s democratic socialism
at Bandung in 1955 were from Asia, as many African in Jamaica, Maurice Bishop’s Grenada and Sir-
countries were still enduring colonial rule, but it imavo Bandaranaike’s Sri Lanka. In each of
marked the beginning of collective political them ‘socialism’ was the name of a variously
demands in the fields of development and politics configured oppositional idea of political com-
(Rist, 1997). During this time connections were munity defined largely in terms of anti-
made between (post)colonialism and the idea of imperialism, national self-determination, and
political struggle on behalf of the ‘Third World’: anti-capitalism.
(Scott, 1999: 144)
[T]he only recently constituted ‘Third World’
became the site of intense debates regarding In the 1950s the term was deployed increasingly by
options for the ‘development’ and the early governments and movements and their sym-
‘Bandung regimes’ . . . (Nehru’s India, Nasser’s pathisers to generate unity and support in the face
Egypt, Sukarno’s Indonesia, Nkrumah’s Ghana) of the USA and a handful of former colonial
powers, and gained popular currency as African and
Asian countries became independent (Berger, 1994).
By the 1960s Tiersmondisme also had its Soviet and
Chinese varieties, establishing Moscow or Peking
oriented worlds of global struggle. ‘Thirdworldism’
and the non-aligned movement forged as a result of
this therefore often involved a kind of ‘revolution-
ary ideology’, one which ‘aimed to contest and
overturn the terms of economic engagement
between North and South’ (McGrew, 2000: 356).
The Vietnam War exemplified for many the wider
struggles against US imperialism, and, as we have
already seen, anti-communism (and the threat of
anti-capitalist revolution) was closely linked with
the invention of development, offering a kind of
Figure 5.4 Building a socialist administration in Inhambane, counter-discourse to the spread of communism.
Mozambique This also allowed western countries to intervene in
Source: The author the name of Third World ‘modernisation’, an idea

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which still remains hegemonic at the popular and various social scientists. Intimately bound up with
policy levels: Cold War geopolitics and the scripting of the USSR
as other, the original use of the term also emerged
What began in the 1950s as an attempt to forge a partly from western anxieties about the emergence
political and diplomatic alliance ostensibly out- of a second world of socialist nations in Eastern
side the capitalist and socialist ‘camps’ has now Europe. The role of the Soviet Union in shaping the
become an all encompassing category reducing co-ordinates of ‘Third World’ geopolitics is a neg-
the governments, economies and societies of lected theme in the literature and little is known
Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania to a set about the instrumentalisation of the Soviet model
of variables distinct from and inferior to the in development practice (Laïdi, 1988). For much of
‘First World’. the twentieth century geopolitics was crucial to the
(Berger, 1994: 270) international construction of ‘development’ as a
specific kind of alternative to communist planning.
This notion of being distinct from and inferior to Indeed, experiences with national development
the ‘First World’ is important here. The way for- planning in the first three decades of the twentieth
ward, according to Berger (1994), is to try to locate century in post-revolutionary Russia preceded the
the politics of development in historically particular beginning of debates in America about the possibil-
places but also (simultaneously) to examine the ity of ‘modernisation’ (Engerman, 2000). Econo-
connections to global processes. Whenever the term mists and policy-makers in North America between
has been used a certain kind of history and geog- the two World Wars had become increasingly inter-
raphy is created which suggests that the countries of ested in the Russian ‘version’ of the national devel-
Latin America, Asia and Africa have failed to opment project (which also saw a strong role for the
become the idealised versions of modern industrial
democracies predicted by the modernisation school
of development thinking in the 1950s and 1960s.
The use of the term thus continues to encourage a
homogenised understanding of a considerable part
of the globe and its diversity of cultures, histories
and peoples. What is particularly amazing about the
longevity of the concept is the simplicity of its
categories:

It is an extremely rudimentary system of classifi-

cation, however, and certainly not a natural or
necessary one. With the possible exception of the
political categories of left and right, the scheme
of three worlds is perhaps the most primitive sys-
tem of classification in our social science dis-
course. One wonders how it could have assumed
such authority.
(Pletsch, 1981: 565)

The continued usage of this system of classification,

both by academics and in everyday parlance, testi-
fies to the resources, time and efforts that are
deployed in maintaining its boundaries and the
implicit hierarchies that underscore it (McDowell
and Sharp, 1999: 298). In some ways then the use of
this term seeks to reinforce the continued spatial
exclusion of Third World others. A very general
image is given by the idea of three worlds, which Figure 5.5 Child soldiers aboard a Russian Mig fighter in Angola
divides up the globe and its inhabitants for study by Source: Alex Hofford

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state). Many of the pioneers of development eco- Alfred Sauvy (credited originator of the term) was
nomics were also from East Central Europe (Berger, also very critical of the world to which he applied it
2001) and wrote about their experiences of eco- and argued that the Third World had implications
nomic progress in this region. for the ‘social evolution’ of European and Ameri-
President Truman’s doctrine and speeches in the can societies. Sauvy’s prescription was that ‘Third
United States at the end of the 1940s launched a world’ countries must ‘modernise’, a dominant idea
campaign for ‘backward peoples’ in the ‘less in the 1950s and 1960s and intimately linked to this
developed’ parts of the world. This was, at least in notion of three worlds. Further scientific/detached
part, based heavily around the ‘popular myth of observation by social scientists such as Sauvy was
America itself as Empire’s antithesis’ (Vitalis, 2002: needed. The Third World was therefore a residual
191). Many countries were just reaching independ- category of unaligned objects for the competing
ence in the decades of the 1960s, at the ‘zenith’ of empires of the first two worlds, but there were also
international development and, as a result, both the much deeper and wider connotations. Thus the
USA and USSR drew upon the idea of develop- ‘Third World’ represented what was left when it had
ment in a variety of African, Asian or Latin Ameri- been subtracted from the world as a whole and the
can contexts, constituting the Third World of newly industrialised West in particular. The term inter-
independent states as an arena of global political links with words such as ‘traditional’, ‘modern’ and
and ideological struggle. It has even been argued ‘communist/socialist’ in some important ways. The
that since the end of the Cold War the Third World Third World was seen as the world of tradition, cul-
has ceased to exist since it was defined largely by the ture, religion, irrationality, underdevelopment,
geopolitical structure and discourses of the Cold overpopulation, political chaos and so on. The First
War (Roy, 1999). World on the other hand is purely modern, free,
Pletsch (1981) looks at how different branches of efficient, technological/scientific and natural. Some
area studies were developed in the Cold War con- have even assumed the coherence of the Second
cerned with communist areas, coinciding with vari- World while setting out to attack the notion of the
ous policies of containment that were adopted by ‘Third World’. Since the free world is taken to be
the USA. An international division of labour natural (guided by invisible hands) it seems to imply
emerged around this time within the social sciences that the socialist countries should slowly but surely
based upon the idea of three separate worlds which come to approximate the free or First World. The
excluded other kinds of participation and narra- West is also, however, a collective heritage of cultures
tion (Pletsch, 1981). In the First World therefore it that were constituted by non-European influences
follows that the practice of economics, geography, (Fanon, 1967).
politics or sociology supposedly corresponds Aijaz Ahmad (1992: 308) has emphasised that the
closely with our best ideas of what science should ‘Third World’ does not come to us ‘as a mere
be, the most exact. What is important here is that a descriptive category’ but carries within it contra-
great variety of social scientists (including geog- dictory layers of meaning and political purpose.
raphers) suddenly found the three worlds schema Thus in many instances the ‘third force’ ascribed to
useful for organising their thinking about the this world often only existed in rhetoric or in
international order after 1945. Said (1978: 255) speeches and political texts, while in reality many
argues, however, that area studies ‘expertise’ was not so-called Third World countries erred towards one
always as sought after as it was during the Cold of the other two ‘worlds’ of political influence
War: (Mason, 1997). Ahmad’s work distinguishes
between the theoretical use/abuse of the term ‘Third
Because we have become accustomed to think of World’ and its role in common, everyday parlance
a contemporary expert on some branch of the to describe ‘developing countries’ and their issues or
Orient, or some aspect of its life, as a specialist in needs. Some still believe in the revolutionary oeuvre
‘area studies’, we have lost a vivid sense of how, of the term and its capacity to mobilise global coali-
until World War II, the Orientalist was con- tions (e.g. around environmental issues) (Williams,
sidered to be a generalist (with a great deal of 1993; Berger, 1994). While many books and articles
specific knowledge of course) who had highly are still produced which claim to rethink the ‘Third
developed skills for making summational World’, many often hold back from an explicit or
statements. sustained questioning of the validity of talking

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about a ‘Third World’ as such. Can we still retain and creates a role for experts in ‘international soci-
this notion with the rise of the Asian tiger econ- ety’. The ‘extremely general social semantics’
omies and amidst its growing cartographic com- (Pletsh, 1981) that are deployed around the term
plexity – how can we map this world amidst the have important implications. None the less, over
escalating mobility of labour, capital and elites? time an ‘amazing conceptual arsenal’ (Said, 1978)
It is also possible that those who claim to speak for has been deployed by development ‘experts’ and
the Third World may also be deeply implicated in planners around these and associated notions.
the prevailing international discourses and power Increasing attention to the problems of poor coun-
structures which seek to discipline and ‘manage’ tries, however, has altered the meaning of this con-
Third World peoples and places (Berger, 1994). cept over time. Shohat and Stam (1994: 26) talk of
In a related sense, Roxanne Doty (1996) has ‘Third World Euphoria’, referring to a time ‘when it
argued that many texts about Third World sover- seemed that First World leftists and Third World
eignty and statehood in international relations guerrillas would walk arm-in-arm toward global
scholarship share a fear or sense of danger regard- revolution’. Not all that was associated with the
ing the entry of the ‘Third World’ into the inter- Third World was revolutionary, however, and the
national society of states. Doty (1996) argues that in Cold War geopolitics of the 1960s and 1970s, which
trying to make sense of ‘Third World’ sovereignty required a degree of solidarity and alignment, has
scholars drew on ‘a whole array of hierarchical clearly changed.
oppositions’ (Doty, 1996: 149) with ‘weak states’ in The term is now stuck in a kind of swirling, per-
the South needing to live up to the western ideal manent terminological crisis, an ‘inconvenient relic
model. Development is again split into positive/ of a more militant period’ (Shohat and Stam, 1994:
negative, to invoke images of identity once used in 26). The 1960s was also a decade of ‘fundamental
many past imperial encounters between ‘North’ and shifts on the local, national or global level [which]
‘South’. The image of ‘Third World’ corruption, resonated with and grew out of each other’ (Fink et
incompetence, the lack of modern ‘thinking’ and al., 1998: 2). In 1968, student movements protested
‘attitudes’ were blamed by many for these ‘Third the ‘imperialist war’ against Vietnam, in China stu-
World failures’ (thus legitimising intervention in the dents and workers were lodged in the vanguard of
affairs of those states). The benevolent, democratic the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution insti-
‘international community’ thereby replaces the gated by Mao to block the ‘capitalist roaders’, and in
superior ‘West/white man’ of earlier imperial Mexico students protested the political monopoly
encounters (Doty, 1996). In this sense many social of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)
scientists participated in the production and legit- (Watts, 2001). As a decade of strategic reverber-
imating of ‘world ordering possibilities’ (Doty, ations within the global geopolitical system, the
1996: 157). In attempting to rethink geographies of 1960s helped to shatter the Eurocentric idea that
development today we need to understand where ‘the advanced proletariat of the West [brings] social-
and how these possibilities operate. This involves a ism as a “gift” to the “backward” masses of the
more nuanced interpretation of how the three periphery’ (Amin, 1974: 603). As Mike Watts (2001:
worlds schema works through specific institutions, 170) has put it:
practices and ideas. For some, ‘Third World’ states
are a source of radical potential: ‘Third World’ Third worldism corroborated not only a sense of
states have radicalised international society by revolutionary internationalism, but also con-
‘introducing collectivist ideologies and goals that firmed that there were models of revolution
challenge classical positive sovereignty doctrine’ and liberation outside, and beyond, both the
(Jackson, 1990: 114). Communist and Social Democratic traditions.
The important point here is that international
development forms the common base of knowledge Key writings such as Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on
around which ‘Third World’ societies and polities Colonialism (Césaire, 2000) thus offered something
are understood and ‘the take-off point, so to speak, of a ‘Third World manifesto’ (Kelley, 1999: 1) which
regarding the place of the third world in inter- consisted of polemics against the established
national society’ (Doty, 1996: 158). The point of (neo)colonial order and sought to mobilise sup-
entry is crucial here; it defines and limits the ways in port for new kinds of postcolonial internationalism
which those countries are enframed and understood (see Chapter 6). In a way, therefore, the uneven

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development of the world system conditioned the broad movements, making for enormously complex
composition and character of the diverse anti- political hybrids, cross-overs and connections
systemic movements which began to appear (from (Watts, 2001: 176).
the Middle East to Mexico). In Africa, the first gen-
eration of independent states (some of which had
descended quickly into military dictatorship) LOST FOR WOR(L)DS?: WORLDING
became Fanonite postcolonial movements with AND OTHERNESS
nationalism and institutionalised elite politics as the
focus of their critiques (Watts, 2001). Jean-Paul This theme of ‘cross-overs and connections’ made
Sartre argued that the year 1968 demanded ‘the across and between worlds is an important one in
enlargement of the field of the possible’ (cited in retracing the themes and issues of development
Watts, 2001: 175), enlarging and opening up the debates. What united many struggles was a ‘growing
very constitution of the political and political questioning of Western consumer-urban-industrial
struggle in particular. Within the new kinds of models’ (Jolly, cited in Arndt, 1987: 108). The rise
social movement emerging at this time (which took of consumerism in many ‘western’ countries began
multiple and hybrid forms, for example, around to be increasingly questioned therefore as many
Marxism) specific political questions to do with associations were made between these conditions
feminism, the environment, race and disarmament and those of other countries (such as Vietnam). As
began to be raised which seemed to cut across these Hardt and Negri (2000: 394) have put it:

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Far from being defeated, the revolutions of the Contemporary urban life in Britain and the United
twentieth century have each pushed forward and States of America intertwines these worlds; thus
transformed the terms of class conflict, posing struggles between worlds take place within as well
the conditions of a new subjectivity, an insurgent as between nations. For David Rieff (1990) Los
multitude against imperial power. Angeles is today the real capital of the Third World.
In reality these lines and spatial demarcations
This question of an insurgent multitude against between worlds are incredibly blurred, becoming
imperial power is a theme that we will return to later fictions, geographical imaginings or mental maps
in the book, but it is clear that this was a notion rather than actual territorial demarcations. There is
which ran through many revolutionary conceptions no first world without a third ‘other’ to compare
of Thirdworldism. There were many important and contrast it with.
questions raised by these revolutions about subject- At the end of the 1960s a common exclusion from
ivity and identity (not just national identity but decision-making and an oppressive experience of
class and gender identity as well). None the less, global development and industrialisation had led
there have been many critics of ‘Thirdworldism’ and many countries to discuss and explore their com-
the idea of three worlds who have argued that iden- mon obligations to the ‘advanced capitalist coun-
tity and difference were sometimes played down and tries’ (Jalée, 1969: ix–x). Although this notion of
over-simplified in these struggles. Shiva Naipaul, for ‘advanced’ countries is problematic in some ways,
example, views the term as symptomatic of a Jalée’s point about obligations and oppressive
‘bloodless universality that robs individuals and experiences remains relevant. Shohat and Stam
their societies of their particularity’ (Naipaul, (1994: 26) argue that ‘Third World’ is still a relevant
1997). Iran and Turkey, two countries which were term and better in geopolitical and economic terms
never colonised directly, fit uneasily into the tri- than referring to North/South polarity (since the
partite schema (as do Middle-Eastern geographies ‘South’ has occasionally included Australia!). In
of development more generally), and although particular they examine the rich tradition of ‘Third
these countries are economically peripheral, they World cinema’ and the notion of ‘third cinema’
have different histories and experiences of Euro- which emerged from the Cuban revolution. Despite
pean intervention and domination. Thus the three these imbrications of first and third worlds, the
worlds idea is sometimes seen to flatten hetero- global distribution of power ‘still tends to make
geneity and masks contradictions as well as obscur- First World countries “transmitters” and to reduce
ing some similarities. As Jenny Robinson argues, most third world countries to the status of
much of the developmentalist literature on ‘Third receivers’. It is not a simple case therefore of an
World cities’ is quite problematic in that it clings to active First World universally forcing its products
a category that sees such cities as essentially very on passive Third World peoples, since global and
similar, constructing an image of all poor cities as local cultures can co-exist. There are also powerful
infrastructurally poor and economically stagnant. reverse cultural currents that we must examine here
The literature on ‘world cities’ reinforces this dis- (from countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Egypt and
tinction, assuming that investigations of world cit- India). We can be cautious, however, about how use-
ies and Third World cities cannot inform one ful the idea of the ‘Third World’ ultimately is:
another (Robinson, 2002). As Robinson (2002: 533)
argues: ‘[T]he persistent use of the category of All these terms, like that of the ‘Third World’,
“third world city” [imposes] substantial limitations then, are only schematically useful; they must be
on imagining or planning the futures of cities placed ‘under erasure’, seen as provisional and
around the world.’ only partly illuminating.
Understandings of ‘city-ness’ are thus drawn (Shohat and Stam, 1994: 26)
from a very select group of countries and others are
measured according to this pre-given standard of What is needed then is a more flexible conceptual
world ‘city-ness’. Similarly ‘developmentalist’ framework. Shohat and Stam (1994) chose to retain
accounts bring into view only the poorly serviced the term since for them it remains capable of signal-
parts of cities. Many cities around the world are ling ‘the dumb inertia of neo-colonialism and the
thereby consigned to structural irrelevance and energizing collectivity of radical critique’ (Shohat
somehow ‘fall off the map’ (Robinson, 2002). and Stam, 1994: 27). It is also useful to remember

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that in a way the paradigm of the ‘Third World’ bath water, but rather that we can use a variety of
has been eclipsed in recent years by the term ‘post- terms ‘as part of a more mobile set of grids, a more
colonial’ (see Chapter 6), which evolved during the flexible set of disciplinary and cross-cultural lenses
1980s to designate work which examined colonial . . . while maintaining openings for agency and
relations and their aftermath: ‘[t]he new term resistance’ (Shohat and Stam, 1994: 45).
arrived with a magnetic aura of theoretical pres- The idea of three worlds on its own does not
tige, in contrast to the more activist aura once necessarily provide these kinds of ‘mobile grids’ and
enjoyed by the phrase “Third World”’ (Shohat and cross-cultural lenses that allow us to understand dif-
stam 1994: 38). The key question to explore here is ference between geographical regions. It is thus also
if this represents a move ‘beyond’ obsolescent dis- very important to recognise the hybridity – of
courses or the closure of something old and the peoples, places and cultures – that resulted from
passage towards something new. The ‘Third World’ colonialism and to be open to various interpret-
is most problematic for geographers in that it has ations and forms of politics, centred on com-
an ambiguous historicity and spatiality. In add- munities and refusing the ‘ghettoising discourse’
ition, the term ‘postcolonial’ is seen by some to be that comes with some representations of the Third
less useful than the idea of the ‘Third World’ in World (Shohat and Stam, 1994: 47). This would be
that it appears to posit no clear domination and ‘polycentric’ in that Europe or North America
calls for no clear opposition, suggesting that think- would be displaced from their position at the centre
ing about postcolonialism is not relevant to a cri- of global debates about development. Concerning
tique of the unequal distribution of power and research on non-western areas in social science dis-
economic resources. There is the assumption here ciplines today, these connections are not always
then that this newer term leads to a blurring of the made and there is a kind of privileging of other
assignment of perspectives or political positions spaces and places:
which was seen to come from ‘Thirdworldism’ and
to be based on a sense that colonial experiences The privileging of the Anglo-American cultural
were shared (albeit asymmetrically). For some world, and the tracing of cultural studies’ pedi-
critics, the term ‘Third World’ referred to some- gree only to London or Birmingham, prevents
thing in particular but it is not clear what the dialogue with Latin American, Asian and Afri-
‘post’ in postcolonial refers to: the ex-colonised, can studies, whatever does not belong to the
the ex-coloniser, the ex-colonial settler or the dis- Anglo-western world is peripheralized as ‘area
placed migrant living in London, Lahore or studies’.
Luanda? (Shohat and Stam, 1994: 6)
What was often understated in Thirdworldist
gatherings was the big difference in the timing and What would happen then if Latin American, Asian
nature of anti-colonial struggles across Latin Amer- and African studies in any discipline were not
ica, Asia and Africa (where the history of colonial- always othered and peripheralised as ‘area studies’
ism in these regions was very different). For some (since many of these centres were created at the
authors, ‘where colonialism left off, development height of the Cold War)? In this sense it is crucial to
took over’ in terms of the means of legitimating break down the spatial metaphors and languages of
interventions in the affairs of ‘Third World’ states representing distant and different geographies, con-
(Kothari, 1988). The idea of ‘neocolonialism’ was structing alternatives. From about 1975 onwards
central to the notion of Third World people and is many debates began to emerge about the question
also still seen as relevant today in that it emphasises of precisely how many worlds there are or were. The
a repetition and regeneration of colonial relations argument was made by a number of researchers
and designates important forms of contemporary interested in development that the ‘Third World’
hegemony in the world economy. The point perhaps contains enormous cultural, social, historical and
to take from these debates and varied opinions and political diversity and that it could not possibly
perspectives is that it is not a simple case of declar- account for the range of this diversity between
ing one conceptual frame to be ‘wrong’ and the countries. Many of the discussions that have taken
other to be ‘right’, but rather that each is only partly place in the Islamic world around the three worlds
illuminating. In rethinking development geography, schema have rested on the assumption of an essen-
this does not mean throwing the baby out with the tial Islam. This was the case in the 1960s and 1970s

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in the debate about whether Islam favoured capital- geographical difference as otherness which needs
ism or socialism (Halliday, 2000). Some researchers much more careful scrutiny:
then began to identify other ‘worlds’ within the
‘Third World’. This expanded the numbers of What is the geography of the Third World? Cer-
‘worlds’ recognised in development to as many as tain common features come to mind: poverty,
eight in some cases. A ‘fourth world’, for example, famine, environmental disaster and degradation,
was identified by some authors referring to one political instability, regional inequalities and so
made up of some of the world’s poorest indigenous on. A powerful and negative image is created that
peoples. The point here is not that there are more has coherence, resolution and definition. But
than three worlds, that there are in fact ‘X’ number behind this tragic stereotype there is an alterna-
of worlds but rather that perhaps the whole system tive geography, one which demonstrates that the
of dividing the globe up into ‘worlds’ is erroneous introduction of development into the countries
to begin with. We need to be careful in using these of the Third World has been a protracted, pains-
and other terms, to have a sense of their historical taking and fiercely contested process.
emergence and usage and all that it implies about (Bell, 1994: 175)
the economic or political order of the world. We
have thus to realise that the ‘Third World’ has been This then is one of the major objectives of this
used as a tool with which to think. The ‘three book, to try to formulate a more radical and alter-
worlds’ schema has therefore enabled various com- native geography of development, one which is lib-
mentators to summarise and ‘skim over’ diversity erated from the simplistic dualities and negative
and difference. images that tend to crystallise around the ‘three
The extent to which the three worlds schema can worlds’ scheme. In this sense we need to bring out
help us to understand all this diversity and differen- the extent to which ‘development’ has become a
tiation is thus questionable. We have to see that in ‘protracted, painstaking and fiercely contested pro-
some ways people and institutions ‘world’ Africa, cess’. The term ‘radical geography’ was associated
Latin America and Asia away from themselves. very much with debates about development and the
Other worlds are made to appear as distant places ‘Third World’ in the 1960s, at a time when anti-
outside the universe of immediate moral concern, poverty and anti-imperial movements where begin-
as ‘out there’ and as ‘satellite’ or ‘peripheral’ con- ning to emerge in a variety of countries. In the first
cerns. Thus many students travel away from home issue of the radical journal of geography Antipode,
communities to collect ‘Third World places’ (Des- Richard Peet listed the concerns of radical geog-
forges, 1998). The point here is that it is vital to be raphers as the war in Vietnam, apartheid in South
careful in forming our understandings of develop- Africa, Israeli occupations, urban poverty, US
ment so as not to create the impression that the imperialism and defence spending. Today it is
Third World is miles away, worlded away from our possible to widen the compass a little to include
own immediate universes of concern. In some ways postcolonial and postdevelopment critiques of
Africa in particular has been ‘overworlded’ (Paolini, development, while retaining the focus on poverty,
1997: 93) by a variety of development discourses, conflict, ethnicity, statehood and contemporary
occupying a disjunctive space and seen as separate forms of imperialism. In so doing however, we need
and disjoined from other worlds. In critiquing to move beyond the range of myths and stereotypes
development therefore we can understand this pro- that emerge from the three worlds schema, such as
cess of worlding and constructing a disjuncture the idea of ‘Third World women’ who have been
between regions which conveys the impression that seen by many western feminists as ‘frozen’ in time
continents such as Africa are somehow outside or and space and as exotic ‘others’ (Mohanty, 1988).
beyond modernity. This is an interdependent world Similarly, Chaliand (1977) once cautioned about the
however, and the extent and value of its inter- ‘revolutionary myths of the Third World’ and the
dependence also need highlighting and rethinking. mythical images of socialism and national liber-
Elsewhere it has been argued, following Bell (1994), ation that were offered to Third World peoples in
that more radical development geographies will the course of various revolutions in the periphery.
require liberation from the tyranny of these kinds Power relations in ‘Third World’ politics must
of dualisms and hierarchical structures (Power, thus be understood as dispersed and contradictory.
2000). From them flows a particular construction of Internal contradictions within socialist revolutions

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describes itself as an independent non-profit inter-

national network of organisations and individuals
involved in issues relating to development, the Third
World and North–South linkages. The organisation
campaigns on a range of themes including trade
issues and rules, the WTO, global economic and
financial crises, UNCTAD (United Nations Con-
ference on Trade and Development) and trade
developments, biodiversity, biotechnology and
indigenous communities, the environment, gender
issues and rights and health issues, among others.
The TWN’s objectives are ‘to conduct research on
economic, social and environmental issues pertain-
Figure 5.6 Photo of the revolutionary Che Guevara appears on a ing to the South, to publish books and magazines,
Cuban building
to organise and participate in seminars and to pro-
Source: Alix Wood
vide a platform representing broadly Southern
were therefore sometimes played down in these interests and perspectives at international gather-
mythologies of transformation. The myth of ‘Third ings such as those of the UN conferences and pro-
World women’ also denies women the right to be cesses, (TWN, 2001: 1). The organisation publishes
active, experiencing subjects. Representations of the daily SUNS bulletins (South–North development
agents, individuals and subjects of development in monitors), the fortnightly Third World Economics
the imaginary ‘Third World’ thus frequently paper and the monthly Third World Resurgence. It also has
over this diversity and difference rather than seek- a collaborative partnership with the ‘South Centre’
ing to accommodate and celebrate this as part of a in Geneva. The international secretariat is based in
radicalisation of development geographies. For Wil- Penang, Malaysia, but it has offices in Delhi, Mon-
liams (1983) it is also necessary to listen to the tevideo, Geneva, London and Accra and is affiliated
spokesmen and spokeswomen of the ‘Third World’ to other organisations across the world. The organ-
and to ask to what extent they are representative or isation’s website is also now an important means of
can act in the general interest of their peoples. The disseminating this idea still further. One interesting
problem remains, however, that ‘these are very hard component of the TWN website deals with the
questions to resolve within the terms of undifferen- ‘Seattle debacle’ surrounding the Third WTO min-
tiated cardinal blocks’ (Williams, 1983: 204). It is isterial talks: ‘While the immediate cause of the col-
thus difficult to distinguish different kinds of lapse was the inability of the US and EU to bridge
leadership and different political regimes in a their differences, the most important factor was the
framework that does not really seek to differentiate. refusal of developing countries to be bullied’
Colonel Qaddafi of Libya is one example of a ruler (TWN, 2001: 1).
who maintained power partly by undemocratic This brings us back to the question of a ‘platform
means but who was none the less widely seen as a for broadly Southern interests’ and the question of
champion of various ‘Third World causes’. As Third World ‘others’ being bullied. Is it possible to
Sharp (1988: 120) writes with respect to the use of represent this diversity of opinion and perspective
the First World/Third World terminology in South within one voice and to respond collectively
Africa (see also Box 5.3): through resistance? Solidarity between countries
has been organised around the notion of three
In both ‘first’ and ‘third’ worlds there are many worlds for many years but is it possible that move-
gradations of wealth, prestige, status and power. ments like the TWN will be able to organise them-
Therefore all claims to speak on behalf of one or selves around alternative identities if we place the
other of these ‘worlds’ as a whole are suspect. term under erasure? What is particularly interesting
about the TWN is its use of the term ‘Third World’
One useful way of exploring the contemporary use in relation to debates about ‘globalisation’. In many
and significance of the term ‘Third World’ is to such debates (see Chapter 7) the Third World is seen
think about the work of the Third World Network to exist on the ‘outside’ of modern and global
(TWN) based in Penang, Malaysia. The TWN forces, as an ‘other’ that forces the global and the

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modern to encounter themselves and interrupt their the global level (assuming that it ever did), but it also
assumptions about the non-western world (Paolini, seems to recognise in the term ‘Third World’ the
1997). For the TWN the term has a variety of mean- potential for creative imaginings of new global
ings however. The organisation clearly recognises communities that are capable of contesting and
that the term ‘Third World’ refers to a past histor- resisting inequality. Globalisation, as we shall see in
ical period and does not effectively map the diver- Chapter 7, fosters politico-economic interconnec-
sity of social, cultural and economic difference at tions and cultural hybridities that do not neatly

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correspond to a division of the world into three

separate or distinct parts.

CONCLUSIONS: COLONIALISM,
D E C O L O N I S AT I O N A N D T H E P U R S U I T
OF DEVELOPMENT

It [the Third World] delineates nothing that really

exists. It is a flabby western concept lacking the
flesh and blood of the actual . . . it is a form of
bloodless universality that robs individuals and
societies of their particularity.
(Naipaul, 1985: 10)
Replacing ‘Third World’ with ‘postcolonial’ has
drawbacks as well as advantages. ‘Third World’
Figure 5.7 The Cold War legacies of US and USSR rivalry
still evokes a common project of (linked) resist- Source: CWS and Paresh
ances, and has served to empower intercommunal
coalitions of peoples. . . . ‘Third world’ implies under the changed circumstances of the new world
that the shared history of neocolonialism and order(s): ‘It reproduces the hierarchies of con-
‘internal’ racism form a sufficient ground for ventional development discourse, whereby the
alliance. third world is still to be reformed and delivered
(Shohat and Stam, 1994: 40) from its current underdeveloped stage by the first
world’ (Abrahamsen, 2001: 44).
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the The ‘Third World’ and ‘Third World chaos’ have
end of the Cold War, the USA responded by in some ways come to be perceived as the major
reducing or eliminating its military aid to Kenya, threat to the prosperous global North. The main
Somalia, Liberia, Chad and Zaire, and reduced its discourse and ideology of northern intervention in
presence in Africa by closing nine aid missions and conflicts of the South is ‘development’, but even the
fifteen intelligence posts, redirecting aid personnel logic for development interventions is now increas-
to new assignments in Eastern Europe and the for- ingly being questioned across the globe. The Cold
mer Soviet Union (Bratton, 1994). As we have seen, War provided an important rationale for this
development is an industry, but it is also very much war on global poverty with anti-communist dis-
something which has been grounded in Cold War courses used to justify development spending on
geopolitical orders and discourses, producing a par- peoples in faraway places (Gendzier, 1985). A whole
ticular set of images and stories about ‘Third range of representations, languages and images thus
World’ spaces and places. From the early 1980s, surround the geopolitical imagination of the ‘Third
development assistance has increasingly been tied to World’. Arnold’s (1989) Third World Handbook and
evidence of democracy and ‘good governance’ that Hadjor’s (1993) Dictionary of Third World Terms
each state in the periphery can produce before its even offer readers a dictionary or handbook guide
western creditors. Abrahamsen (2001) argues that to the ‘Third World’ and the use of its associated
the good governance agenda developed for Africa in languages. For some observers the question of
the 1990s represents a kind of rediscovery of polit- whether the Third World is best considered as a
ics in the international development arena (after it geopolitical or analytical category belongs to a dis-
had been seen as irrelevant for years) but none the tant era, a question that has become an ‘anachron-
less one which represents a continuation of western ism’ (Stallings, 1995: 349). Between the two World
hegemony over the continent and a perpetuation of Wars colonial systems around the world began to
three world hierarchies. The good governance destabilise slowly as movements of anti-colonialism
agenda may thus be regarded as a ‘discursive trans- emerged and as international public opinion began
formation’ that, while claiming to liberate the poor, to turn against the idea of having colonies. Ironic-
enabled the West to continue its hegemony in Africa ally, European ideals of independent nation-states

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and nationalism have often provided the main

organising principles. Colonial nationalisms took
various forms, however, as elites looked to a series of
sources of legitimacy for their struggles to build
authority and territorial power in the newly formed
nation-states (Wallerstein, 1994).
It is therefore necessary to examine the extent to
which ‘truths’ about the First and Third World are
constructed through a variety of discourses (such as
those of ‘Third World leaders’ themselves). As
regimes of truth, discourses are encased in insti-
tutional structures that exclude specific voices, aes-
thetics and representations. Here we are referring to
discourse in the Foucauldian sense of something
which transcends the individual and constitutes a
multi-institutional archive of images and state-
ments, providing ‘a common language for represent-
ing knowledge about a given theme’ (Shohat and
Stam, 1994: 18). Thus when studying ‘Third World
development’ it is important to think about how
different voices, aesthetics and representations are
locked out of the equation and the ways in which
development is seen to transcend individuals and to
provide a common language for representing know-
ledge about the ‘Third World’. Racism differs from
Eurocentrism in that any group can be ethnocentric
or come to see the world through the lenses pro- Figure 5.8 Demining training and a prosthetic limb factory in
vided by its own culture. What is racist about many Angola after years of civil war
images of the Third World is that difference is Source: Alex Hofford
stigmatised in order to justify an unfair advantage,
just as had been the case under numerous forms of media in shaping popular perceptions of ‘other
colonialism. In this way it becomes clear that devel- worlds’ is important here since there is a ‘media
opment ideas, discourses and practices have often penchant for associating the Third World with vio-
come to stigmatise economic and political differ- lent, unnecessary, random death, or with disease
ence, as a way of justifying the advantages one and natural disaster’ (Ignatieff, 1998: 292).
region has over another and of legitimating inter- This is problematic because it is precisely this
ventions of various kinds. Talk of the free world sense of place specificity and this grasp of particu-
and use of the phrase ‘saving American lives’ has larity that we should be trying to move towards in
been invoked several times ‘as a pretext for murder- rethinking development geographies. As Spurr
ous incursions in Third World countries’ (Shohat (1993: 24) puts it, ‘the dead or dying body has
and Stam, 1994: 24). Whole lists of countries in this become in itself the visual sign of human reality in
imagined ‘Third World’ have seen US intervention the Third World’. Simplistic symbolism and
in their affairs (Vietnam, Cuba, Angola, Nicaragua, imagery thus come to stand for a ‘world of prob-
El Salvador, Chile, Liberia, to name just a few). lems’. This is particularly important because we
In so many instances the ‘Third World’ is need to think about the ways in which terms such as
enframed as a world of poverty and violence, and ‘developing’ and ‘Third World’ have been internal-
death and decay abound in these representations. A ised and about how people come to see themselves
uniform and universalised global landscape of in these terms. Escobar (1995) argues that develop-
impoverishment is created, which ‘lacks the flesh ment sets up the world as a picture, so that the
and blood of the actual’ as Naipaul (1985: 10) has whole system can be grasped in an orderly fashion
argued, robbing us of a sense of the particularity and is thereby seen as forming a structure or whole.
and specificity of spaces and places. The role of the Post-development writers suggest that we need to

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THIRDWORLDISM AND GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT
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understand how this ‘picture’ was painted, depicted the 1955 Bandung Conference of ‘non-aligned’
and imagined or even internalised by people, plan- African and Asian nations and their enthusiasm for
ners and politicians. anti-colonial struggles in Vietnam and Algeria.
In this way it is important to understand further Doty (1996) asks if it is possible to recognise differ-
the ‘toxic’ keywords through which the language of ence (between First and Third Worlds/North and
development is constructed and seen to relate to South, for example) without invoking ‘the hier-
particular spaces and provenances. Escobar argues archical oppositions reminiscent of the superior/
that discourses of development have produced their inferior classifications that have justified the prac-
other (‘underdevelopment’) as a condition that is tices characteristic of earlier imperial encounters’
manageable through normalisation and the regula- (Doty, 1996: 161). This is a crucial question in any
tion of knowledge but also through the ‘technifica- attempt at rethinking development geography – the
tion’ of Third World poverty. In this way, ‘Third extent to which it is possible to move beyond the
World poverty’ becomes something that only tech- oppositions, binaries, dichotomies and classi-
nicians of poverty eradication can ‘solve’ rather ficatory schemas of imperialism. The North is
than being something that the poor of the ‘Third constituted vis-à-vis the South as modern, efficient,
World’ can change for themselves. A new space is competent, as benevolent and humanitarian. The
invented, he argues, a field of power that can be South or ‘Third World’ becomes its absence, its
dominated by the development sciences with their deficiency, its other. This ‘politics of representation’
truth claims and assumptions of neutral, dis- may well be so widespread and so pervasive that to
embodied knowledge. This takes us back to the some degree we cannot escape its confines, nor its
main themes of this book which are to explore how production of ‘us’ and ‘them’ (whatever the urgency
discourses about the ‘Third World’ and the ‘West’ of a linked project of resistance). There is a continu-
create imaginary places that are imbued with certain ing complicity therefore of colonial representations
sorts of moral, cultural and socio-political attrib- in North–South debates today which ranges from a
utes. The concept of the three worlds thus has a politics of silence and neglect to ‘constructions of
significant impact in terms of delimiting the spaces terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, international
and scales at which policy can (quite literally) take drug trafficking, and Southern immigration to the
place and ultimately also determines in which North as new threats to global stability and peace’
spaces and places resistance and contestation are (Doty, 1996: 170).
possible. The ‘Thirdworldist’ notion of linked resist- In terms of explaining the sudden ubiquity of
ance envisioned only certain kinds of mobilisation this terminology we need to think again about colo-
and privileged only certain types of ideology. nialism and the postwar making of development
The definition of the ‘Third World’ thus flows (Pletsch, 1981). Whereas imperial and racist inter-
from our discussion of colonialism, development ests had often dominated representations of other
and racism above, because the term refers to colon- societies, after 1945 came the search for a kind of
ised, decolonised and neocolonised nations and ‘cleaner’ language of government and social science
minorities whose structural ‘disadvantages’ have in which talked of ‘developing nations’ rather than
some way been shaped by colonialism and by the ‘primitive peoples’ – apparently neutral terms
unequal division of international labour that the clothed in the garb of science. The three worlds
colonial process entrained. With the third World as schema did, however, have some value in helping
a world of tradition, irrationality, overpopulation, social scientists make sense of the world, dividing it
disorder, chaos and so on, the idea assumes a racial up into researchable proportions, suggesting which
character that perpetuates, both conceptually and part to work on and when:
actually, relations of domination, subjugation and
exclusion (Goldberg, 1993). We therefore cannot It gave the various social sciences a systematic
continue to exclude this issue of representation grounding in the new world situation and permit-
from mainstream development debates. The term ted the establishment of new disciplinary matri-
‘Third World’ was formed and constructed against ces . . . academic specialities invented out of
the backdrop of the patronising vocabulary which whole cloth to correspond to the new areas of
saw these nations as ‘backward’, ‘underdeveloped’ political and economic influence being sought by
and ‘primitive’. It also represented an important the United States.
political coalition which specifically emerged from (Pletsch, 1981: 588)

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Thus we need to shift attention towards the theor- below against an authoritarian modernising state
etical frames that these disciplinary matrices were and was supported by key clerics such as Kho-
built around, to ask how development, tradition meini. Founding ideological cornerstones of the
and modernity have been defined in postcolonial revolution included the division of the world into
times. Much has been written about the emer- two categories: the oppressed or mostazafin and
gence of a ‘Third Way’ among many contempor- the oppressors or mostakbarin, two Quranic terms
ary world politicians such as Tony Blair, defining (Dabashi, 1993). Khomeini’s jihad appealed to the
alternatives in opposition to what they perceive to poor, excluded elements of Iranian society, divid-
be dominant paradigms. Thus, in Britain, Blairites ing the world neatly into the camp of struggling
claim to support an economy that combines the oppressed Third World peoples and their enemies,
individual choice of the market with a concern for the non-Islamic, ‘western’ powers. Iran represented
the social opportunities of the welfare state (see itself until Khomeini’s death in 1989 as a model
also Giddens, 2000). For many critics, these ideas for other oppressed peoples, seeking to export its
simply throw a rhetorical gloss over a new style of revolution elsewhere (e.g. to Iraq, Lebanon and
right-wing politics. As Petras (2000) has argued Afghanistan). What is important here is that many
however, there are many other varieties of a of the standard themes of 1940s and 1950s
‘Third Way’ in the modern world besides the ‘Thirdworldism’ (anti-imperialism, dependency,
Euro-American brand. The idea of a Third Way hostility to monopolies, solidarity with the
has a long history, as we have seen in the ‘Third oppressed peoples of the world) recur in the state-
World’, dating back to the 1940s and 1950s, to ments of a number of Islamic leaders in countries
Third World leaders such as Peron (Argentina), such as Iran, Tunisia and Turkey. Several coun-
Nehru (India), Tito (Yugoslavia), Nkrumah tries, Iran included, came to believe that they could
(Ghana) and Sukarno (Indonesia). In addition, make a ‘revolutionary leap’ into industrialisation
many Islamic movements and regimes (such as the and progress, that they could take off or leap-frog
Iranian clerical government which took power in into the good life or take a short cut to that
1979) have also claimed to be pursuing a Third process.
Way, railing against western decadence, atheistic All of this needed to be very carefully theorised if
communism and the conceptual models that they that leap was to be a successful one in every case, for
produced. Similarly, many international NGOs ‘underdevelopment’ to become but a distant mem-
claim a privileged realm for ‘civil society’ in their ory. As we have seen, dependency theorists’ concern
vision of development today, arguing that this with this notion of underdevelopment did not
represents an alternative, third path to progress always lead to a decentring of the three worlds
(outside neoliberal capitalism or statism). This is
odd, since many NGOs are financed directly by
neoliberal institutions such as the UN, World
Bank and IMF. Ironically, in a strange twist to the
history of Thirdworldism, the Euro-American
brand of ‘Third Way’ politics is now promoting
the hegemony of capitalist organisation and dom-
ination in the Third World far more effectively
than many of the ‘old right’ regimes of Margaret
Thatcher or Ronald Reagan, for example (Petras,
2000).
The key question we must therefore consider is
the extent to which these ideas are real in their
consequences. Do the taxonomies we construct
and impose on the world shape the way we think
about the globe as well as the way we act in it, as
Worseley (1979) suggests? One important example
of this came with the beginning of the Iranian
revolution in 1979 led by Ayatollah Khomeini. The Figure 5.9 Cartoon of First World/Third World, World Summit
Iranian revolution involved a mass revolution from Source: CWS and Hajjaj

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THIRDWORLDISM AND GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT
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schema, seeking in some ways a reversal of the trad- certain kinds of alliances and are important (geo)-
itional/orthodox argument rather than completely political projects in themselves.
challenging it. This chapter has sought to argue
that Eurocentrism still pervades many systems of
ordering the world, and that systems of ordering
(and the pictures they paint) are partial and fre-
quently based around negative ‘truths’ which deny
or efface cultural difference and stereotype the
‘Third World’ as a world of problems. We have also
seen that some systems of ordering are ahistorical,
simplifying the complex political struggles which
have brought about change in many parts of the
world. None the less, all systems of dividing and
differentiating the world involve the formation of

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6
Po s t c o l o n i a l G e o g r a p h i e s o f
Development

I N T RO D U C T I O N : W H AT I S make and constitute each other by focusing on rela-

POSTCOLONIALISM? tions between the colonisers and colonised. In some
ways postcolonialism is also related to postmodern
[P]ostcolonialism is a much needed corrective critiques of development in that they share a con-
to the Eurocentrism of much writing on cern with agency, resistance, hybridity and dis-
development. course, and a common desire to explore the legacies
(McEwan, 2001: 130) of Enlightenment thinking and to challenge
dominant ‘western’ histories of progress. It is thus
Why is it that most development academics and
helpful not just to think of postcolonialism as
practitioners have never heard of Said, Spivak,
something coming literally after colonialism and
Bhaba, Fanon and other post-colonial thinkers?
therefore signalling its demise, but to think about
Why are these texts on Eurocentrism so rarely
this more flexibly ‘as the contestation of colonial
found on reading lists on Development Studies
domination and the legacies of colonialism’
courses in Development Studies departments and
(Loomba, 1998).
institutions?
Postcolonialism thus refers to ways of criticising
(Kothari, 1996: 13)
the material and discursive legacies of colonialism
Cosmopolitan jet-setters in São Paulo live one (Radcliffe, 1999: 94) and represents a number of
kind of development while women in sub- perspectives which can broadly be termed ‘anti-
Saharan Africa walking for hours to collect water colonial’ (McEwan, 2001: 127). The associated term
experience a completely different kind of devel- ‘postcoloniality’ on the other hand refers to ‘the his-
opment. How do we listen to this difference? torical experience of living in a time after colonial-
(Radcliffe, 1999: 84) ism’ (McDowell and Sharp, 1999: 208) and points
to a way of criticising the legacies of colonialism in
Postcolonialism is a difficult and contested term not the South which are both material (found in the
least because it is far from clear that colonialism has state or society) and to do with ideas (how people
been relegated to the past. Its meaning is not limited think about themselves and their relationship to
to ‘after-colonialism’ or ‘after-independence’ (Ash- other worlds) (Radcliffe, 1999). The terms ‘postco-
croft et al., 1995: 2) but seeks to highlight the com- lonial’, ‘postcoloniality’ and ‘postcolonialism’
plexity and ambivalence of the imperial encounter evoke responses in both the metropole and the per-
in crucial ways. In one sense, the word filled a gap iphery. There is much debate and discontent, how-
left by the abandonment of the term ‘Third World’, ever, about the manner in which these terms have
particularly for those influenced by postmodern or entered the lexicon of development discourse – ran-
post-structural thought. Typically, the postcolonial ging from whether the terms should be hyphenated
has been defined in relation to a period of time to their very legitimacy and their growing currency
which is marked by the power of the colonising pro- within academic circles. Many argue that postcolo-
cess (Slater, 1998). It raises important questions nialism neglects important issues of poverty,
about how the ‘core’ and the ‘periphery’ mutually resource distribution and development (Rajan,

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1997; Sylvester, 1999; Pieterse, 2001a) and object to de-Europeanized and hybrid space of recovery and
the way in which postcolonial approaches make a autonomy’ (Paolini, 1997: 84).
virtue out of being free-floating and open-ended Thus much of this work is seen to have an
(Sylvester, 1999). emphasis on the marginal and on the ‘carving out’
In some ways it seems that the critics of postco- of identities in postcolonial times. It involves giving
lonial approaches view their contribution as one of ‘voice’ in western academe to ‘Third World peoples’
ornamentation rather than actually advancing our (and this term is still used as if it is unproblematic in
understanding or analysis of development, suggest- many of these debates). Highlighting the Eurocen-
ing that at bottom it is possibly just a kind of liberal trism of certain kinds of scholarship about the
multiculturalism (Kelsall, 2002). Its theoretically ‘developing world’, the ‘Third World’ or ‘the Trop-
abstract nature seems somewhat at odds with the ics’ is therefore important here. The work of
need to adequately connect to the specific, concrete Edward Said (1978) in his book Orientalism gave
and local conditions of everyday life (Jacobs, 1996: particular impetus to these debates – Said had
158). Thus how do we combine the important cul- looked at how colonial discourses represented the
tural focus of postcolonial studies with the eco- ‘Orient’ and sought to manage and dominate it. In
nomic focus of the study of development (Schech his later work Culture and Imperialism, Said (1993)
and Haggis, 2000)? This is not an easy task since, in argues that postcolonial identities are intertwined,
many ways, postcolonial studies are premised on a intermixed and complex, a point that continues to
critique of western and Eurocentric models such as be relevant in the context of globalisation and the
those generated in the name of ‘development’. In resultant cultural hybridities that characterise the
some ways then, postcolonial studies and develop- ‘global’ era (see Chapter 7). This chapter seeks to
ment studies are rarely seen as interconnected fields: examine how postcolonial literatures are also
‘Two giant islands of analysis and enterprise stake largely the result of this interaction between
out a large part of the world and operate within it – imperial culture and the complex of indigenous cul-
or with respect to it – as if the other had a bad tural practices. These literatures have emphasised
smell’ (Sylvester, 1999: 704). the agency of the colonised in transforming their
In addition, postcolonial writing and the kind of own societies and subverting or remaking colonial
critique of development it offers have generally been power relations. Postcolonial theory builds on this
informed by postmodernism and post-structuralism by forming a critique of the way in which the West
which is seen by some critics as of limited relevance has ‘made’ knowledge about the South and as such
to interpretations of non-western cultures and soci- can help us to seek new ways of learning about and
eties because they are ‘infused with French social understanding development.
theory’ (Paolini, 1997: 84). Postcolonial theories are The extent to which it is necessary or even pos-
therefore also often inspired by many of the same sible to de-centre the West in our representations of
streams of social thought as the post-development global development today is a key question here. As
school, sharing common interests and concerns McEwan (2001: 127) argues, postcolonialism is also
with diversity and difference. One important feature at core about a critique of the spatial metaphors
of debates about postcolonialism is the recognition deployed by western institutions as well as a chal-
that European imperialism took various forms in lenging of the ‘experiences of speaking and writing
different times and places but that none the less the by which dominant discourses come into being’.
prestigiousness and power of the imperial culture Are there other kinds of representations and know-
usually took centre-stage. Indigenous cultures did ledge in non-western regions which may also be
not simply passively accept the cultural practices of important? Whatever postcolonialism is about it is
colonialism however. Imperial culture was (re)ap- based fundamentally in the ‘historical fact’ of
propriated by the colonised in projects of resistance European colonialism. Postcolonialism has also
to colonialism that sought to contest and under- tended to be very much a concern in countries that
mine imperialism and the power of its knowledge. were former imperial powers (e.g. France, Britain and
Postcolonialism is also seen to be born out of Portugal). Here it serves as an umbrella term for the
important streams of literary and cultural criticism experiences of decolonisation in the metropole. We
and as such is: ‘a celebration of the particular and can define the hyphenated form of the word ‘post-
the marginal which envisages peoples of the Third colonial’ to mean both the material effects of colon-
World carving out independent identities in a isation and the huge diversity of everyday and

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sometimes hidden responses to it (Crush, 1995). unevenness of the material world. Critical attention
Assumptions are, however, made about the com- to culture, difference and the spatial imagination of
monality of imperial rule or the universality of progress and development does not necessarily
certain colonial experiences which as we have seen imply that we have to dispense with a concern for
varied in a number of ways in different times and the material geographies of colonialism and their
spaces. There are clearly numerous problems with legacies (Nash, 2002: 222).
the process of classifying countries and with the Arguably, postcolonialism is not totally opposed
terminology used to understand a country and its to a concern for material realities but also allows us
characteristics and history. Thus for some obser- to deconstruct the mythical material futures of
vers there has tended to be a preoccupation with the development that were predicted for many coun-
West and with western forms of knowledge/power tries. It calls into question, for example, how coun-
(Sylvester, 1999), while the concerns of postcolonial- tries can be presented with a ‘future in a rearview
ism cannot be translated easily into ‘on the ground’ mirror’ scenario, as Nyamnjoh (2001) puts it in
practice. There have also been suggestions that the referring to James Ferguson’s reading of con-
oppositional stance of postcolonial studies will not temporary Zambian development (see Box 4.1,
actually make much impact on global inequalities p. 88). This important reading of Zambian devel-
and power imbalances and that, as a whole, it looks opment discourse focused in part on the prosperous
too much to the past. future prescribed and predicted for Zambia, explor-
One important point to remember here, however, ing the shattering of these illusions in postcolonial
is that postcolonialism has developed unevenly at times. Ferguson shows that in the late colonial
the global level (McClintock, 1992: 87). Argentina period high hopes and expectations were held for
is not ‘postcolonial’ in the same way as Angola, nor Zambia which failed to materialise in postcolonial
is Brazil ‘postcolonial’ in the same way as Bot- times. In some ways, therefore, many develop-
swana. In setting up a ‘postcolonial condition’, it is ment concepts and categories were incapable of
possible that such approaches ‘inevitably compress accounting for or theorising the subsequent reversal
the Third World into a single dimension’ (Paolini, and retrogression of Zambia in the ‘postcolonial’
1997: 87). Postcolonialism is not some sort of singu- period, where there had been a decline in several
lar condition therefore and, if anything, postcolo- sectors of the national economy.
nial writings seek to avoid or at least be critical of Issues and themes of exile and Diaspora are not,
‘framing’ the conditions of others. The term ‘post- however, universally relevant everywhere and could
colonial’ is extremely ambiguous and complex, be seen as the product of a ‘fixation on margins
relating to a whole variety of different cultural, created directly by certain parts of the West’ (Syl-
political and economic experiences. A principal vester, 1999: 714). In this sense, the term ‘postcolo-
objection for many critics is that a concern for the nial’ has more to do with a particular generation of
postcolonial obscures the ‘actual’ or material polit- scholarship:
ical economy and sociology of development, mak-
ing it difficult to see where ‘inequality’ fits into the ‘All along I wonder whether there is such a thing
equation. Global political and economic inequal- as postcolonial theory. To me it seems more the
ities will continue to remain obscured if these issues intellectual wave-length of a generation than a
are not engaged as an important point of departure. theory – the generation of decolonisation
This notion of the ‘actual’ political economy of (Fanon, Cabral, Abdel Malek), and postcolonial
development being downplayed and marginalised diaspora (Said, Hall, Spivak, Appiah, Rushdie),
in the silence of postcolonial writings is thus interconnected in a loose patchwork of themes
important to acknowledge here. A concern for the and approaches. These themes relate to the South
relationships between postcolonialism and global and to the South in the North . . . On all scores
capitalism remain absent from many contemporary this now lies behind us.
debates. None the less, postcolonialism is not some- (Pieterse, 2001c: 92)
how entirely separate from the material world as
many critics seem to suggest. In part, postcolonial The term ‘Diaspora’ literally refers to the scattering
literatures are important precisely because they of populations and dates from the Roman conquest
provide reflections on a whole variety of themes of Palestine; it remains a key theme of postco-
relating to social and political inequality and the lonial debates (Afzal-Khan and Seshadri-Crooks,

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2000). Thus in one sense the postcolonial refers ance to neocolonialism, whereas a sense of com-
partly to a generation of intellectuals and to the monality is occasionally lost in postcolonial studies
coherence of an epoch rather than to a particular with its characteristic focus on difference.
‘theory’ (Pieterse, 2001a). This is none the less a These debates are not reserved exclusively for
particularly important generation of scholars countries that have achieved independence in the
whose work does have a direct relevance to the the- past fifty or sixty years but have also been extended
ory and practice of development today – more on to countries that were never formally colonised or
these authors below. Postcolonialism is also a term which became independent more than a cen-
very much bound up with the migration forced by tury ago. Thus postcolonialism is in some ways
the slave trade, involving transnational connections preferable in that it is more nuanced and can serve
which criss-cross national boundaries and lead as a kind of counter-discourse which seeks to disrupt
to new forms of communities and identities. A the cultural hegemony of the modern West, with all
very geographical notion, the focus on diasporas its imperial structures of feeling and of knowledge,
emphasises the routes that different migrations wherever they have been manifest and in whatever
involve and the new transnational connections of capacity this hegemony exists. The term ‘postcolo-
peoples that result from this. Massey (1994) refers nial’ does need to be fully interrogated and con-
to these as ‘stretched out’ geographies of flows and textualised however, historically, culturally and of
connections which produce particular forms of cul- course geopolitically (Pieterse and Parekh, 1995). Is
ture and identity. In some ways, postcolonialism is this counter-discourse relevant to other regions of
partly about thinking through the implications of the South beyond Africa however, particularly
stretched-out geographies, making connections and those that have not experienced colonial rule as
understanding the important flows and movements recently as many African peoples and those that
between North and South. None the less, we must were never colonised at all? In order to answer this
remember that the location and development of question it is important to understand the relevance
geography as a discipline is ‘inescapably marked’ by of postmodernism in development thinking today,
its beginnings as a western-colonial science (Sida- since in many ways postcolonial and postmodern
way, 2000: 593). This would suggest that in seeking thinking are very closely related and intertwined
to deal with and understand these stretched-out (Simon, 2002). This has important implications for
geographies, the discipline of geography is not itself the discipline of development studies since, as
untainted by colonial legacies and power relations. Kothari (1996: 3) has argued:
All postcolonial societies in Africa are still sub-
ject in one way or another to overt or subtle forms Development studies is a relatively new discipline
of neocolonial domination which independence has which has its origins in a colonial past. . . .
not solved. Occasionally the associated term ‘neo- Development Studies is a neo-colonial discipline
colonialism’ is deployed to describe these relations in which particular gendered and racial forma-
of continuing domination and exploitation which tions constructed through colonial processes are
were once characteristic of colonialism. In some re-presented and re-articulated.
ways, the terms ‘neocolonialism’ and ‘postcolonial-
ism’ are not particularly incompatible but depend Thus we can bring postcolonial critiques to bear in
on a writer’s particular conceptual and thematic understanding the ways in which development stud-
persuasions. Thus neocolonialism has often been ies (and other disciplines) have assumed the power
associated with Marxist writings and also with the to name and represent other cultures and peoples
structuralist tradition of dependency writings. The today given that they were initially created and pro-
term is problematic, however, in that it overplays the duced by colonialism. Do these disciplines repro-
power of imperial centres, enframing the Third duce unequal relations of power as Kothari (1996)
World as passive and ‘continually captured’ (Slater, has argued? This chapter seeks to outline the key
1998: 654) without saying much about the impacts themes and considerations of a postcolonial geog-
of colonialism on western societies. Indeed, for raphy of development. In so doing, it does adopt
some commentators the term ‘postcolonial’ is a something of an Afro-centric focus in places and as
replacement for the idea of the ‘Third World’, but a result it is important to remember that not all
the main difference between the two is that ‘Third- postcolonialisms and not all conditions of postco-
worldism’ saw a common project of linked resist- loniality can be understood through the lens of

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postcolonial debates about Africa. There are woman’, acknowledging the diversity of perspec-
important differences and parallels that can be tives, approaches and paths to development that are
drawn with development theory and practice in a masked behind these labels. Just as we have set out
variety of other contexts (such as the Middle East) to explore the ‘other side of the story’ about the
which need to be brought out here. Indeed, this sen- development project or ‘the view from below, the
sitivity to cultural, political and economic differ- views of women, the view from the South’ (Munck,
ences between countries is one of the fundamental 1999: 200), so postcolonialism can help us to under-
issues of debate in postcolonial studies. stand ‘history from below’ (Dirlik, 2002). In this
This chapter asks where geography as a discipline way such literature can provide useful insights into
can make a contribution to a redrawing of the debates about the making of colonial and postcolo-
imagined geographies of contemporary ‘postcolo- nial nationhood and identity, by revealing stories
nial’ development. Is it possible that thinking about and histories that had been suppressed in earlier
postcolonial discourses of development helps us to accounts, by challenging the claims of some devel-
understand the emancipatory possibilities of new opment ‘experts’ and by challenging the claims of
configurations of social relations across spaces, other narrations of the past. Whereas modernisa-
places and scales? The first section focuses on tion consigned claims on history to the past, seeing
themes of nationhood, national identity and citi- them as backward reflections of tradition, these
zenship that have arisen in postcolonial debates. We claims have in a way reappeared in the contempor-
then move on to look at related issues of how lan- ary context of globalisation where social and polit-
guage and cultural identity have been explored in ical relationships have been reconfigured. Reading
postcolonial contexts and literatures, before shifting postcolonial literature can give us an idea of how
direction to explore the legacies of colonial notions these sorts of transformation are experienced in the
of trusteeship and their importance in shaping South and how people negotiate the complex
development thinking about First World/Third boundaries of social and cultural power and
World ‘partnerships’ today. identity in their respective societies.
One important source of ‘postcolonial’ writing in
the South has been the work of literary figures such
P O S T C O L O N I A L I S M A N D N AT I O N A L as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, J.
BELONGING M. Coetzee, V. S. Naipaul and Chinua Achebe.
What is particularly interesting and important
Postcolonial theory involves discussion about about some of these writings is the way in which
experiences of various kinds: migration, slavery, they often reflect on the nation, on national com-
suppression, resistance, representation, difference, munities and on questions of national belonging. In
race, gender and place (among others). It also some cases these writers also point up some of the
involves a response to the claims of imperial histor- continuity (and discontinuity) between colonial
ies which wrote colonised ‘others’ out of the script relationships and structures of power in the past
or denied them a place in history altogether. In and their resurfacing in the present. Some particu-
many ways these debates are characterised by the larly interesting questions have been raised by Afri-
notion that the ‘Empire writes back’ (Ashcroft et al., can writers, notably about the hybrid nature of
1995), in order to comprehend and reinterpret the identity. In postcolonial studies, hybridity is theor-
colonial experiences and identities of ‘Third World’ ised as an intrinsic dimension of the colonial
peoples today (Paolini, 1997). Postcolonial critiques encounter with hybrid subjects (Slater, 1998). On
stress the need to destabilise the dominant dis- the other hand, ‘postcolonialism’ is about mental
courses of development (with their ethnocentricity revolutions, about decolonising the mind, about
and origins in imperial Europe). In this sense they the realisation that ‘we too might have a story to
provide a much needed ‘corrective’ to the Eurocen- tell’:
trism of development discourses which prioritise
western histories and paths to ‘industrialisation’ or The nationalist movement in British West Africa
mass consumption (McEwan, 2001). Some of these after the Second World War brought about a
writings are also very instructive in that they decon- mental revolution which began to reconcile us to
struct and destabilise the histories and geographies ourselves. It suddenly seemed that we too might
of terms such as ‘Third World’ and ‘Third World have a story to tell. Rule Britannia to which we

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ography and became a way of writing history ‘from

the bottom up’ by focusing on dominated groups
and by exploring the dynamics of domination and
oppression in colonial and postcolonial India
(McDowell and Sharp, 1999). By ‘recovering’ and
giving voice to the silences, this kind of scholarship
participates in this process of decolonisation by
seeking to subvert and contest the elite and ruling
versions of the past. These kinds of histories also
focused on the agency and creativity of the
subaltern.
Akhil Gupta (1998) argues that in India, the
dominant discourse that enshrined national ‘devel-
opment’ as the key to progress after independence
in 1947 is a central condition of the ‘postcolonial
condition’ today in that country. Gupta’s work sug-
gests that the interface between postcolonialism and
development is a crucial and fruitful one to explore.
Interestingly, Gupta (1998: 39–40) argues that the
state-guided development project in postcolonial
India which sought to address ‘underdevelopment’
was not simply a ‘structural location in the global
community of nations’ but an important ‘form of
identity in the postcolonial world’. Thus under-
development figured in these state-guided dis-
courses not just as a material relation of social and
geographical position but also as a state of mind, a
form of identity, a notion of citizenship. What is
Figure 6.1 Twenty-five years constructing the future of
particularly interesting about some of Gupta’s
Mozambique
Source: Frelimo Forum Mulher
work is the way in which he maintains a focus on the
uneven materiality of the lives of people affected by
had marched so unselfconsciously on Empire day British imperialism in India. Some writers have
now stuck in our throat. warned, however, that postcolonial history can never
(Achebe, 1987: 12) simply make the marginalised, the oppressed, the
subaltern, the subject of their own history. Who
Following on and inspired by the work of a group gives academics and these writers the right to speak
of Indian historians known as the ‘Subaltern Stud- for the marginalised?
ies Group’, it has been argued that the project of In a study of the legacies of late colonialism,
decolonisation involves the recovery of the lost his- Mamdani (1996) argues that colonisation was fun-
torical voices of the marginalised, the oppressed damentally about differentiating between peoples
and the dominated (Guha and Spivak, 1988). One of the colony at the national level where adminis-
founding member of this group, Ranajit Guha, had trators and settlers were given the status of citizens
argued that the elitist bias of colonial histories of and the indigenous peoples were seen as subjects
India had denied peasants recognition as subjects with no rights. In this way the institutional segrega-
of history, as makers of rebellions (for example) or tion of the colonial state was, according to Mam-
as people with consciousness. The word ‘subaltern’ dani, later reproduced in postcolonial times,
here meant subordinate in terms of class, race or through complex formulations of identity which
gender, for example. It is important to remember constituted African peoples simultaneously as both
however, as Chakrabarty (1998: 460) has argued, citizens/subjects. Mamdani argues that we need to
that subaltern studies can be seen in part as a break away from the entrapment of Africa within
‘mutant of area studies’. In this way these import- ‘history by analogy’ however, which either exoticises
ant studies emerged out of Indian national histori- Africa or represents the continent’s history as part

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Concerns with the language of development are

not esoteric but rather are central to the process by
which worlds and geographical difference are
imagined and enframed. In this way postcolonial-
ism as a kind of counter-discourse articulates and
interlinks with associated critiques of national and
international development discourses such as those
formulated by feminist writers. Postcolonial femi-
nisms, for example, allow for and accommodate
competing and disparate voices (Radcliffe, 1999)
and try to deconstruct the myth of the homo-
geneous and stereotypical ‘Third World Woman’
(Mohanty, 1988). This myth constructs a powerful
form of ‘Third World Difference’ where all ‘Third
World Women’ are viewed as powerless, burdened
and oppressed. These women tend to be seen then
as passive victims, objectified in time and space.
Thus postcolonial approaches to feminism force a
move away from a singular national or international
feminism (which was based upon the vantage point
of white, middle-class, western feminists), thereby
highlighting the failure to acknowledge the import-
ant differences of ethnicity and class between
women (McEwan, 2001: 129). By citing some well-
known Third World women, some geographers
thus seek the right to speak about Third World
women, abdicating responsibility for engaging crit-
ically and personally with the global power relations
that classify ‘Third World’ others (Radcliffe, 1994).
Post-structuralist critiques of the (feminist) subject
have, however, made it quite difficult to define femi-
Figure 6.2 The UN and indigenous peoples, 1992 (Spanish ver-
nism’s ambitions and subject (McDowell and
sion), commemorating the International Year of Indigenous
Sharp, 1999). Postcolonial perspectives on gender
Peoples, 1993
Source: UN Department of Public Information, design by Jan Arnesen
see women as active agents of change and as highly
diverse and heterogeneous in their concerns and
of larger European stories of the past or meta- priorities rather than assuming that all women in
narratives. The African state itself takes hybrid, the ‘South’ are universally poor. Rather, attention
‘transculturated’ forms – with European roots and has focused instead on social constructions of mas-
beginnings but with a variety of African ‘inflec- culinity and femininity in each context, seeking to
tions’ and complexions (Ahluwalia, 2001). We can understand the different forms of identity and sub-
examine the variety of ways in which postcolonial- jectivity that are produced through different (histor-
ism informs our understanding and critique of ical) discourses of development. In an important
development discourse and helps to decolonise sense, these debates have raised crucial questions
established ways of apprehending North–South about the role of women in defining national iden-
relations (McEwan, 2001). These debates can help tity and belonging in postcolonial times.
us to understand the ways in which national states One of the most recent examples of feminist
and administrations may themselves be understood writers confronting this particular dilemma of the
as legacies of the past with important implications boundaries of national citizenship in postcolonial
for the creation of citizens and subjects in the pres- times comes from the work of novelists and cam-
ent. These writings can also extend the boundaries paigners such as Medha Patkar and Arundhati Roy,
of conventional thinking about development and both of whom have been prominently involved in
difference in important ways. campaigning against development and dam projects

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in India. Medha Patkar is a founder, principal era and tend to incorporate a critique of the ‘unre-
spokesperson and key organiser of the Narmada flexive projection of subjectivities as universals’
Bachao Andolan (NBA), the popular movement (Werbner, 2002: 2). Thus we might also dispute the
which has opposed plans for the construction of a universalisation of a single image or definition of
series of dams on the Narmada River in Northwest poverty and poor people, for example. Subjectivities
India (see Chapter 9). The NBA has questioned the are shaped and defined morally and politically in
whole process of development planning in India postcolonial times or even economically, through
and (under Medha’s leadership) has campaigned consumer identities vis-à-vis the global market.
for knowledge and information concerning plans Africans are thus ‘both citizens and subjects . . .
that affect people’s lives to be made more public sometimes they are more citizen than subject and
and earlier on in the planning process. As a result of other times they are more subject than citizen’
her writings and campaigns, issues concerning the (Nyamnjoh, 2001). It is important when exploring
socio-cultural implications of the dam projects have development to consider the extent to which sub-
been placed firmly on the agenda, while the World jectivities are determined by discourses, political
Bank and the Indian government have been forced economy, state structures and personal dispositions
to rethink their plans for the river and its diverse (among others). What we can begin to do, with the
communities. Medha Patkar has also helped to aid of postcolonial theory, is to open up the notion
establish the National Alliance of People’s Move- of agency, to deepen our understanding of subject-
ments, a network of activists that works throughout ivity by looking at its multiple forms, influences and
India and tries to change the relations between meanings and opening up the spaces where devel-
people and the state and to formulate alternative opment’s subjects are constructed.
visions of development. The Booker prize-winning It is often assumed that marginalisation, dispos-
novelist Arundhati Roy has also criticised these session and exploitation form a singular common
dam projects proposed for Narmada. Roy has been ground for the making of subjectivities in ‘neocolo-
part of several very high-profile demonstrations in nial’ times but we can widen the debate about where
India for which she was ‘symbolically imprisoned’ and how this takes place. It is therefore important to
for one day in March 2002 (Guardian, 7 March understand the plural arenas in which economic,
2002). Women have thus been at the forefront of cultural and political identities are made in postco-
many contemporary struggles against ‘develop- lonial times (Werbner, 2002). Subjection to the dis-
ment’ projects and programmes, and have been cen- courses of development is not just about relations
tral to the radical environmental and social justice of power and domination but also resistance and
movements. As we shall see, the struggles of women reconstruction. In this sense postcolonialism
across the South have been crucial to redefining and focuses on the need to understand the formation of
rethinking development in many ways (Bunting, a collective, social memory of shared histories and
2002) and at various spatial scales. cultures. In some ways, postcolonialism seeks to
‘replace’ memories of colonisation and calls into
question the distinction between oppressors and
L A N G U A G E , C U LT U R E A N D I D E N T I T Y oppressed in order to rewrite history from a more
multicultural perspective in a way that seeks to
One of the main reasons that postcolonialism is write back into history those left out of it or con-
relevant to the study of development is that it can demned to backwardness (Dirlik, 2002). Other
allow us to understand the material and cultural approaches to and ways of thinking about history
geographies of colonialism and the politics of iden- are crucial here (e.g. in film or fictional literature).
tity and belonging as it varies across spaces. A Postcolonial literature re-centres development
common focal point of many debates about postco- processes within the lived experiences and con-
lonialism and development revolves around the sciousness of those subjected to development at all
notion of subjectivity, which refers to the range of levels: local, national and international (Perry and
subject positions or identities that an individual Schenck, 2001). They can allow us to understand
human being as agent or subject actually mobilises concepts of ‘time as lived’ (Mbembe, 2001) and to
or embodies. In general, postcolonial approaches focus more on the terms and lived experiences of
are particularly sceptical of the notion of a unitary, ordinary people. Questions of literature are import-
self-authoring subject posited in the Enlightenment ant here since postcolonial studies as a field itself

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emerged from the literature of ‘Commonwealth

criticism’ which began to develop in the 1960s, giv-
ing expression to a variety of nationalist modes of
resistance. In a way these writings help us to read
the ‘local’ and ‘global’ in new ways and to begin to
understand alternative perspectives, finding other
ways of interpreting development practice. As a
result it is clear that ‘literature, as a crucial record of
subject formation, should take its place in an inter-
disciplinary, international development debate’
(Perry and Schenck, 2001: 200). In such work we
can find important records of the process of subject
formation in a variety of places and spaces undergo-
ing ‘development’. These works can tell us much
about the dialogues, voices, languages and social
Figure 6.4 Still from the Cuban film Memories of
constructions of postcolonial states. Forms of
Underdevelopment
resistance are also often evident in such writings Source: M. Chanan, courtesy of ICAIC
which can help us understand how resistance is and
can become transnational, linking men and women modestly without damage if given due care and
in different apparently ‘local’ situations across the attention. Simon (2002) argues, however, that the
world. baobab is also a symbol of endurance and survival
The multiplicity of different stories of develop- against the odds, providing resources and susten-
ment that have been forthcoming confirm further ance for different communities. The point here is
that development cannot be seen as emanating from not to argue over which tree provides the best meta-
a monolithic, singular ideological text or doctrine. phor but to open up a space for thinking about
Thompson and Thompson (2000) use the metaphor alternative ways of ‘reading’ and interpreting the
of two trees – the baobab and the mango – invoking geography of development in such varied locations.
literary sources from postcolonial writings, to sug- Another important question is whether fiction –
gest that these are important metaphors through its making and its consumption – is a luxury when
which we can understand the ‘lessons’ of develop- there are so many more pressing and urgent needs.
ment in Ghana and Thailand, two very different When there are wells to be dug, demonstrations to
countries. The baobab, as a symbol of the aridity of be attended, injustices in the world to be fought,
the African savannah, represents the top-down why should the inventing of fiction have any sort of
domination of a landscape, a predatory stifling of importance? With respect to India, Ghosh (2001)
growth and a swallowing up of its surroundings has argued, for example, that popular fictions ‘rep-
after taking root. The mango on the other hand is a resent the corruption of the era as well as the desir-
reassuring symbol of abundance that can be used ability of its modernity’, creating interesting and

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important paradoxes. Thus Indian fictions tell the and just five years before representatives of the
story of the ‘deferral’ of western modernity in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) met in Bandung
‘imaginary of the postcolonial nation’. This writing (Indonesia) to discuss the freedom and future of the
provides alternative insights and interpretations and African continent.
offers us a different approach to development Discourse, although short on proposals for future
issues. Important questions need to be raised, how- change, offers a powerful ‘poetics of anti-
ever, about the privileged positions from which such colonialism’ which provides both a reflection on the
texts are written and consumed. As Ghosh (2001: material and spiritual havoc created by colonialism
955) puts it: as well as a critique of colonialism and its need to
reinvent the other, to turn ‘the other’ into a barbar-
In postcolonial India, the cultural and gendered ian, which he called ‘thingification’ – a process
politics of Indian nationalism can be read which had ultimately degraded Europe. The book
through the texts of popular novels where con- does not set up a global power struggle between
structions of the ‘modern’ women in the service capitalism and socialism but rather focuses on the
of the Nehruvian national development project need to overhaul a racist system in order to enable
and its successors are presented for the consump- other imaginations of the world. Thus Africa is seen
tion of the literate middle class. to have been stripped of its history by an entire
generation of ‘enlightened’ scholars, casting Afri-
Ghosh’s account discusses how these fictions pres- cans as ‘little more than beasts of burden or brutish
ent a picture of the liberated Indian woman charac- heathens’ (Kelley, 1999: 10). Although his writings
terised by processes of westernisation, where were never intended to offer a road map or a blue-
women westernise themselves to the extent that they print for revolution, Césaire warned those waging
discard their spiritual or traditional roles in favour anti-colonial struggles not to replicate the Man-
of the ‘development’ of the Indian nation. In some ichaean world of backward/forward dualities in
ways therefore, such fictions offer essentially flawed representations of the non-western and western,
representations of the modern Indian nation and and to avoid the danger of trying to return to some
only ‘false’ promises that all citizens could be pro- mythical pre-colonial harmony. Instead, Césaire
vided with the necessities of life and the desirable argued that these struggles needed to avoid follow-
symbols of modernity. Thus in reading postcolonial ing European footsteps and carve out altogether
literature we can combine new types of ‘data’ such new directions.
as imaginative literature to advance our understand- Another key question in debates about postcolo-
ing of development and how it is received, experi- nialism and decolonisation has been the issue of
enced and articulated in countries such as India, as how language is used and understood. Chinua
a way of understanding struggles over the meaning Achebe’s writings in particular seem to express a
and practice of development. sense of unease with whether the language of the
The work of Aimé Césaire, in particular his Dis- coloniser, English, will be able to ‘carry the weight’
course on Colonialism, is useful here (Césaire, 2000) of his ‘African experiences’, arguing that this would
in advancing an understanding of the literary cri- need to be a new English ‘altered to suit new Afri-
tique of colonialism. Born in Martinique in 1913, can surroundings’ (Achebe, 1975: 62). Using the
Césaire (along with Senegalese poet Léopold Sédar ‘mother-tongue’ (which is invariably not the lan-
Senghor) gave substance to the concept of Négri- guage of the former colonial power) produces
tude, a key part of the process of decolonisation in phrases such as ‘dreadful betrayal’ and ‘guilty feel-
French West Africa. For Moore-Gilbert (1997), ing’ but using foreign languages is something which
Césaire’s writings anticipated not only the work of is positively embraced. Achebe revised this opinion,
Frantz Fanon but also other key postcolonial texts however, in some of his later interventions (Achebe,
such as Edward Said’s Orientalism (Said, 1978). 1988). Can English ever ‘carry the weight’ of
Discourse is particularly important because it ‘offers African experiences of postcolonialism and devel-
new insights into the consequences of colonialism opment? Can there be an African English (just as
and a model for dreaming a way out of our postco- there are Canadian, Australian, American ver-
lonial predicament’ (Kelley, 1999: 13). The book sions)? For Kenyan writer Ngũgı̃ wa Thiong’o,
was first published in 1950, in the age of decolonisa- language was the very means of the spiritual sub-
tion and revolt in Africa, Asia and Latin America jugation of African people. For Ngũgı̃ the actual

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domination of a people was very much a process itics in important ways. In addition, how have lan-
about culture, language and identity, suggesting guage and culture been creolised or hybridised in
that the imposition of the languages of the colonis- postcolonial times? Postcoloniality is partly about
ing nations was crucial to the domination of the negotiating the identities and power relations that
‘mental universe of the colonised’ (Ngũgı̃, 1986: 16). histories of colonialism have bequeathed, leading to
This then is an important part of understanding a whole variety of hybrid cultural and political
the implications of postcolonialism, by examining forms. Globalisation in particular is having import-
the ways in which colonial ideologies dominated ant impacts on the nature of language and cultural
the ‘mental universe’ of the colonised or continue so identity in Africa – through the growing importance
to do. of US and European news, politics and culture, for
Again, the language and culture of the colonising example (Ake, 1995). Thus Fanon’s ideas (though
power (in this case Britain) took centre-stage as clearly quite specific to the African context) con-
Kenyans, some of whom spoke Gikuyu as their tinue to be relevant in the contemporary era. For
mother-tongue, had to bow before this in deference. Ali Mazrui (1993: 358), writing about the postcolo-
Ngũgı̃’s point is that this took Kenyans further and nial appearance of alienation:
further from themselves to ‘other selves’ or ‘from
our world to other worlds’. Thus wherever Euro- [Fanon] takes language as a totality, as a macro
pean languages and cultures have been imposed on system and looks at its psychological impact on
people of colour there have been psychological ram- the colonised in light of the particular social con-
ifications. Algerian writer Frantz Fanon termed this notations of inferiority and superiority, for
process ‘alienation’, looking at the psychological example, which it has come to acquire as a direct
alienation that results from racial and class domin- result of colonial and racial relations of domin-
ation in colonial situations (Fanon, 1967, 1968). By ation. This cycle did not come to an end upon the
alienation he was referring to the many conditions attainment of political independence in Africa.
ranging from the superiority complex of the colon- The neo-colonial Africa that followed . . . has
iser to the inferiority complex of the colonised. essentially continued to promote relations of
Colonial language policies varied according to the dependency and domination in favour of alien-
identity of the coloniser in each context (Mazrui, ation, albeit through the mediating role of a local
1993). For Fanon, to speak means above all to bourgeoisie.
assume a culture, to support the ‘weight of a civil-
ization’ (Fanon, 1967). Thus with the acquisition of Thus for Mazrui, the term ‘neocolonial’ is prefer-
a language (native or colonial) comes an entire set able here, allowing him to characterise the relations
of cultural underpinnings. Fanon argued that colo- of dependency and domination that have continued
nial education and the Christian missionary enter- after former colonial rule ended. Postcolonial-
prise had produced a whole series of racist images ism is relevant to African conceptions of identity
of the ‘native’ which were perpetuated through and development in that it begins with people’s own
colonial ideologies of cultural difference. Through perceptions and considers these as something to be
colonial education and missionary activity there discovered rather than something that can be
was an attempt to elevate the culture of the colon- asserted a priori. None the less, it is important to
iser and debase the culture of the colonised. The understand the limits of the focus on hybridity in
process led Africans to identify with the European the context of the continuing asymmetrical rela-
explorer, the missionary, the ‘bringer of civilisa- tions of power between North and South and the
tion’. The overall effect on the mind of this edu- continuing dominance of a (not very hetero-
cational and religious war is alienation according to geneous) neoliberal doctrine of development (see
Fanon. Chapter 7).
Postcolonialism and postcolonial theories are
partly about thinking through the consequences
(after independence) of this alienation, raising PA R T N E R S H I P O R T R U S T E E S H I P ?
important questions about how these stereotypes
were internalised by the colonised. In many ways The distinguishing feature of the late twentieth-
the coloniser’s language was seen as elevated, ‘scien- century question of development is that trus-
tific’ almost, which impacted upon postcolonial pol- teeship, the integral of the nineteenth century

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administration and debates about trusteeship and

‘partnership’. Provided for under Chapters 12 and
13 of the UN charter, the trusteeship system was
intended to promote the welfare of the ‘natives’ and
to ‘advance’ them towards self-government. This
was supervised by the UN Trusteeship Council
which primarily involved permanent members of
the Security Council. The administering authority
was required to produce reports on the economic,
political and social advancement of the territories’
peoples (UN, 2002). The power of the administer-
ing state included full legislative and juridical
authority and even the right to treat the territory as
Figure 6.5 Statue commemorating first Mozambican President if it were part of the administering state.
Samora Machel With the independence of the Pacific Island of
Source: The author Palau in 1994 (administered by the USA as part of
the Pacific Islands Trust Territory since 1947) the
doctrine of development, has been renounced as Council ceased to function and no longer meets
the source of action toward development. From annually. Petitions were considered from the
the immediate historical experience of formal inhabitants of trust territories and the Council
imperialism and its end, it is easy to see why would visit the territories periodically to make
trusteeship should be renounced when the goals inspections. In the case of the Italian Trusteeship
of development for post-colonial Third World Administration of Somalia in the 1950s, the centre-
states are explicated by people who are neither of piece of initiatives was a series of seven-year devel-
the state or the Third World. opment programmes introduced in 1954 which drew
(Cowen and Shenton, 1996: 446) on blueprints provided by the US Agency for Inter-
national Cooperation (later USAID) and the
In understanding the continued relevance of the UNDP. The British colonial administration was
term ‘neocolonial’ we can critique the ways in which also involved and did not terminate its rule of
colonial humanitarianism has been reinvented after Somaliland until 1960. Trusteeship was often
the formal end of colonial and imperial rule. In rejected after 1945 because of its colonial connota-
some ways a theory of ‘trusteeship’ was built into tions, but the idea ‘implicitly reappears’ many times
the construction of development from the very in postwar conceptions of international develop-
beginning of the Enlightenment period. This saw ment (Cowen and Shenton, 1996: 446).
science and state direction coming together to After the Second World War, many former colo-
secure the basis of social harmony through a pro- nial administrators went on to take posts with
cess of national development (Cowen and Shenton, NGOs such as Oxfam or turned their hand to teach-
1996). There were even notions of socialist trustee- ing undergraduate or postgraduate courses on
ship (although the language was very different) in development administration and management.
some of Marx’s writings. One of the ways in which Cooke (2001) points out that some ex-colonial
the idea of development has roots in the eighteenth- officers were even teaching as full-time staff mem-
and nineteenth-century concerns of the Enlighten- bers in the late 1990s at the University of Manches-
ment stems from the reinvention of notions of ter and its Institute for Development Policy and
‘trusteeship’ after 1945 as a strategy for supervising Management (IDPM). In ‘postcolonial’ times,
the territories of the ‘Third World’ or ‘postcolonial development management (which is now based
world’. Trusteeship in colonial administration was around the logic of foreign aid and continues to
all about the mission to civilise others, to strengthen have an elitist bias) blurred the core principles of
the weak, to give experience to the ‘childlike’ colo- trusteeship. Colonial ideas about First World inter-
nial peoples who required supervision. When devel- ventions in the operation of Third World states and
opment took over where colonialism left off one of societies have therefore continued beyond the for-
the important ways in which decolonisation was mal end of colonialism and imperialism. The con-
imagined was through the idea of development temporary focus on ‘good governance’ in countries

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such as Britain therefore has to be understood in world (Brehm, 2001). The idea of North–South
this context, as a legacy of the history of colonial partnerships especially became popular after the
administration and its management of colonial publication of the 1969 Pearson Report on Partners
development. This is not to view colonial adminis- in Development (Jolly, 1999: 40). More recently, the
tration as a homogeneous set of practices and ideas OECD report Shaping the Twenty-first Century
but rather to seek to understand the continuities to included an annex on ‘development partnerships in
‘postcolonial’ times. the new global context’, ideas which have been
Despite all the talk of ‘empowerment’, ‘develop- echoed in Britain since 1997 by New Labour’s
ment’ is still very much something that is defined development proposals (DFID, 1997, 2000a,b).
and enunciated by the ‘First World’. Just as in colo- At present, the theme of partnership serves an
nial times, the frameworks and strategies of devel- ideological role in the new neoliberal policy frame-
opment are authored outside the country concerned work in that it conveniently ‘papers over contradic-
and are grounded in foreign (neoliberal) ideologies. tions and the rollback of government’ (Pieterse,
Just as colonial states sought to govern their terri- 2001a: 17). It also often involves quite naive
tories and administer their peoples, so the IFI’s assumptions about the power and power relations
agenda of ‘good governance’ today seeks to discip- that really exist between postcolonial partners. As
line the realm of local politics, to prescribe the kinds we shall see in Chapter 8, the contemporary man-
of political change that are possible in the South. In agerial language of ‘ownership’ used by various
this sense Cooke (2001) argues that the practice of development agencies today (to show how devel-
empowerment and participation ‘always takes place opment is a local, place-specific product of auton-
within first world boundaries’, defined, measured omy) still involves creditors telling recipient nations
and conceived by the administrators rather than the how their development should proceed and requires
administered. Development administration was outside approval and endorsement despite the fancy
also bound up very much with Cold War geopolit- window dressing. In one section of the 1997 White
ics, a key element of US counter-insurgency tech- Paper on international development produced by
niques in Vietnam, for example, waging an Clare Short and her Department entitled Working
‘unarmed managerial struggle against communism with British Business, the UK government argued
in the underdeveloped nations by engineering the that ‘the pursuit of short-term commercial object-
transformation to capitalist modernity’ (Cooke, ives, such as the previous government’s support for
2001: 12). Development assistance, as we have seen, the Pergau [dam] project or Westland helicopters
has a long and close connection to Cold War geo- should be avoided’ (DFID, 1997: 41). The priori-
political discourses. In the contemporary era, par- tisation of business and commercial involvement in
ticipation and partnerships partly become a way for development partnerships is crucial to New
development agencies to counter accusations of Labour’s vision however, and is a central strand of
neocolonialism (Cooke and Kothari, 2001). The their particular variation of Third Way politics
seductive language of partnership is thus regularly (Slater and Bell, 2002). Maxwell and Riddell (1998:
used in postcolonial times but has an important 264) note that potential ‘partners’ may thus inter-
colonial history where outside agency was pret the UK’s perspective on partnership in the fol-
prioritised: lowing terms:

Terms central to participatory development we know how best to achieve development . . . we

which came into vogue through colonial anthro- know how you should alleviate poverty . . . either
pology, like ‘community’, ‘village’, ‘local people’ you accept the approaches we think are right for
and so on are all elements in colonial and post- you or you will not qualify for a long-term part-
colonial discourses which depict the world in nership with us . . . if you do not accept our view
terms of a distinction between ‘them’ and ‘us’. of development then we will not provide you with
(Cooke, 2001: 14) aid.

‘Partnership’ is a classic example of one of the Thus the 1997 report on international develop-
‘plastic’ words of development (which we will be ment does not really move away from the long
examining further in Chapter 8) and represents a history of unequal relations of power and repre-
term that is often over-used in the development sentation that characterise conditionality debates.

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POSTCOLONIAL GEOGRAPHIES
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Are partnership and conditionality not, in some

ways, contradictory objectives and as a result are
these partnerships not generally ‘intrinsically one-
sided’? (Slater and Bell, 2002: 346). It is not always
particularly clear what this term means however,
particularly when used by donors; nor is it often
specified clearly how ‘partnership’ can systematic-
ally be put into practice given the varied legacies of
colonial power relations. If there has been a trad-
itional donor/recipient relationship between ‘part-
ners’, how can policy discussion ever be considered
an equal process? North–South linkages, as we have
seen, are important in a number of senses, but the
supposedly ‘beneficial’ nature of these relationships
for southern organisations can be questioned.
Southern NGOs often have an incredibly important
local knowledge, understanding and presence in the
countries where they operate. In connection with a
range of resources provided by northern NGOs,
these partnerships can potentially be very fruitful.
One recent study (Brehm, 2001) examined the
Figure 6.6 A reminder that western countries should ‘Act like it’s ‘partnerships’ forged by ten European NGOs with
a Globe, not an Empire’ southern partners and found that many of the ten
Source: © Protest Graphics organisations tended to focus on the concepts rather

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than on the purpose and practice of partnership. ships. Unequal power relations in the production
The study also revealed that ‘systematic principles’ of knowledge – and even in terms of defining
of practice among the European NGOs were rare what constitutes knowledge – remain profound
and that funding issues put in place important and fundamental.
power relations between the ‘partners’. The guise of
‘dialogue’ between worlds is therefore often a shal- Thus even the process of forming South–South
low one. In this way it is also important to ask about partnerships is not uncomplicated in itself. Alli-
the process of ‘capacity building’ for and by NGOs: ances of northern and southern NGOs, as in the
for what and for whom is this done? ‘Civil society’ is Fair-Trade Network, are often able to help indi-
one important concept which has increasingly come vidual communities of producers change their lives
to shape northern NGO perceptions of the south- while engaging simultaneously in global trade cam-
ern organisations with which they work. In situ- paigns and progressive policy advocacy (Simon,
ations of political instability and conflict do NGOs 2001). International NGOs and NGO networks
understand the nature of national military and such as the Jubilee 2000 campaign for the allevi-
security organisations (Koonings and Kruijt, 2001) ation of HIPC debt offer, at least in part, the hope
and are the latter engaged as ‘partners’ for reform? of a way forward (see Chapter 9). The UK-based
According to the website of DANIDA, the Danish World Development Movement (WDM) is another
government development agency, a ‘Partnership example of an NGO that has forged international
2000’ scheme has been chosen as a new strategy for alliances and ‘partnerships’ around trade issues and
working with southern organisations in recognition negotiations. These are important examples of what
that: has been called a ‘locally grounded but globally
informed praxis’ (Mohan and Stokke, 2000). This is
Denmark by itself cannot create development for a key issue for development geography: to what
the poorest sections of the world population . . . extent can ‘grounded’ local interventions be
this must necessarily take place in partnership informed by a global ‘praxis’? Here it is also
with the developing countries, their governments important to think about the interdependence of
and civil society – not least the poor, the groups the local and the global. As Simon (2001: 23) puts
and structures that represent them – and with it, ‘the interdependence of social, cultural, eco-
other partners in development work. nomic and political groups at different scales and
(DANIDA, 2001, constituted on different bases is now increasing
[Link] rather than decreasing’ (emphasis in original).
The New Economic Partnership for African
Different conceptions of development and the pres- Development (NEPAD) is a recent initiative formu-
ence of local hierarchies and social relations can lated by African states that seeks to build on these
often complicate this sense of co-operation. Pro- interdependencies by acknowledging the important
gressive intentions do not always translate easily role of partnership and co-operation in inter-
into development practice. It is possible that the national development. It has requested annual
radical edge of participatory methodologies and commitments of some US$64 billion in aid, loans
practices has been blunted as the agendas of NGOs and investments, and seeks an agenda that is set by
are co-opted by the institutional mainstream such African peoples ‘through their own initiatives and
as the World Bank and USAID, for example (Long, of their own volition’, while focusing on the way in
2001). Some geographers also have ‘mixed’ experi- which African peoples must ‘shape their own des-
ences of working on research projects where col- tiny’ (Bond, 2002: 1). There is an argument, however,
laborative arrangements were insisted upon by the (as we shall see in Chapter 8) that this is far from
funding agencies, such that establishing North– being a locally authored strategy that reflects and
South partnerships in the process of conducting arises from Africa’s rich traditions of political
research often becomes ‘fraught with difficulties in struggles. Many African intellectuals and social
each case and ultimately unsuccessful’ (Simon, movements are united in opposition to the pro-
2001: 15). According to David Simon: posed partnership, however, because it surrenders
too much to international institutions and submits
[t]here is a real dilemma over the basis of North– to established power relationships that many feel it
South and indeed, also South–South partner- should be doing more to overhaul. Libyan leader

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Muammar Qaddafi criticised NEPAD for its obei- A good example of the value of a postcolonial cri-
sance to ‘former colonizers and racists’ (quoted in tique of development comes from a reading of The
Bond, 2002: 1). In response, South African Presi- Challenge to the South, a report prepared in 1990 by
dent Thabo Mbeki (a strong backer and advocate of the South Commission. The Commission had been
the partnership) insisted that ‘We do not want the chaired by former Tanzanian president and advo-
old partnership of a rider and horse’ (quoted in cate of self-reliant development Julius Nyerere.
Bond, 2002: 1). Closely shaped by US and UK Although the Commission held no public hearings,
politicians and endorsed by the IFIs and the it did bring together some very interesting members
interests of international capital: of the South establishment who had attended many
of the ‘big’ development events and conferences of
[NEPAD] empowers transnational corporations, recent decades (Rist, 1997: 199). As a result of the
Northern donor agency technocrats, Washington dominance of this particular kind of ‘establish-
financial agencies, Geneva trade bureaucrats, ment’ very few new ideas and ways forward were
Machiavellian Pretoria geopoliticians and articulated and few core principles run consistently
Johannesburg capitalists, in a coy mix of through the report. The final document also reaf-
imperialism and South African subimperialism. firmed a ‘development imperative’ that ought to be
(Bond, 2002: 2) realised through ‘sustained economic growth’
(quoted in Rist, 1997: 201). What is particularly
There have already been protests around NEPAD interesting about the report is the way in which it
which is seen by some critics to be a plan and part- seeks to speak on behalf of the whole of the South
nership that was authored by technocrats and elites and is based on the idea that the South speaks with
in places such as Geneva and Washington rather one voice. Further, the report also failed to view the
than by the social movements of the continent most wealth of the North as a key part of its conception
directly concerned. It supports existing poverty of poverty in the South. It did, however, talk about
reduction strategies such as the HIPC and PRSP enabling people to utilise their potential in its defin-
processes and talks about vague public–private ition of development, and in his Preface, Chairman
partnerships rather than reflecting on or at least Nyerere argued that ‘the responsibility of develop-
acknowledging the wave of anti-colonial popular ing the South lies in the hands of the people of the
struggles that united peoples and places across and South’.
beyond the continent. Again NEPAD repeats long- Postcolonial critiques can also allow us to decon-
established notions of ‘bridging the gap’ with rich struct the emergence of what Ahluwalia (2001)
countries, while simultaneously reproducing that gap refers to as ‘Afro-pessimism’, where Africa’s future
by backing existing development strategies and is seen as bleak, meaningless, already a tragedy –
accepting international political and economic assuming that Africa has neither the political will
(in)equalities as they currently stand. Arguably then nor the capacity to deal with its own problems. It is
it has also adopted a problematic postcolonial absolutely crucial to contest this image of Africa’s
strategy for African development which reflects future as meaningless. We must remember that as
long-standing colonial ideas about development Mudimbe (1988) points out, ‘Africa’ is an inven-
management and who should administer it. tion, a western signifier. This means of signification
is being currently reconstructed by western institu-
tions that exert their power through ‘knowing’ what
CONCLUSIONS: POSTCOLONIALISM is best for the continent – namely development and
AND THE VOICES OF THE POOR: CAN modernity: ‘It is through their amassing of statistics
A N YO N E H E A R U S ? and surveillance that an underdeveloped, prim-
ordial, traditional and war-ravaged Africa is
Postcolonial studies has the potential to be a new (re)produced’ (Ahluwalia, 2001, 133).
and different location of human development Development is about statistics and surveillance
thinking. . . . Not infected (as much) by the and the image or picture of underdevelopment that
know-all history of development studies, but just is (re)produced. Postcolonial critiques of develop-
as embroiled in thinking about the West, it is freer ment thus often seek to explore how specific ideo-
to criticize colonialism and creeds of progress. logical formations and persistent normative
(Sylvester, 1999: 717) assumptions and expectations have ‘flowed from a

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colonial discourse into a development discourse’ the meanings of terms such as ‘local/global’ and to
(Kothari, 1996: 5). Indeed, for Schuurman (2001) think again about the porous borders between and
this normative preoccupation with inequality, with within continents. In some ways, postcolonial litera-
the poor, the exploited and the marginalised is the ture helps us to think in new ways about the inter-
‘proper’ focus of development studies, rather than face between the local and the global and to focus
a concern with diversity and difference (Schuur- on the lived experiences and consciousness of
man, 2001: 9). In this way it is argued that it is ordinary people by providing a crucial and different
inequality ‘which should constitute the main focus record of subject formation which combines a new
within the explanandum of development studies’. conception of data and sources for studying devel-
Development geographers, however, may not see opment. It is necessary here to question the extent
these concerns as mutually exclusive and should to which decolonisation is incomplete and how
also seek to deconstruct the idea of an explanan- migrations and displacement force us to revaluate
dum, an all-encompassing and explanatory notions of close connections between nations and
interpretive schema. states in an era of global cultural flows (Appadurai,
Although the formal political management of 1996).
colonised territories came to an end with the col- Edward Said (1993) has pointed out that imperi-
lapse of European empires in the first three decades alism bound disparate societies, peoples and
following the Second World War, the process of cultures together but in a way which was at root
decolonisation is not complete. Normative assump- profoundly unjust. We can thus extend this concern
tions about progress are an essential component by asking: How does international development
and enduring feature of development, as we have bind disparate societies, peoples and cultures
seen, prescribing solutions for other regions and together in postcolonial times and how might this
normalising this process around an intellectual dis- be unjust (for some)? Thus we can also examine the
cipline or institution. Colonial constructions and geopolitical trajectory of societies that have been
representations of ‘Third World others’ therefore subjected to varying forms of both colonial and
persist to a degree and themselves require decolon- imperial domination (Slater, 1998). There is a real
isation. People and identities cannot be seen as sin- sense, however, that these debates need to be more
gular composites, simplistic images (such as that of grounded in the local and everyday realities of par-
the ‘Third World woman’) which efface and erase ticular peoples and places (Paolini, 1997). If it is
difference and diversity in development. Whereas uprooted from specific locations, then the term
‘Thirdworldism’ flattened the differences and het- becomes harder to investigate meaningfully, obscur-
erogeneities between states, so postcolonialism ing the relations of domination that it seeks to
seeks to bring out and celebrate this difference and uncover (Loomba, 1998). It is therefore necessary to
diversity. This does not mean that we should oppose view the role of former imperial powers such as
a positive decolonisation to a negative of neocolo- Britain and France in postcolonial Africa in a his-
nisation; that is far too simplistic. A key part of this torical context, examining the emergence of metro-
process involves recognising that postcolonial cit- politan senses of moral responsibility for distant
izens and subjects mobilise not just a single identity others during the slave trade, colonial settlement
but several fluid identities which are constantly and imperial conquest (Lester, 2002). The roots of
revised, meaning that it is necessary to think about the Rwandan genocide, for example, can be
the flexible nature of citizenship and the dynamics linked directly to Africa’s colonial past but also to
of belonging and identity (Ong, 1999). In an its postcolonial present, and it is this interaction
important way then, African subjects reimagine between past and present that postcolonialism is
themselves by confirming the ‘very porous borders fundamentally about. This is relevant because it
of Africa as a discourse of geography, history, cul- recognises that Africa ‘has to deal with its past in
ture, nation and identity’ (Ashcroft, 1997: 137). order to understand its present and confront its
Postcolonialism is fundamentally about porous future’ (Ahluwalia, 2001: 133). Debates about part-
borders and fluid identities, shaped in part by a var- nership and ownership of development need to be
iety of historical and cultural discourses of ‘nation’. understood in this context, examining the extent to
If globalisation processes are transcending nation- which concepts and notions of ‘trusteeship’ are
state boundaries, new forms of identity are begin- truly a thing of the past and the possibility that they
ning to emerge and it is thus necessary to consider may have been reinvented in ‘postcolonial’ times.

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as an idea in imperial times. What is important here

is that this humanitarian enquiry ‘created a sense of
property in the objects of compassion’ (Lacquer,
1989: 179). This meant that peoples seen as the
object of humanitarian concerns were appropriated
to the ‘consciousness of would-be-benefactors’,
enabling humanitarians to ‘speak more authori-
tatively for the sufferings of the wronged than those
who suffer can speak for themselves’ (Lacquer,
1989: 180). This also encouraged the formulation of
‘prescriptive principles’ aimed at relieving suffering
and improving the sufferers. A sense of responsibil-
ity for distant strangers may thus never be able to
escape the declaration of ‘epistemological sover-
eignty over [their] bodies and minds’ (Lacquer,
Figure 6.7 The United Nations and the campaign for slavery
reparations
1989: 188). It is precisely the establishment of this
Source: Cartoon by B. Farrington sovereignty over the minds and bodies of distant
others that can and must be challenged through
postcolonial geographies of development. Jonathon
Crush (1994: 303) defines the aims of a postcolonial
geography of Africa as about:

the unveiling of geographical complicity in colo-

nial dominion over space; the character of geo-
graphical representation in colonial discourse;
the delinking of local geographic enterprise from
metropolitan theory and its totalizing systems of
representation; and the recovery of those hidden
spaces occupied and invested with their own
meaning, by the colonial underclasses.

Thus where the ‘colonial underclasses’ had been

written out of colonial histories of development,
Figure 6.8 The legacies of colonial history continue to have a con-
temporary relevance in countries such as Sierra Leone
ignored, exploited and overlooked, postcolonial
Source: © Dave Brown, Independent (2001) histories and geographies seek to ‘recover’ these
kinds of hidden spaces. In addition, these regions
As we have seen, the cures for the ills of recipient must also no longer be denied an autonomous space
countries in need of humanitarian assistance were in debates about ‘global’ development today. The
first forged through experiences of colonisation and ambivalence of African relationships to modernity
settlement during imperialism – which has proved is not always adequately recognised and intercon-
to be of enduring significance. These forms of nections between western and non-western are
humanitarianism, born in the nineteenth century, sometimes neglected. African cultures and peoples
have been dismissed by many postcolonial critics as are not somehow outside ‘the West’ or ‘western
little more than a legitimating screen for imperial- modernity’ but a central part of its make-up and
ism despite the fact that they often sought to chal- origins. One of the major contributions of postco-
lenge official and settler practices (Lester, 2002). lonial scholarship, however, is the concentration on
Gandhi (1998: 27) thus argues that it is important to themes of resistance and hence the field of the pos-
distinguish the different groups that produced sible for the marginalised and subaltern peoples
humanitarianism from those that sought to oppose that are the subjects of postcolonial development
it during imperial times. This moves us away from (Paolini, 1997). This is also one way in which it is
the idea of drawing simplistic lines of exclusion and possible to focus on particular, specific contexts in
inclusion when mapping the power of development thinking about postcolonial identity today.

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For many critics, globalisation is simply a for the traumatisations they had experienced as a
restatement of imperial ambitions where the con- consequence of what they had seen and heard
tinuing legacies of imperialism may be seen to be (Narayan, 2000). At the same time fieldwork can
relevant to many globalisation discourses (this time allow us to explore issues of locally grounded but
led by the United States) (Ahluwalia, 2001: 123). As globally informed praxis, to transcend and
we shall in Chapter 7, unequal relations between reinterpret the relationships between researcher and
cultures (which separate and divide worlds) are researched and the gulfs and separations between
being ‘productively reproduced under globalisation’ worlds of global development. Studies such as the
(Ahluwalia, 2001: 123–124). For others, global- World Bank’s ‘voices of the poor’ survey, which
isation also involves continuity with colonial claim to use ‘participatory’ approaches and meth-
discourses in those representations of ‘emerging odologies, assume that they too have created a space
markets’ promoted by western-led financial institu- in which the marginal can speak, but their very rep-
tions which can be read in part as a contemporary resentation as ‘poor people’ (very few of whom are
reformulation of colonial idioms (Sidaway and actually even named) often robs them of their
Pryke, 2000). Africa has barely featured in many of voices.
these discourses. Postcolonialism and globalisation The representation of Africa as the dark contin-
come together for Ashcroft et al. (1998) around ent continues unabated, with the continent viewed
themes of local/global interaction and of cultural as a kind of repository of disease, war and pesti-
transformation. Where development discourses of lence. Africa has also been seen as the ‘hopeless con-
the 1950s and 1960s sought to force ‘Africa’ and tinent’ (The Economist, May 2000) or as a ‘basket
other world regions into a map of ‘globally norma- case’ (African Business, January 1999), surrounded
tive patterns’, postcolonialism emerges to disrupt by negative stereotypes and metaphors which
conventional geographies of ‘contact zones’, of obscure more nuanced (and decolonised) interpret-
North–South ‘interaction’, and to focus instead on ations. Contemporary African, Asian, Middle-
the postcolonial hybridity of cultures and identities, Eastern or Latin American cities are, however,
which forces us in turn to rethink the very spatiality increasingly part of global networks linked by new
of development and discourse, to reconsider the communication technologies (which have them-
meaning and theorisation of peoples and places. selves become a key arena of struggle for many
In this sense we must engage with surveys like the people). Hybridity is a feature in many of these
World Bank’s ‘voices of the poor’ analysis of 60,000 spaces and places, where modernity is defined and
poor women and men which involved conducting consumed in different ways, gaining meaning
studies in the 1990s in fifty countries around the through everyday practices and realities. Abdou
world (see Chapter 8). In total eighty-one Participa- Maliq Simone (2001) has explored the legacies
tory Poverty Assessments (PPAS) were conducted of colonialism for African cities and the social
which the Bank argues were based on ‘discussions’ spaces of urban areas, arguing that they were not
with poor people. Although there are many prob- designed with African rhythms and sensibilities in
lems with the way the Bank has sought to draw mind but have been transformed as physical and
upon these ‘voices of the poor’ to legitimate its dis- cultural spaces through the process of decolonisa-
courses about opportunities and markets (Narayan, tion. Similar transformations can be made to the
2000), the study did engage in an ambitious attempt ideological spaces of development if postcolonial
to understand people’s own perspectives and theories and debates are engaged in more widely by
experiences of poverty and was itself conducted in those interested in development studies of various
many ‘postcolonial’ contexts. We thus need to think kinds.
about how issues of subjectivity and definitions of There has also been the persistent charge that
knowledge and poverty are articulated in this and ‘recent post-colonial theory fails to engage with the
similar surveys and the extent to which history and “real” world’ (Ahluwalia, 2001: 134), an important
culture are seen as important to understanding pov- weakness if connections are to be made to global
erty and its spatial variation. Fieldwork and con- development debates today. As Robinson (2002: 533)
ducting social research in developing countries has argued, there is ‘still considerable work to be
proved difficult for the Bank and emotionally chal- done to produce a cosmopolitan, post-colonial
lenging for many of the team employed to conduct urban studies’, one which is free from presumptions
this study, some of whom later required counselling about global hierarchies, problematic categories

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ways of understanding and knowing the people and

challenges of development are possible which do
not rely on ‘neocolonial’ disciplines and access to
western ‘experts’. Postcolonial critiques of devel-
opment discourses have been very important but
there is room for a much further and deeper
engagement between geographical debates and
exchanges about postcolonialism and development.
Language and literature should figure prominently
in these debates, as might questions of fieldwork and
the actual process of conducting research in the
‘developing world’ or the global ‘South’ where
global inequalities sometimes become dramatically
obvious and hard to negotiate. Another of the key
potential points of engagement must be issues of
Figure 6.9 Consensus and the conference on racism
economic relations and effects which have so far
Source: Cartoon by D. Cagle
tended to ‘elude representation in much of postco-
lonial studies’ (McEwan, 2001: 130). Berger (2001a),
for example, is very sceptical of the potential of
such as ‘Third World cities’ and the developmental- postcolonial theory, arguing that it does not fit well
ist myths of urban poverty. A decolonisation of the with the contemporary circumstances of Latin
presumptions in urban studies about ‘city-ness’ is America (whose colonial histories are less recent).
required in order to explore urban futures in the Thus, as Sidaway (2000) has argued, ‘mapping’ the
postcolonial world (Robinson, 2002). By adopting ‘postcolonial’ is a problematic and contradictory
a concern with the postcolonial, it is possible to cri- process. Both Sidaway and Berger also share some
tique earlier categorisations of cities and countries important reservations about the relevance of these
into ‘western’ and ‘Third World’ varieties, a categor- debates to Southern and Eastern Europe and the
isation which emphasised difference and deviation post-Soviet and post-Yugoslav republics, arguing
from the norm. that postcolonialism fails to capture the timing and
Despite the closeness of this interface between character of their quite specific historical experi-
postcolonialism and development, many critics con- ences. According to Berger (2001a: 220):
tinue to ask how this ‘theory’ can be translated into
practice on the ground, since knowledge and power More generally, the notion of the postcolonial is
are so intimately linked. While useful in encourag- problematic when it is used explicitly or implicitly
ing us to think on the edge or along the margins to encompass Latin America, the Middle East, or
(Slater, 1998), the term and the debates that have Asia and even Africa . . . can such diverse paths
surrounded it also have their problems, ambiguities as those taken in India, Brazil, South Africa,
and dissonances: Hong Kong, Fiji, Egypt, East Timor, South
Korea, Vietnam and Thailand . . . be framed by
There is the persistent idea that western academia the postcolonial condition?
has the answers for the rest of the world and only
by gaining access to education in the West and If we look at colonial Southeast Asia, for example,
adopting Western theories can people from the between 1800 and 1941, Thailand did not fall under
‘Third World’ understand their own histories and European control at all and there were British, French
economies. and Dutch variations of colonisation. Varieties of
(Kothari, 1996: 10–11) economic and political transformations were thus
unfolding across Asia which were not easy to sum-
It is therefore worth thinking about the extent to marise and had contradictory implications for those
which these debates represent the interests and con- involved (Barwise and White, 2002). Postcolonial-
cerns of western-based, urban intellectual elites. ism thus has diverse origins which include contribu-
Clearly it is not possible to homogenise the lives of tions from Latin American authors. The problem
the subaltern, the marginal and the poor. Other that Berger and many other critics of the relevance

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of postcolonial scholarship partly have is that of colonialism and neo-colonialism had so deeply
these ideas are seen to be ‘of less relevance when penetrated Muslim politics, they are not to be exor-
grappling with the new post-Cold War order’ cised so easily’. It is important then to theorise the
(Berger, 2001a: 221). None the less, the Middle East complex and varied forms that imperialism and
is very important to debates about postcolonialism neocolonialism take in the contemporary world. A
and the making of international development dis- variety of ‘national’ struggles in the Middle East
courses and theories more generally. There are, were necessarily international in their implications
however, problems of framing the region in this but one of the principal limitations of postcolonial
way, given the continuing importance of ‘internal studies has been that they often fail to adequately
colonialism’, where Israel (for example) continues recognise and comprehend these kinds of hori-
to have a presence in Gaza, the West Bank and zontal (as well as vertical) cross-border alliances:
southern Lebanon (Sidaway, 2000). None the less,
we need to recognise that colonialism had a major Had postcolonial studies taken on more fully the
impact on politics in the Middle East. Dabashi import of such cross-border and multi-axial alli-
(1993: 509), for example, talks of how ‘[t]he demons ances, this would surely have generated a less

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rigid ‘centre–periphery’ conceptual mapping some observers however, the approach does not
than that which has characteristically organized really move beyond binaries and is unable to gener-
the field. ate new insights into the failures of modernisation
(Boehmer and Moore-Gilbert, 2002: 11) and dependency approaches (Kelsall, 2002). Postco-
lonialism does, however, enable us to re-emphasise
These rigid and enduring ‘centre–periphery’ con- relations with other cultures as an integral part of
ceptual mappings, as we have seen, are certainly not studying development and allows us to challenge
unique to the field of postcolonial studies. Postco- the authority of development discourse and the way
lonial geographies can help us to work through the it constructs the world in postcolonial times. This
tensions between global and local, core and per- means going beyond the rhetoric and tyranny of
iphery, between the global-level ‘grand narrative of ‘participation’ and ‘participatory’ studies of devel-
colonialism’ (Nash, 2002: 228) and the varied and opment and poverty to deconstruct development,
localised projects of resistance to colonial values to question the construction of development know-
and power relations. These debates do not offer an ledge, the language of development theorists and
all-embracing theory and explanation of develop- practitioners and also the power relations that exist
ment (and nor should we expect them to) but they between these theorists and practitioners and the
do offer an opportunity to rethink relations across people and places they seek to study and represent.
the spaces of development, focusing on the import- This also involves decentring the West and
ant mutually constitutive relations between West incorporates a certain rejection of the ‘truth
and non-West, centre and periphery, raising ques- claims’ of one part of the world on behalf of the
tions about new diasporas and border-zones. For rest.

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7
Globalisation, Government and
Po w e r

I N T RO D U C T I O N : G L O B A L I S AT I O N for the global corporate elite’ (SFGJ, 2000).

AND THE NON-WESTERN WORLD Attempts to publicly debunk the myth of free trade
have sought to question the deep and numerous
Most people are put off by the world of econom- holes in the conceptualisation of ‘trade’ and the
ics. Too boring. Too obscure. Too technical. . . . expectations of what might flow from it. At the pro-
After all, it’s what economists themselves would tests surrounding the 2000 WEF meetings, a group
have us believe. They are the priesthood and we called Students for Global justice (SFGJ) argued
are the novices, waiting for the mysteries of the that their objective was to open up the ‘ideological
faith to be revealed. Despite their fancy forecast- space’ of development in search of alternatives, pro-
ing tools and econometric equations, orthodox testing because they felt it was necessary to debate
economists have been completely hopeless at pre- alternative guiding principles for the global econ-
dicting financial disasters or managing the inter- omy, putting on the agenda the possibility of trans-
national economy. They don’t know any better formation away from the current ‘pro-corporate
than the rest of us. malaise’ (SFGJ, 2000: 3). This chapter raises the
(Ellwood, 2000: 1) question of how contemporary debates about
What we are doing to the poor in the name of ‘globalisation’ are connected to pro-corporate
globalization is brutal and unforgiveable. institutions such as the WEF and seeks to examine
(Shiva, 2001: 59) how this promotion of capitalist discipline by the
agents of neoliberalism can be questioned.
For the first time in its thirty-one-year history, the The World Social Forum (WSF) on the other
World Economic Forum (WEF) met outside Davos hand is a newly established coalition (proposed by
(Switzerland) for its 2002 annual get-together. Pro- a number of Brazilian civil society organisations)
testers were met with a violent response from New which meets (around the same time as the WEF) in
York Police, however, who secured the Waldorf the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil for its annual con-
Hotel conference centre (where the meeting was ferences. The slogan of the first forum in 2001 was
held) with military-style precision. In recent years, ‘another world is possible’, a theme that has since
the annual meetings of the WEF have become been widely adopted by a variety of social move-
important sites of protest and contestation in them- ments and campaign groups, many of which use
selves in debates about the world economy and how the Internet to highlight ‘globalisation and its
it should be managed. The WEF represents a group effects seen by those who resist’ (as declared the
of representatives, usually drawn together from Porto Alegre–WSF website). At the 2001 WSF
around 1000 international companies, which claims meeting more than 700 social movements from 122
to engage business and society to ‘improve the different countries were represented. Resistance
world’, but their meetings have become massively was still seen as primarily ‘local’ (Houtart, 2001)
contested affairs, with widening protest and demon- and one of the key concerns discussed was the
strations. Some argue that WEF gatherings are a fragmented and piecemeal nature of resistance,
kind of ‘Business Olympics’, ‘a big cocktail party isolated into different sectors, which potentially

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militated against the formation of common worlded beyond the universe of immediate moral
grounds for global resistance (see Chapter 9). Up concern:
to 60,000 people amassed in Southern Brazil
(among them trade unionists, parliamentarians, Elite western policy-makers seem to regard the
community, environment, poverty and human growing income equality gap as they do global
rights groups along with representatives from land- warming. Its effects are diffuse and long term and
less and peasants movements). fears of political instability, unchecked migration
The forum thus brought together a diversity of flows and social disruption are regarded as
movements, uniting fisher folk from India with alarmist.
farmers from East Africa and trade unionists from (Wade, 2001: 80)
Thailand, for example, offering a successful coun-
terpoint to the WEF. The WSF II meeting even For how much longer can the effects of world
included a people’s tribunal on debt (highly poverty be regarded as diffuse? If another world is
appropriate in a country drowning in debt to the possible, how much will poverty be a feature of this
tune of an estimated US$140 billion). The social new world? The point here is that for an organisa-
forum’s key themes included the production of tion with incredibly well-resourced research capaci-
wealth, access to wealth and sustainability, civil ties, the self-styled ‘knowledge bank’, the World
society and the public realm, power, politics and Bank, knows very little about world income distri-
ethics. WSF meetings were thus beginning to bution, its causes and consequences. Globalisation
explore the possibility of many alternatives in terms is first and foremost about the power of these organ-
of efforts in communications, practical economics isations to shape global development agendas, to
and new forms of political and social organisation – globalise their ideologies and to set the terms
all with a view to creating a supposedly ‘post- of debates, choosing to research only those forms of
capitalist’ world (Houtart, 2001: vii). This is clearly economics that support their own arguments.
a long-term process but it is beginning to raise ques- This chapter focuses on the theme of inter-
tions about the possibility of a land reform which national government and power in development
favours peasants, about mechanisms to ensure and navigates a number of recent debates about the
democratic control over finance capital, about the globalisation of the world economy, examining the
redistribution of wealth through social security and implications for the ‘Global South’. If the world is
about public reappropriation of collective public in the throes of ‘globalisation’, can every nation
resources, such as water, knowledge, seeds and expect to do equally well and what are the specific
medicines (see Chapter 9). challenges facing geographers who seek to examine
As we have seen, many global development agen- the interface between development and globalisa-
cies give the impression that global poverty is falling tion? This is complex because there has often been
as a direct result of their particular poverty reduc- a careless use of both terms in much of the
tion strategies, declaring that the world is
unquestionably ‘on the right track’ in this regard.
World income inequalities, according to some of
these institutions (e.g. the WEF and the World
Bank), are falling as a direct consequence of world
trade and transnational enterprise. These agencies
share a common assumption that ‘globalisation’ is a
process that is inherently good for poor and ‘thirsty’
debtor countries, which must seek to avoid ‘lagging
behind’. To globalise is, therefore, to ‘catch-up’. If, as
is the case, the answers to these questions depend on
how income and distribution are defined and meas-
ured, how real is the scenario that world trade is
leading the attack against world poverty? Many
‘western’ politicians are beginning to wake up only Figure 7.1 Globalisation and time/space compression (the inflated
gradually to the realities of these inequalities. Many role of multinationals)
see these concerns as those of distant geographies, Source: Jonathan Shapiro for The Sowetan, 3 May 2001

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literature which makes it difficult to analyse what is a world scale. In this sense neoliberalism is the ideol-
happening on the ground and which actors and ogy of those in power and something that is being
agents are actually involved. It has been ‘fetishised’ universalised as a consequence of that power. It is
to the extent that as an idea it is now seen as having necessary therefore to examine the extent to which a
‘an existence independent of the will of human network of power and government has emerged at
beings, inevitable and irresistible’ (Marcuse, 2000: the global level, whereby these organisations shape
1). This chapter argues that it is necessary to retain the agendas of nation-states and localities in a
a sense of how globalisation actually exists and number of ways. Neoliberalism is seen here as an
impacts on peoples and places every day, on the ‘ongoing ideological project’ (Peck and Tickell,
ground, exploring how these processes are related to 2002: 401) that takes different forms at different
the will of human beings. It has to be recognised geographical scales. This chapter, however, also
that this is partly about an expansion of capitalist argues that there is a need for a certain kind of
relationships that began centuries ago rather than ‘deliberalisation’ of development and the spatial
just in the past few decades. relations that this involves. Neoliberalism provides a
A distinction also needs to be made between kind of ‘ideological software’ for ‘competitive glob-
technological globalisation and the globalization of alisation’, a set of prescriptions all countries must
power. What we need to focus on in rethinking follow at global, national and local levels. Thus it
development geographies is the globalisation of could be argued that the neoliberal ‘offensive’ needs
capitalist crises (e.g. from Thailand to Argentina) on to be mapped carefully by development geograph-
ers, charting how its ‘local’ institutional forms are
linked to more general ideological characteristics
operating in other parts of the world. How is the
neoliberalism adopted in Brazil similar or different
to that of Benin or Britain, for example? The terms
‘neoliberalism’ and ‘neoliberalisation’ refer to dif-
ferent processes, as we shall see. Escobar’s (2002)
recent work, for example, seeks to map the
neoliberalisation of Latin American spaces of
development.
These questions of macroeconomic governance,
the role of global institutions and their impacts at
different spatial scales are absolutely central to a
reworked and critical geography of development.
‘Governance’ is a term that usually refers to the act
or process of governing and is therefore sometimes
seen as being synonymous with government. In
terms of development debates however, the term
focuses on the wider range of governmental and
non-governmental institutions and actors that
shape policy outcomes. The term also refers to the
relationships between different actors (ranging
from government institutions to non-government
organisations or NGOs and social movements or
private companies). We shall be examining the
possibility that there has been a spatial restructur-
ing of governance as new networks of power are
being composed at different supra-national or
supra-territorial spatial scales.
The Bangkok-based organisation Focus on the
Global South has focused attention on the impacts
of organisations such as the World Bank, IMF and
WTO. They argue that the WTO in particular ‘is

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fact that, as Ahluwalia (2001) puts it, the continent

helped to ‘inaugurate’ the forces of modernity itself:

Africa, which was at the centre of the economic

forces which inaugurated modernity itself, as part
of the transatlantic slave trade, sadly is now mar-
ginalised, with scant attention paid to it by those
who proclaim a new globalised world.
(Ahluwalia, 2001: 113)

Similarly, Amin (2001b) criticises what he calls the

‘incense bearers of globalisation’ for ignoring the
fact that, for Africa at least, the ratio of extra-
regional trade to GDP did not change significantly
through the twentieth century. Globalisation is thus
by no means a new or novel phenomenon but rather
is closely related to the making of European mod-
ernities and the global expansion of European
empires in regions such as Africa. Neither in this
Figure 7.2 The World Bank: mixing the ‘development soup’ and its sense is resistance to the process of incorporation
ingredients by formulaic recipe into a globalising economy altogether ‘new’ when
Source: Bretton Woods Project peoples around the from world have long resisted
this if their material circumstances or cultural
founded and maintained on many myths’. In values are threatened (Wallerstein, 1998). What is so
November 2001 the organisation took part in dem- astonishing about some of these debates is that they
onstrations outside the Bangkok World Trade assume that this is in some way a novel process for
Centre along with 1500 farmers, jasmine rice pro- Africa, delivered courtesy of the greater dissemin-
ducers, trade unionists and HIV/AIDS activists – ation of western progress and enlightenment and
calling for the WTO to ‘get out of agriculture’ and the growing (and inevitable) scale and reach of
an ‘end to the patenting of life and drugs’. How global capitalism. Using these terms (global/
have transnational corporations sought to increase capitalism) together in this way is not unproblem-
their influence in the South and how do inter- atic however, since this would suggest a singular,
national patterns of trade and investment impact homogeneous capitalism which holds sway
upon levels of world poverty? (Pieterse, 2001a). It must be remembered that there
Africa’s share of world trade has decreased from are many capitalisms which ‘both co-operate and
5 per cent to just 2 per cent in the past fifty years compete’ (Pieterse, 2001a: 91). Globalisation is
(White, 2001), but why is this continent becoming sometimes also seen as an entity in itself, distinct
increasingly marginal in terms of trade in a globalis- from capitalism and somehow now the underlying
ing world? An important theme of this chapter is force transforming the world. We can thus share
how globalisation has been theorised in different Wallerstein’s reservations about the use of the term
ways across different disciplines and in different cul- ‘globalisation’ in contemporary contexts:
tures. Culture and globalisation are linked in these
discourses of development and we need to examine As used by most persons in the last ten years,
the extent to which there is a relationship between ‘globalization’ refers to some assertedly new,
globalisation and postcolonialism. What is particu- chronologically recent, process in which states are
larly interesting about the huge volume of literature said to be no longer primary units of decision-
about globalisation and development is the way in making, but are now, only now, finding them-
which non-western regions are depicted and con- selves located in a structure in which something
structed as having sought to gain from these pro- called the ‘world market’, a somehow mystical
cesses. Few of these sources seem to say anything and surely reified entity, dictates the rules.
about the role of Africa in globalisation despite the (Wallerstein, 1998: 107)

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The ‘world market’ is often portrayed as this kind global change into question, raising concerns about
of ‘mystical and surely reified entity’ in much con- the way in which spatial scale and interconnected-
temporary global development discourse. None the ness are theorised in these accounts, many of which
less, it is not now and only now that some countries are ripe for deconstruction. Insights from postcolo-
find themselves a part of world markets, to which nial perspectives can also be employed here to help
they have been connected for centuries in many us rethink issues of globalisation (Slater, 1998).
cases by colonial experiences. Non-western cultures None the less, globalisation is leading to supra-
and economies were thus intertwined with these territorial or ‘trans-border’ relations and to chan-
processes of globalisation throughout the twentieth ging human geographies where local, national and
century rather than just at its culmination. Never- global actors are affected differentially:
theless, new information, communication, transport
and manufacturing technologies have allowed This sense of intensifying global interdependence
production, commerce and finance to be planned and interconnectedness, which stretches across a
and organised on a global scale (see Box 7.1). variety of spatial scales (global, national,
Transnational corporations or (TNCs) are seen to regional, local, communal), and which is charac-
traverse national boundaries and borders in a way terised by a persistent growth in the spatial dens-
that eclipses national state institutions and their ity of connections, communications, networks
capacity to ‘broker’ development within national and circuits, is consistently present as a defining
territory. We must also reject, however, the myth feature of many analyses of globalization.
of the powerless ‘Third World state’ viewed as a (Slater, 1998: 648)
monolith, where the state is seen to have abdicated
its power to the world marketplace in this Orwellian The global may also be seen to be linked to the
language of globalisation (Marcuse, 2000). Not strategy of a TNC (as an image that will sell a com-
all TNCs are domiciled in ‘the West’ or the modity), or can even serve as the basis for calls for
‘First World’; they can come from ‘developing mobilisation against environmental degradation. A
countries’ as well (Yeung, 1999; Sklair and Robbins, key argument of this chapter is that there are
2002). multiple tensions and contradictions in theories and
Thus more attention is being paid to the diversity practices of globalisation, but we will focus on the
of meanings attached to the term ‘global’, which shifting spatial scales and networks of governance
may surface in debates about the formation of flows that affect ‘poor countries’. A number of recent
where an accelerated movement of money, images, debates about how we think about and theorise
information, migrants, drugs or new technologies is governance at different spatial scales are important
considered (Slater, 1998). These flows are increas- here and are central to our reworking of develop-
ingly seen to transcend the territorial confines of ment geographies.
nation-states. Many participants in the globalisa- The first section of the chapter explores the con-
tion debate seem to agree on the decreasing import- cern with ‘actually existing’ globalisation and the
ance, culturally, economically and politically, of importance of thinking spatially about the implica-
nation-states which are seen as being hollowed out tions for territories, nation-states and places. The
from above (by global structures and organisations) chapter moves on to discuss the relationship
as well as from below (by popular resistance in par- between globalisation and debates about ‘free
ticular localities) (Schuurman, 2001). What we will trade’, focusing on the ideologies that lie behind its
be seeking to examine is how the central role of promotion in the global development agenda and
nation-states in development is de-emphasised in looking briefly at the example of Indian agri-
favour of global governance. In Chapter 9 we will culture. The next section discusses the notion of a
be also be looking at how ‘civil society’ and local ‘post-Washington consensus’ in development
resistance have also de-emphasised the role and thinking today, where some have argued that the
authority of nation-states. This does not mean that IFIs have moved forward by adopting progressive-
the nation-state is no longer relevant since in some sounding terms such as ‘social capital’. The final,
ways ‘it is naïve to write off nation-states as import- concluding section asks about the possibility of a
ant players in the globalization game’ (Schuurman, different kind of multilateralism in the context of
2001: 12). In debates about globalisation and devel- a supposed ‘new’ world order in international
opment we can call this notion of the global and of relations.

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N E O L I B E R A L I S M A N D ‘ A C T U A L LY world. Gibson-Graham (1996) demolishes the

E X I S T I N G ’ G L O B A L I S AT I O N ‘straw-man’ of what was termed ‘capitalocentrism’,
clearing a path for the consideration of the multi-
Despite the massive volume of literature for and plicity of reality (in this case capitalism) and the
against ‘globalisation’, most commentators seem to various struggles around it:
agree that this is something that is actually happen-
ing (Wallerstein, 1990; Appadurai, 1996; Hoogevelt, In the globalization script . . . only capitalism has
1997). As with the study of development more gen- the ability to spread and invade. Capitalism is
erally, there is no ‘standardized way to fathom the presented as inherently spatial and as naturally
influence of globalization’ (Schuurman, 2001: 13). stronger than the forms of non-capitalist
More work is needed on the theme of ‘actually economy (traditional economies, ‘Third World’
existing’ globalisation and neoliberalism, focusing economies, socialist economies, communal
on the outcomes on the ground. How do the politics experiments) because of its presumed capacity to
of neoliberalism that exist in particular localities universalize the market for capital commodities.
come into contact and conflict with global dis- (Gibson-Graham, 1996: 125, 130)
courses of neoliberalism? This helps us to under-
stand the more variegated nature of development This increasingly familiar ‘script’ or story of global-
and how it inhabits institutions and places but also isation clearly lacks nuance and assumes that all
the ‘spaces in between’ (Peck and Tickell, 2002: other forms of economy will fall away as a result of
387). There is consensus none the less that global- its universal and overwhelming force in the (largely
isation is a key idea by which we ought to under- passive) space of the ‘Third World’. This region,
stand the transition of human society into the third according to the CIA report Global Trends 2015,
millennium. Globalisation is seen to have linked will see a compressed process of globalisation, seen
diverse economies which seek to supply the insati- as ‘rocky’ and ‘volatile’ for the frail or ailing econ-
able demands of the West’s consumption needs omies of the Third World (CIA, 2000: 7). Here capi-
(which are in turn often mimicked locally). talism’s ability to ‘spread’ and ‘invade’ is a key focal
Globalisation has often been discussed in relation point of the discussion. This might leads us to ask
to concepts such as Coca-Cola, cars or clothing how we can challenge the similar representation of
sweatshops which bind complex geographies and globalisation as ‘capable of “taking” the life from
link producers and consumers across spatial scales. non-capitalist sites, particularly the “Third World” ’
These and other consumer products such as foot- (Gibson-Graham, 1996: 125). It is thus important
wear, flowers, bananas, chocolate and coffee have here to call into question the ‘naturalness of capital-
also received increasing attention among western ist identity as the template of all economic activity’
consumers as fair trade movements are organised (Gibson-Graham, 1996: 146). What is called ‘non-
around them which focus on the prices paid by con- capitalism’ becomes damaged, ‘violated, fallen,
sumers and the prices paid to producers. Some form subordinated to capitalism’ (Gibson-Graham,
of international consumer standardisation and a 1996: 130). In some ways then, many writers have
narrowing of consumption differences is often assumed the inevitability of capitalist ‘penetration’
envisaged by many when the term ‘globalisation’ is in the South in much of the literature on globalisa-
used. As Gibson-Graham (1996) argues, main- tion. Non-capitalist ways of organising have been
stream and left-wing theorists alike share a view numerous and widespread in the South (e.g.
which sees capitalism as hegemonic, as the only through co-operative and communal organisa-
present form of economy which will therefore con- tions). These ways of organising also deserve
tinue its dominance into the future. There is thus a further attention and could lead to new ways of
cavalier assumption ‘that the West carries all before thinking and speaking about ‘class’ and other social
it’ (Paolini, 1997: 103). Everything is centred on or relations.
by capitalism, even resistance. The incoherence and This moves us away from the tendency to ask ‘Is
contradictions of capitalism are often overlooked, globalisation “good” or “bad” for the poor?’ (as has
as are important ‘non-capitalist’ social sites. Capit- often been posed by many agencies) and instead to
alism has been endowed with such an overpowering pose more important questions about the meanings
dominance that it has become impossible to think of global and local (Massey, 1992, 1994) or about
social reality in another way or to imagine another the nature of ‘global’ communication and how it

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can be used to build resistance to development

theories and practices. Places and identities are
never completely reshaped by capitalism and devel-
opment; there are numerous points of resistance
and contestation which lead to their remaking. This
also opens up a space for thinking about alternative
economic forms which moves us away from the sim-
plistic ‘template’ approach of ‘capitalocentrism’.
These are key issues for the future of post-
development thinking (Escobar, 2002: 202). It is
also a useful reminder of the blinding power that
central concepts of ‘modernity’, ‘development’,
‘capitalism’ and so on can have in organising and to
a degree restricting our view of the world and our
sense of the possibility of alternatives.
Clearly linked into globalisation processes, how-
ever, is a tier of unaccountable international govern-
ance institutions (IMF, WB, WTO, NAFTA,
OECD) which have a major impact on the political
and economic affairs of all nations. Rowbotham
(2000: 3) argues that these agencies are drifting
‘towards a cumbersome global government’ and are
‘over-centralised, unwieldy and inherently incompe-
tent’. The crucial question here is: can and how
should ‘unprecedented’ global trade transfers of
capital, products and services enhance the global
campaign to eradicate poverty? As Rowbotham Figure 7.3 The IMF–World Bank–WTO troika represented in a ser-
(2000: 5) has put it: ‘[v]irtually the entire planet now ies of protests in Washington involving people from around the
world
follows a single economic ideology, founded on the
Source: NBA
concept that foreign investment is inherently and
unquestionably desirable.’ The globalisation of lighting the decisive impacts this can have on ‘wob-
trade and the debt crisis are also closely linked in bly economies’ (The Economist, 8 September 2001).
that the neoliberal model has always been based An American economist, James Tobin, has sug-
upon a notion of trade that is ‘avowedly corporate- gested that a small levy on capital movements
friendly’ (Rowbotham, 2000: 5). The important would discourage this, an idea which solicited
point here is that foreign trade and investment are approval from French politician Lionel Jospin in
represented as inherently and unquestionably posi- the run-up to the presidential elections of 2002.
tive forces at the forefront of the global campaign to Jospin signalled that his government was keen for a
eradicate poverty. debate on globalisation involving all countries,
It is also worth remembering then that inter- NGOs and the IFIs, starting in 2001, suggesting
national debt and poverty stem directly from the that this would be good for the countries’ reputa-
monetary system set up by the USA after the Sec- tion: ‘[w]hat better way for post-colonial France
ond World War. More specifically, the origins of the to reassert its moral and intellectual authority?’
debt crisis lie in the petrodollar recycling mechan- (The Economist, 8 September 2001: 45).
ism used by the Organisation of Petroleum Export- The number of ‘developing countries’ now sub-
ing Countries (OPEC) which emerged from the ject to the orthodoxies of neoliberalism is quite
recirculation of OPEC’s surplus capital funds in staggering. This is difficult to appreciate however,
the early 1970s (Saddy, 1982). Today, debates about given that ‘writing about globalisation has been
the movement of capital are central to many mostly and unashamedly from a First World, West-
discourses on globalisation, as many critics of ern perspective’ (Paolini, 1997: 88). Thus a great
globalisation have focused on the rootlessness deal is written about globalisation in the ‘Third
and speculative nature of these capital flows, high- World’ which does not build upon or acknowledge

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‘Third World’ scholarship on these themes. In add- of globalisation leading to homogenisation of

ition, much of the literature on globalisation and peoples and cultures there has actually been more
world cities consigns whole areas of the South to differentiation in terms of inequality and the grow-
structural irrelevance (Robinson, 2002), discussing ing income gaps between the haves and ‘have nots’
only a few groups of cities and their interactions of this newly globalised world economy (Ahmad,
with the world economy, as if all other cities were 1992). It cannot be automatically assumed that the
not relevant. Yet the global economy ‘is of enor- globalisation of lifestyles will lead directly to an
mous significance in shaping the futures and for- erosion of cultural distinctiveness. One persistent
tunes of cities around the world’ (Robinson, 2002, theme in the literature on globalisation is the idea of
538). All cities of the world (and not only western/ a convergence around a notion of a single ‘global
world cities) have important interfaces with this human condition’ (Held and McGrew, 1993: 262–
globalising world economy and each has its own 263), but it is not always clear how this relates to the
social, cultural and historical legacies which it car- particularities of place and individuality.
ries into the era of globalisation (Shatkin, 1998). It is important to examine the question of why
Globalisation affects all cities (albeit in different western discourses on development have not
ways) and not just those at the top of the global accorded Africa an autonomous space in these
hierarchy (Marcuse and Kempen, 2000). Views debates or have preferred to see the continent as
from off this partial map of urban studies are thus outside the forces of globalisation and modernity.
crucial (Robinson, 2002). The particularities of Africa and other regions have
Globalisation is often seen to have important spa- been misread in these debates as boundaries become
tial dimensions, to represent a stretching of space blurred and assumptions are made about African
where what happens in one region of the world has intersections with the forces of global modernity.
ramifications in many others, but also a deepening What is needed here is a ‘progressive concept of
of space and a reconsideration of the terms ‘local’ space’ (Massey, 1994) where places are not seen as
and ‘global’. Each geographical ‘place’ in the world static entities or in a simplistic state of ‘non-
is adjusting to new global realities, leading to new modernity’ but as related to processes, relations and
social relations and roles (Massey, 1994). Here we interconnections which link the global and the local
need to understand the ways in which the speed, such that we might insist on a ‘global sense of
intensity and volume of economic and political place’. This is an idea developed further by Escobar
resources into and out of places and spaces creates (2002: 203) who argues that ‘place is central to
new geographies of inclusion or exclusion in a glob- issues of development’ and calls for a focus on
alising world. In many ways these ‘new’ geographies ‘place based practices’. The interconnectedness that
reproduce many of the uneven geographies that globalisation brings about is often cited but rather
characterised older, colonial relationships between less frequently understood and accurately theorised.
North and South. Due to the distinctly ‘un-global’ As we have seen, different regions of the world were
nature of much that is written about ‘globalisation’ intertwined in the making of European modernities
it is not always clear what impact it has had in spe- and the same is true of the making of globalisation
cific localities, for example, in Havana, Harare and today. There is no single response to modernity nor
Hyderabad. Furthermore, very little has been writ- is it always inherently negative (Dussel, 1998). The
ten about how ‘Third World people see themselves making of global development geographies today
and their society, its past, present and future’ involves a whole variety of regions, nations, places
(Paolini, 1997: 91). and continents and attention to the making of their
Thus the ‘agency’ of people themselves as agents various forms of modernity and struggles to
of development is denied, since little attention is become ‘modern’ and ‘developed’. Globalisation
paid to the embeddedness of globalisation (or then is a multidimensional process which has
responses to it) in particular places. It is also as if it major implications for states, nations, places and
is being assumed that this question of agency does communities.
not matter, given the overwhelming dominance In discourses on globalisation much is often
and supposed inevitability of the triumph of made of the limitless, utopian freedoms promised by
global capitalism. As Paolini (1997: 99) puts it, ‘the a borderless world. In this sense territory is often
impression we are left with is of puppets playing out understood in isolation from the complex of state
prearranged roles’. Contrary to the popular image power, identity and geography of which it is a part

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(Ó Tuathail, 1999). Sovereignty and democracy are institutions such as the IMF or the World Bank).
now defined at a variety of spatial scales: local, Media agencies and crime syndicates can also
regional and global. Territorially, political com- challenge the authority of the state, disseminating
munities are being reconfigured with important information across borders in ways that elude state
implications for the theory and practice of devel- regulation and control. In the drive for liberalis-
opment. Debates about ‘globalisation’ and devel- ation, restrictions are removed on the movement
opment (which have often been abstract and lacking of capital across national boundaries which sup-
in clarity) have focused on the ‘annihilation of space posedly help the poor and promote growth. The
by time’ and the increased ease of travel and com- evidence is shaky, however (Cobham, 2001), while
munication which characterise the contemporary the impact of FDI is quite often ambiguous (see
world (Holloway and Hubbard, 2001). Some com- Boxes 7.3 and 7.4).
mentators refer to the ‘end of geography’, envision- The macroeconomic instability of Asia at the end
ing a time when all places will have similar social of the twentieth century is a strong example of the
and cultural characteristics as global corporations damaging effects that this volatility can have on
and media agencies. Geography is thus seen to mat- poor people’s livelihoods. Recent events in Argen-
ter less as global agencies spread similar kinds of tina also illustrate how the poor will take to the
products and images across the globe. This process streets to illustrate the extent to which this instabil-
has been termed deterritorialisation and refers to ity has come to disrupt their communities. The bor-
the changing significance of territory, suggesting an derless world of freedoms that NAFTA proposes
‘emptying out’ of space and time which many see as adopts quite unproblematised assumptions about
related directly to the changing geographies of deterritorialisation, offering ‘sweepingly superficial
global capitalism. As Ó Tuathail (1999: 140) argues, representations’ of development geographies in the
to speak of deterritorialisation is to suggest that the process (Ó Tuathail, 1999: 142). What is being sig-
complex of geography, power and identity is being nalled here is the ideological uses of the term ‘glob-
dismantled in some way and to speak of the ‘trans- alisation’ which pedal neoliberal assumptions by
gression of inherited borders, the transcendence of focusing on a borderless world where there is
assumed divides, and the advent of a more global unfettered movement of capital. In this sense we
world’ (Ó Tuathail, 1999: 140). In this way we might can ask ‘For whom is the world borderless?’ (Ó
challenge the idea of deterritorialisation as the con- Tuathail, 1999: 149). All too often neoliberal dis-
sequence of ‘unstoppable globalisation’ and reject courses represent this presumed borderlessness as
the assumption that the world was previously made leading to a more integrated and connected world
up of discrete borders and boundaries, calling into of development, implying that unevenness will fall
question the claim that globalisation will today lead away in its wake. That new spaces of deprivation
to a unifying ‘liberation’ for the repressed and poor and disconnection are emerging is papered over
peoples of the world (Ó Tuathail, 1999). Just as in this way and is rarely acknowledged or
some boundaries are therefore supposedly coming problematised.
down, new ones are being erected all the time, The notions of national culture and of national
composing new spaces of exclusion from inter- development are clearly in need of reconsideration
national development. as they are redefined by changes in the nature of
In the specific case of the North American Free global capitalism and the way this is (re)constituted
Trade Agreement (NAFTA), US trade policy state- globally. As we have seen, a variety of debates have
ments call for the deterritorialisation of North centred on the legitimacy of the state over a given
American national spaces by the flow of capital territory which is supposedly being called into ques-
(Slater, 1998). A common theme in the literature on tion by globalising processes (Ahluwalia, 2001). In
globalisation then is precisely this perception of the Africa, for example:
increased marginalisation of states in a globalising
capitalist world economy. State sovereignty in [C]apitalism constitutes and reconstitutes itself in
particular is now seen to be driven by new processes a variety of forms in order to be able to penetrate
of flexible accumulation or by transnational cor- different areas of the world. If globalisation
porations. Global financial markets are seen to manifests itself in such a manner, what room is
prevent states from regulating their own currencies there for the role of the state and civil societies?
(which are also often defined by global development (Ahluwalia, 2001: 116)

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This question of what role there is for the state in

relation to capitalism and development is often
asked. This varies in each place and locality but
there are a number of generic features of neoliberal-
ism, articulated (for example) in the World Bank’s
annual scripting of global development issues, the
WDR. The 2002 WDR purports to champion the
cause of the poor and speaks volumes about how
the Bank views development (BWP, 2001a). The
market is again prioritised as the primary mechan-
ism for growth and poverty reduction and so, it is
argued, institutions need to serve markets more
effectively. Building institutions to serve markets
enhances the opportunities available to poor people,
according to the Bank. The WDR again fails to
acknowledge alternative perspectives however, as it
would seem institutions work for markets, not people.
Figure 7.4 The inexorable rise of globalising forces Corporate monopolies of the market and corporate
Source: CWS and Ammer governance failures are also (rather conveniently)

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not discussed. With 2002 as a year of scandal in Globalisation is taking place through rather than in
corporate America this seems difficult to accept. spite of the multiple identities that people have (for
Pieterse and Parekh (1995: 45–46) argue that the example with allegiances to kin, group or nation).
focus on modernity and capitalism in studies of ‘Glocalisation’ is a word used to illustrate the extent
globalisation has meant that much of the debate has to which the local is constructed through a global/
been defined by Eurocentric terms and has been local nexus rather than only within local spaces
plagued by ‘westernisation’, much as the modern- (Massey and Jess, 1995). These glocalised spaces
isation discourses of the 1950s had been. Modernity (particularly in Africa) are still profoundly asym-
is assumed to automatically equate with homo- metric in terms of the power relations that produce
geneity but instead Pieterse argues that globalisa- them. As with other binaries used in development
tion processes need to be viewed as ‘hybridisation thinking, it is necessary to look at the intersections
which gives rise to a global mélange’ (ibid. 45). In between local and global at all points and in all
this way it is necessary to recognise the new global spaces in a way which does not assume that the
cultural complexities that are being produced former is always eroded by the latter. The political
through globalisation processes. As we have seen, language of a global development community is
the notion of a ‘Third World’ has been severely worth exploring further in this regard – examining
challenged but in some ways has been replaced by how the key ideals of freedom, democracy and
the possibly more problematic notion of a ‘postco- social justice emerge through these languages and
lonial world’. Postcolonialism is useful here how- discourses of development. One problem with these
ever, because it groups together all formerly colonial and many other discourses of globalisation is that
societies (despite differences in their relation to the they have tended to homogenise the world in their
global capitalist system), while at the same time representation of non-western societies, for example
‘offering a point of entry for the study of those dif- denying African specificities (Mazrui, 1999) and
ferences’ (Hoogevelt, 1997: xv). assuming that globalisation has been uniform
This ‘point of entry’ then is crucial here. How (in across these spaces.
the aftermath of colonial relations) are different Africa does not figure prominently in theorisa-
societies changing as a result of the present trans- tions of globalisation today. As a result of the
formation of the global political economy? From increasing marginality of Africa in the processes of
where and how does this point of entry come? globalisation it is not clear what position it occupies
Africa has thus been partly included and partly in the globalising world economy. What is needed
excluded from these processes. Indebtedness for therefore is a more nuanced approach to the local/
many commentators allows western capitalist econ- global nexus (Ahluwalia, 2001). The reason is that
omies to ‘manage’ the periphery and to continue to identities can be multiple or, as Edward Said puts it:
extract a kind of surplus (for example, in interest
payments), which maintains relations of depend- No one today is purely one thing. Labels like
ency. The World Bank has a list, for example, of Indian, or woman, or Muslim or American are
forty-two HIPCs and manages the criteria for reliev- no more than starting-points, which if followed in
ing indebtedness in ways which confer far too much to actual experience for only a moment are
influence on the organisation given the actual sums quickly left behind. Imperialism consolidated the
involved. As a consequence of this: mixture of cultures and identities on a global
scale.
Structural adjustment has helped to tie the phys- (Said, 1993: 407)
ical economic resources of the African region
more tightly into servicing the global system, It is this mixture of cultures which is important
while at the same time oiling the financial here, illustrating further how the politics of label-
machinery by which wealth can be transported ling in development discourse is becoming increas-
out of Africa and into the global system. ingly problematic. As a result of the ‘overworlding’
(Hoogevelt, 1997: 171) of regions such as Africa in debates about globalisa-
tion and development the continent occupies a
Globalisation and localisation occur simul- space from which we are ‘able to view the blindspots
taneously, rather than globalisation automatically and indiscriminate presumptions of the academic
leading to the simple effacement of local identities. discourses under review’ (Paolini, 1997: 93). In

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other words, because Africa has so often been seen November 2001, at the fourth ministerial session of
as a non-space of development it is possible to expose the WTO in Doha, Qatar, a range of delegates from
limitations of these presumptions about progress in NGOs around the world highlighted the imperialist
other worlds. ‘Globalisation’ has introduced the nature of organisations such as the WTO and
illusion of a trans-territorial world of multicultural sought to contest some of these long-standing
dialogues, with flows moving in all directions, but in ideologies and the unrestricted nature of trade
reality flows and connections occur inside and flows. Standing at the entrance of the summit build-
around established centres of power (Slater, 1998) ing, they held up signs with the words ‘No voice at
rather than evenly across the periphery in a web-like the WTO’ and had tape over their mouths. Doha, a
pattern of connections. small city of 600,000 people, was turned into a fort-
ress with massive security preparations. Inside, the
G-77 group of countries from the South pushed for
G L O B A L I S AT I O N A N D T H E M Y T H O F the implementation and resolution of issues dis-
FREE TRADE cussed at the Uruguay round of talks (the final
round of which was held between 1986 and 1994!),
We may end up with cheap bananas or a bargain- while the USA and EU tried to introduce ‘new
basement microwave. But at what price for soci- issues’ of trade, government, competition and
ety as a whole? investment, playing down contentious issues such as
(Ellwood, 2000: 12) labour standards which had erupted in Seattle in
September 1999. New negotiations for further trade
Debates about trade were an important part of the and economic liberalisation then began in Doha,
Enlightenment as writers like Adam Smith and opening negotiations on existing agreements and
David Ricardo tried to explain why some nations initiating new tariff discussions. In addition, new,
prospered and experienced growth. This was the non-trade areas have been brought within WTO jur-
period of classical economics and was embedded in isdiction – the so-called ‘Singapore issues’ of
broader debates about political economy and phil- investment, competition policy, government pro-
osophy. There isn’t space to go into these debates in curement and trade facilitation (Bello, 2002). Out-
detail here but it would be misleading to suggest standing issues for countries of the South remained
that discussions about trade and progress are new from the previous Uruguay round however, of
or just a twentieth-century phenomenon. At the end which there were some 104 which were incomplete
of the nineteenth century there were further according to the G-77 countries. Once again the
important debates in what has been called ‘neoclas- excessive protectionism that restricts the reach of
sical economics’ where the central theme of eco- ‘developing country’ markets was also not
nomics changed from a focus on the growth of addressed and some critics have suggested that this
national wealth to questions about the efficient will even intensify in view of the global economic
allocation of resources (Peet with Hartwick, 1999). downturn in 2002 and early 2003.
In addition, Marxist perspectives on political econ- Each year countries in the South lose about
omy also began to emerge towards the end of the US$700 billion as a result of trade barriers in
nineteenth century that focused on the contradic- wealthy countries, meaning that for every US$1
tions within capitalism, where wealthy states were given in aid and debt relief by rich countries, poor
seen to force trade at disadvantageous terms and countries lose US$14 because of trade barriers
imperialism was seen to accelerate the accumulation (Sogge, 2002: 35). Some progress was made on the
of capital (see Peet with Hartwick, 1999). As we issue of trade-related intellectual property rights
have seen, theories of dependency picked up on (TRIPs) which restrict the capacity of G-77 coun-
these themes about the monopolistic nature of cap- tries to protect their public health systems, but as
italism and its capacity (through imperialism) to put ever only vague declarations and ‘commitments’
in place, around trade, exploitative relations were offered. These are only political declarations
between core and periphery. however, and are not legally binding to any partic-
Nearly a hundred and fifty years later, the writ- ular pharmaceutical TNC. The united front that
ings of people such as Adam Smith and Karl Marx was presented by the G-77 countries in Doha was
continue to have an important bearing on the way in encouraging, however, and will prove crucial in
which free trade is conceptualised today. In the years ahead. In some ways the EU and US

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representatives were particularly astute at finding tion, leading to convergence and therefore to the
new ways to split these emerging coalitions, while in disappearance of income inequalities. Trade liberal-
a wider sense the monarchy of Qatar could control isation has many negative impacts on the agri-
and limit the number of NGO activists and other cultural policies of southern countries however,
dissonant voices entering the country and from shifting the priorities of the government from their
making their voices heard. Economic and military own citizens to the needs of a volatile international
aid packages were also offered to some countries market. Agriculture accounts for less than 10 per
such as Pakistan and Nigeria to solicit their support cent of world trade in total, some 70 per cent of
and silence their potential opposition. The in- which comes from ‘developing countries’ (Panos,
famous ‘Green Room’ was reinstituted in Doha 2001); yet the global agro-food system is skewed
when twenty select and handpicked countries were against the interests of poor farmers of the South.
isolated from all others and invited to devise a final In 1974 developing countries accounted for 28 per
declaration. A delegate from Uganda, trying to cent of total food imports; by 1997 that figure had
infiltrate these exclusive meetings, was forcibly risen to 37 per cent. At the same time developing
rebuffed (Bello, 2002). There are few records of countries have not been able to break into protected
these discussions, illustrating the lack of transpar- western markets and consequently their share of
ency and accountability which characterises them. total world food exports rose only slightly between
When WTO head Mike Moore visited India in 1974 and 1997, from 30 per cent to 34 per cent
2000, he joked (rather uncomfortably) that in no (White, 2001). Those who have broken into these
other place on Earth had so many effigies of him markets have not always seen incomes rise, since
been burned (Ainger, 2001). At the Doha meeting prices have actually fallen for a number of agri-
of the WTO in November 2001 the organisation cultural commodities (e.g. bananas and coffee),
pledged to co-operate more closely with the World which has not always led to ‘pro-poor growth’. How
Bank and IMF for more coherence in ‘global eco- can development be sustainable in such circum-
nomic policy-making’. The World Bank has repeat- stances? As a recent Panos Institute report puts it:
edly reiterated its commitment to work with the ‘[Liberalisation] militates against the kind of indi-
WTO to encourage trade barrier reductions, with vidual or local support that is implied by the liveli-
trade seen as a tool of poverty reduction and devel- hoods approach to poverty reduction’ (Panos, 2001:
opment. For some observers, convergence between 35).
the three (ideologically) signals a kind of ‘death of The question of the ‘livelihoods’ approach to
development’ – a process begun in 1994 but one poverty reduction is explored in Chapter 8, but this
which really took off at the Seattle ministerial issue of how liberalisation ‘militates’ against
meeting in 1999 where the three issued a joint individuals and localities is an important one. For
declaration indicating a shared commitment to this reason many countries of the South (e.g. India)
trade liberalisation as the mechanism for global have called for a ‘development box’, a system of
economic growth and stability. Organisations such allowing countries with large numbers of poor
as the WTO have since become prime targets for the farmers to protect and invest in their farms and
criticism of ‘anti-globalisation’ movements, for communities rather than just concentrate on the
advocating an uneven and unjust model of change removal of trade barriers (Guardian, 3 September
which needs to be contested. 2001). The crisis and despair experienced by many
In documents packaged with relatively uncontro- farmers in the Punjab as a result of the globalisa-
versial titles such as ‘Growth is good for the poor’, tion of Indian food and agriculture comes across
the World Bank argues that the incomes of the poor strongly in the work of Vandana Shiva (2001), who
rise through overall growth only if ‘fiscal discipline’ writes about the ‘brutal’ and ‘unforgiveable’ con-
is pursued, a government spends less and inflation sequences of liberalisation processes for the Indian
stabilises. Greater participation in world trade, poor. Highlighting the diversity of farmers and
according to this view, will directly increase the small farm systems, Shiva explodes the myth that
income of the poorest one-fifth of the world’s popu- industrial monocultures using GM seed are most
lation. The impoverishment of African peoples and productive. Women’s agricultural contributions are
economies will cease, so this logic follows, if African rendered invisible by global free trade discourses
countries trade further with other countries and which see them as non-productive or even
regions and begin to accelerate economic integra- economically inactive:

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When growth increases poverty, when real pro- monocultures, monopolies, appropriation and dis-
duction becomes a negative economy, and specu- possession, Shiva (an ecologist and physicist) writes
lators are defined as ‘wealth creators’, something of how women are disempowered, overlooked and
has gone wrong with the concepts and categories their knowledge quite literally ‘stolen’. Corporate-
of wealth and wealth creation. controlled agriculture is seen as the productive
(Shiva, 2001: 61) future for countries such as India and their agro-
food systems which are becoming increasingly
The marginalisation of women is about more than globalised. Shiva also highlights the links between
texts and discourses but it is also based very much WTO rule-making procedures and their ‘on-the-
around actual material processes such as those of ground’ implications for farmers in India who are
global patriarchy. As geographers we can extend dispossessed by these rules and structures and their
this concern for discourses and the textuality of anti-democratic procedures. In an interesting article
development by also paying close attention to the entitled ‘The poor can buy Barbie dolls’, Shiva
power relations (e.g. in male-dominated or patri- (2002) recounts her experience while appearing on a
archal systems) that operate at each geographical recent Indian TV chat show. The panel of which she
scale, highlighting the material implications in was a part were assembled to discuss the impact of
terms of poverty and social exclusion, for example. removing import restrictions (Quantitative Restric-
Shiva argues that local economies and food cultures tions (QRs)) in India. This has allowed a free flow
are being destroyed across India because of the of foreign goods into Indian markets, celebrated as
globalisation of the food system. Here, the know- India’s ‘consumer bonanza’. Shiva (2001) bemoans
ledge of the poor farmer is converted into the prop- the lack of attention to India’s poor in these debates
erty of global biotechnology corporations where as ‘imported goods drive out domestic production
the poor pay for the seeds and medicines they them- and livelihoods’. When the issue of poverty was
selves developed and cultivated. Shiva also refers to raised on the show, one panellist (an economist)
‘market totalitarianism’ whereby the global free claimed that free trade was good because it meant
trade economy is a threat to sustainability and the that ‘the poor can buy Barbie dolls’: ‘It is the mind-
survival of the poor and communities – all in the set of elite India – blind to the growing hunger and
name of market ‘competitiveness’. destitution of the people of this country but
This constitutes a different kind of violence on enthralled by the junk that can now be imported’
poor people and poverty in that globalisation, for (Shiva, 2001: 2).
Shiva, has ‘become a war against nature and the Shiva’s argument is not with Barbie dolls but
poor’ (Shiva, 2001: 65). Depicting a world of with the idea that opening up Indian markets for the
sake of consumer choice is inherently good for the
livelihoods of India’s poorest farmers and produ-
cers. What is particularly interesting about the
account Shiva provides is that debates about trade,
liberalisation and investment are seen to make cer-
tain kinds of assumptions about consumption,
assuming that social improvement means having
better access to the consumption of imported
goods and services.

G L O B A L I S AT I O N A N D T H E P O S T -
WA S H I N G TO N A P OT H E CA RY

[T]oday’s developers are like the alchemists of old

who vainly tried to transmute lead into gold, in
the firm belief that they would then have the key
Figure 7.5 Farm subsidies and the USA to wealth.
Source: Cartoon by M. Lane (Rist, 1997: 46)

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For most of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, the world’s countries as locations for investment, while
Washington consensus dominated development positioning Mozambique as one of twenty-two
theory and policy – the term denoted a series of African ‘LDCs’ (of which there are forty-nine
measures that would produce wealth and freedom worldwide). It also comments on the country’s
from poverty (fiscal and monetary austerity, the image as an LDC and rails (ironically) against
elimination of government subsidies, moderate the perception that all these countries are essentially
taxation, free interest rates, lower exchange rates, the same:
privatisation and encouragement of FDI and the
liberalisation of foreign trade). FDI inflows to the One problem with the association of high risk
‘developing world’ reached US$1.3 billion in 2000, with LDC’s is that it treats 49 countries as though
but a predicted downturn in the world economy is they were all clones of a single national type. In
likely to lead to more intense competition for less truth there is much variation. Some LDC’s are
foreign aid and investment. As a result proactive riven by civil war and some destabilised by coups
investment promotion measures are proliferating and counter-coups. There are others however that
in the South as countries seek to establish invest- have established a track-record of political stabil-
ment promotion agencies to capture a slice of ity and sustained growth (Uganda and Mozam-
these flows and construct a ‘favourable investment bique) or shown great resilience in the face of
climate’. UNCTAD has thus created the World national calamities (Bangladesh) . . . Is there a
Association of Investment Promotion Agencies moral here? Yes, one that can be summed up in a
(WAIPA) within the UN structure to aid poorer single maxim: Differentiate. Investors need to dif-
countries in pooling their knowledge of successful ferentiate among the 49 LDCs. Some will confirm
investment promotion practices. There are now at their prejudices; yet others will shake them.
least 164 national IPAs worldwide and another 250 (UNCTAD-ICC, 2001: 9, emphasis in original)
subnational ones (UNCTAD, 2001a). On average,
annual IPA budgets worldwide amounted to It seems far more likely that in the context of a
US$1.1 million in 1999. In some cases regional global apothecary of development, free-market
investment agencies have been established, such as ideologies will confirm many prejudices about least-
the Inter-Arab Investment Guarantee Corporation developed others in their ‘cloning’ of states with
set up in 1975 with membership of nearly all Arab ‘good government’. Many critics of these ideologies
countries seeking to foster and enhance inter-Arab of neoliberalism have noted that they have often
investments. had a strong US flavour and that many of the
According to UNCTAD, agencies in OECD world’s leading transnational corporations are US-
countries ‘apply the most focused approach to based, while most FDI is recorded in US dollars.
investment promotion with investor targeting and Washington is thus often seen as the ‘undisputed
after care as prime functions’ (UNCTAD, 2001a, 1– political, economic and ideological centre of the
2). Thus, IPAs from the South must learn from their world’ (Fine et al., 2001: x). The intellectual
compatriots in the advanced capitalist world. One superiority of western-trained economists is an
result of these sorts of expenditure and the exist- issue here as economics has become the ‘naked
ence of agencies such as WAIPA (which works with emperor of the social sciences’ (Keen, 2001). They
the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guaran- are the ‘priesthood’ and we are the ‘novices’ here.
tee Agency (MIGA)) is that investment promotion is As one commentator has put it, the World Bank ‘is
becoming increasingly sophisticated as many coun- to development theology what the papacy is to
tries scramble to pander to the needs of wealthy Catholicism, complete with yearly encyclicals [the
corporations, arguably taking expenditure away WDRs]’ (Holland, 1998: 5). Although once an
from other more critical social concerns. One unpopular sect with no influence, neoliberalism can
investment guide to Mozambique includes a section be seen as a world religion, with its dogmas, its doc-
of text written by UNCTAD entitled Of Risks and trines, its priesthood, its lawgiving institutions and
Returns: Investing in LDCs (see Box 7.4). This ‘its hell for heathens and sinners who dare to contest
begins by asking why anyone would want to invest the revealed truth’ (George, 2001: 9). To support
in a ‘least developed country’ when the risks ‘are this priesthood there is now a huge international
sky-high and profits precarious’ (UNCTAD, 2001a: network of research centres, institutions, public-
9). It warns of casually dismissing a quarter of the ations, scholars and writers who seek to package

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and push the core ideas of this doctrine relentlessly conditioning factors in the outcomes of develop-
(George, 2001). In Chapter 8 we shall see how this ment. It seems premature to speak of a ‘post-
world religion is diffused and disseminated and how Washington consensus’ however, when free trade
it relates to ‘development theology’ more generally, and privatisation are still vitally important, and
in all its mystique and promise. fiscal and monetary issues remain very conservative
The 1990s have seen growing levels of discontent domains in these institutions. The World Bank’s
with the policies and perspectives of these institu- approach to privatisation was once described by Joe
tions, as poverty reduction has made limited head- Stiglitz, former World Bank economist and Nobel
way and neoliberalism has also failed in parts of the Laureate, who referred to the process as more
former Eastern bloc countries. East and Southeast closely akin to ‘bribarisation’ – for which he was
Asia remains intriguing, however, in that between fired in 1999 by World Bank President James
the 1970s and 1990s, ‘growth rates’ (the favoured Wolfensohn for outspoken criticism of the IFIs.
indicators of the Bank) have grown and have been Unlike the dogmatism of the Washington con-
represented as success stories tiger economies that sensus, the post-Washington consensus is seen by
had responded to the prescriptions of the IFIs (in contrast to represent certain degrees of recognition
that these countries were seen to create their own that ‘development’ is a complex social process, that
comparative advantage in the world market). institutions work differently in each society and that
Growth is a far more complex process than these social relations with institutions and markets are
agencies recognise, rooted as it is in the specific
dynamics of place and varying considerably over
time. Historically the economic theory that has
informed these institutions has ‘remained character-
istically blind to the fact that the market is itself an
institution’ and that non-market and institutional
factors generally might be important (Fine et al.,
2001: xii). The social and political conditions (e.g.
class) that make possible various market exchanges
(about which the Bank speaks so often and so
favourably) are frequently overlooked by the main-
stream development community. The emergent
‘post-Washington consensus’ that some writers have
referred to is based on the belated recognition that Figure 7.6 Recession claws back the Asian Tigers
market ‘failures’ and institutions are important Source: CWS and Miel

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ment to its close proximity to contemporary

research. Proponents of this idea at the World Bank
argue that it will lead to new forms of practice,
facilitating conversations across disciplines, but the
reality is that ‘the room to manoeuvre opened up by
notions of social capital is extremely small’ (Hart,
2001: 654). It was, however, the beginnings of a rec-
ognition that there are many different types and var-
ieties of capital which are not always embodied in
land, factories and buildings but in human know-
ledge and skills (Thomas, 2000: 37).
The IFIs seem not to understand that develop-
ment is about the reproduction of society on a ‘dif-
ferent level and in a “modern” way, bringing about
quite sometimes radical changes to social relations’
(Fine et al., 2001: xiv). The principal problem is that
the Bank still has a rather primitive notion of social
differentiation and social change. Women are often
central to the forms of social capital that develop-
ment agencies seem keen to mobilise in poverty
relief programmes but the terms of women’s inser-
tion into these programmes is rarely problemat-
ised by the Bank (Molyneux, 2002). Although the
emergence of this concept is widely seen as signal-
ling a welcome (if belated) engagement with the
‘social’, it has not been allied to and integrated with
the work of the Bank’s Gender Unit. Once again,
this ‘deliberately fuzzy concept’ (Harriss and de
Renzio, 1997: 921) suffered nearly thirty years of
Figure 7.7 Singapore skyline
Source: Lily Kong
criticism about the ‘top-down’, ‘growth-first’ pol-
icies of the Bank before it was finally taken on
important questions. The whole notion of ‘social board. Throughout this time, networks, community
capital’ adopted by these organisations can be cri- ties, experiences of participation and new kinship
tiqued for the extent to which attention is shifted relations were being forged across the South, par-
away from inequalities of power (Fine, 2001). For ticularly in Latin America (Molyneux, 2002). Social
geographers this concept is important, since it raises inequalities thus remain unchallenged either in the-
questions about spatial patterns (Mohan and ory or in policy while women (through their roles in
Mohan, 2002). It also illustrates further the ‘colon- the reproductive economy) continue to serve as the
isation’ of the social sciences by neoliberalism (and unrecognised ‘shock-absorbers’ of economic crisis
economistic ways of thinking about development (Elson, 1991). This concern for social capital thus
and society) at the expense of alternatives (Fine, partly represents a ‘sticking plaster’ approach to
1999; Mohan and Mohan, 2002). If relations development (Molyneux, 2002), which masks struc-
between social groups are relevant in the making of tural issues (notably the uneven distribution of
development, so too are relations between spaces income and assets) and cannot substitute for effect-
and between people and places, yet none of this is ive economic policy and redistributive measures.
really touched upon in such debates. Today the concept is in some ways ‘destined to col-
The term ‘social capital’ is now used to discuss a lapse under the weight of its own floppiness’ (Hart,
vast range of issues and is often linked to discus- 2001: 653). How and why is social capital supposed
sions of civil society (see Chapter 8). This idea to serve people, who benefits and why? These are all
refers to the ability of people to work together for questions that the Bank seems unable and unwilling
common purposes in groups and organisations and to answer. It is thus also important to remember
has been bandied around by the Bank as a testa- that:

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The concept of social class is also necessary, as crats who staff these institutions and determine
are those of generation of economic surplus, its their changing priorities. The resignations of Ravi
division among classes and its utilisation for con- Kanbur (author of the 2001 WDR) and Joseph
sumption and investment. More broadly, the Stiglitz (Chief Economist of the World Bank) also
concept of social reproduction is vital in analysis suggest that there has not always been ‘consensus’
of the social relations to be found at the work- within the Bank, but often dissonance and
place, in agriculture, in the schools, within the uncertainty, characterised by a paranoia about the
family, in state organisations and between state Bank’s public image, its priorities and dreams but
institutions and enterprises also the perception that it is not responsive, that it is
(Fine et al., 2001: xiv) ‘out of touch’ or that it is top-down and bureau-
cratic. All of these perceptions seem increasingly
The IFIs seem to have a quite limited grasp of and appropriate. These institutions are not, however,
interest in the historical, geopolitical and cultural simplistic condensates but varied and complex, and
spaces which impact upon and condition its work. therefore it is necessary to know more about how
Although the ‘new’ consensus attempts to broaden they operate in each place and locality, to examine
the theoretical agenda of development economics, it the extent to which the Bank’s neoliberalisation of
does so within ‘the same narrow, reductionist the spaces of development is an incomplete and
framework as its neo-liberal predecessor’ (Fine et al., unfinished project, contested in each place.
2001). What is missing therefore from the IFIs’
agenda is a concern for the political economy of
development, with a focus on social class, social CONCLUSIONS: GOVERNANCE,
reproduction and state–society relations. Perhaps G E O P O L I T I C S A N D D E V E L O P M E N T:
‘consensus’ is not the right word here since neolib- TOWA R D S A N E W K I N D O F
eral orthodoxies have always been contested and M U LT I L A T E R A L I S M ?
violent arenas of struggle (Bond, 2000a) and have
seen a whole variety of forms of resistance: local, Do not the poor of the world look at you and say
regional and global (see Chapter 9). The Washing- ‘well, here are those guys lecturing us about free
ton institutions still continue to adhere to the idea markets and telling us of the values of free trade
that there is a ‘textbook’ notion of what constitutes but what can they do to prevent the United States
the ‘natural path’ of development. This agenda raising trade barriers and pouring untold sums of
(particularly in situations of endemic corruption as money into subsidies for American farmers?’
in India or Angola) may actually aggravate and (Jim Cousins (MP) to Horst Koehler (IMF),
exacerbate the problem, depending on the distribu- quoted in BWP, August 2002: 7)
tion of political and class power in each context.
In the final analysis, key assumptions remain off- In 1974, the General Assembly, reeling in the wake
limits for the IFIs, protected domains on to which of world oil price rises in the previous year, passed a
new concerns about social capital or empowerment formal resolution which called for the restructuring
can be grafted, leaving the underlying premises rela- of the world economy and the creation of a New
tively unmoved or unchanged. The Bank is thus International Economic Order (what became
constructed as dynamic and progressive when in known as the NIEO). The NIEO called for more
reality the core foundations of its ideology remain aid, expanded trade and (of course) economic
unmoved. As Pincus (2001) puts it, ‘change is easier growth. By the early 1980s it had become clear that
to effect in rural development through the virtual this UN ‘initiative’ (like many of its predecessors)
world of development rhetoric rather than in the had largely failed but the pace of internationalisa-
concrete realities of lending operations’. Thus the tion and globalisation in the world economy was
Bank and many other global development institu- accelerating, with major political and economic
tions continue to operate in this ‘virtual world of implications for the South. In some ways the
development rhetoric’. Social and economic phe- framework and vision of the NIEO confirmed the
nomena ranging from savings behaviour to fertility South’s dependence on the North rather than com-
patterns are explained through these limited eco- bating it (Rist, 1997). Debates about modernisation
nomic lenses but social and economic issues have were central to calls for an NIEO and in a way they
never been and will never be central to the techno- reinscribed modernisation geographies by calling

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for aid flows and an expansion of trade diffusing blame the poor for their lack of ‘entrepreneurial
from North to South. In a related sense, con- spirit’ and market orientation (De Soto, 2000). The
temporary discourses on globalisation may be seen IMF, the WTO and the World Bank are the institu-
as a reinvention of the modernisation discourses tions which manage and enforce the laws of neolib-
(Smith, 1997). Neoliberalism adds a new twist to eralism. The result is that national governments,
the age-old liberal faiths and theologies of free both North and South, have become subordinate to
trade of goods and services – an unflinching, dog- the dictates of supra-national organisations with
matic belief in the rights of private capital. It is a apparently limitless power. These agencies can
system with a western (and particularly a US) define what they think constitutes ‘competent’ gov-
worldview which puts economic values and goals ernance for many states. Globalisation, it has been
first and social goals a distant second. suggested, is ‘a new name for the Empire of North-
Former World Bank Chief Economist Joseph ern capital’ (Appadurai, 1999: 229) or perhaps more
Stiglitz (2002) argued recently that the Bank’s devel- specifically, the ‘Empire of the Dollar’ (Row-
oping country assistance strategies are generally botham, 2000). It is also necessary to think about
constructed around limited country-specific inspec- the interpretation of local and distant influences, to
tions (usually of five-star hotels) and pointed out understand further what Amin (1997b: 129) has
that each minister is handed exactly the same four- called the ‘out there–in here connectivity’ and the
step strategy, irrespective of context or country: simultaneous processes of globalisation and local-
isation. Places have continued to be important in
1. Privatisation (aka ‘bribarisation’). 2. Capital the global era in that the construction of local
market liberalisation. 3. Market-based pricing resistance involves people in particular places
(countries may experience some ‘social unrest’ as declaring their opposition to national and global
the Bank puts it or riots to you and I). 4. Poverty elites. Globalisation is unequally and differently
Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). experienced by people, but global and local are so
thoroughly intertwined that in some ways ‘speaking
The PRS papers (as we shall see in Chapter 8) of “local” resistance to the “global” is an overly
that were developed for many countries have simply simplistic representation’ (Kelly, 2000: 158).
not worked and are highly anti-democratic in their We can argue that deterritorialisation is not a
construction. Every time their reforms have failed ‘new’ process and that it cannot be divorced from
the IFIs have often simply demanded more free- wider considerations about the complex intercon-
market policies (Palast, 2001) or have sought to nections of geography, power and identity (Ó
Tuathail, 1999). Postcolonialism is also important
here in allowing us to re-theorise identity and to
adopt a concern for the grounded, actually existing
nature of these processes and changes and their
effects. The unstoppable juggernaut of globalisa-
tion is often misrepresented as something which is
new to previously discrete national spaces, but we
have seen that such representations are allied closely
to the project of cementing an ideological discourse
around the alleged necessity of free-moving capital.
For all the talk of worldwide communications and a
‘global village’ there is a sense in which new forms
of apartheid are emerging:

While transformations in markets and telecom-

munications are creating a global village, this vil-
lage is characterised by a functional global apart-
heid that separates and segregates certain affluent
and wired neighbourhoods from other deprived
Figure 7.8 Globalisation – everyone for themselves and disconnected zones and neighbourhoods.
Source: CWS and Bado (Ó Tuathail, 1999: 143)

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T A B L E 7 . 1 T H E B U R D E N O F C O N D I T I O N A L I T Y (S T R I C T L Y D E F I N E D )

Region Total conditionalities Of which governance-related As a percentage of total

(average) conditionalities conditionalities

Africa 23 9 39
Asia 17 4 24
Central Asia and Europe 36 24 67
Latin America 33 23 39

T A B L E 7 . 2 T H E B U R D E N O F C O N D I T I O N A L I T Y (L O O S E L Y D E F I N E D )

Region Total conditionalities Of which governance-related As a percentage of total

(average) conditionalities conditionalities

Africa 114 82 72
Asia 84 49 58
Central Asia and Europe 93 55 59
Latin America 78 41 53
Note: Data based on IMF Letters of Intent and Policy Framework Papers (PFPs) between 1997 and 1999 for the sample of twenty-three
countries that had a programme with the IMF in 1999: Africa: Djibouti, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda,
Senegal, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia; Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Thailand; Central Asia and Eastern Europe: Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Romania; Latin America: Bolivia, Brazil, Nicaragua.
Source: Adapted from Santiso (2002: 22).

T A B L E 7 . 3 E X A M P L E S O F T H E B U R D E N O F C O N D I T I O N A L I T Y (S T R I C T L Y
DEFINED)

Region Countries Total Governance-related As a percentage

conditionalities

Africa Mali 26 13 50
Mozambique 22 12 55
Senegal 27 9 33
Zambia 18 6 33
Asia Cambodia 30 9 30
Indonesia 18 8 44
Rep. of Korea 10 4 40
Kazakhstan 27 17 63
Eastern Europe Albania 43 33 77
Latvia 28 20 71
Romania 43 25 58
Latin America Bolivia 32 21 66
Brazil 38 21 55
Nicaragua 29 18 62
Note: Data based on IMF Letters of Intent and Policy Framework Papers (PEPs) between 1997 and 1999.
Source: Adapted from Santiso (2002: 22).

This seems to strike at the core of the issues under spaces of exclusion and disconnection have not
discussion in this chapter. Despite all the talk of magically disappeared. Thus globalisation may be
development in a borderless world, one very par- accompanied by a process of re-nationalisation and
ticular doctrine continues its hegemony, while reterritorialisation. Globalisation is not about

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T A B L E 7 . 4 E X A M P L E S O F T H E B U R D E N O F C O N D I T I O N A L I T Y (N A R R O W L Y
DEFINED)

Region Countries Total Governance-related As a percentage

conditionalities

Africa Mali 105 67 64

Mozambique 74 58 78
Senegal 165 99 60
Zambia 87 59 68
Asia Cambodia 83 65 78
Indonesia 81 48 59
Rep. of Korea 114 44 39
Kazakhstan 114 69 61
Eastern Europe Albania 72 47 65
Latvia 65 28 43
Romania 82 34 41
Latin America Bolivia 95 44 46
Brazil 89 45 51
Nicaragua 50 34 68

eliminating nations but is rather a process that is to achieve their targets of poverty alleviation’
‘complicating the construction of collective iden- (Easterly, 2001). The ‘knowledge bank’ responded
tities’ (Schuurman, 2001: 12). A very select group of by beginning disciplinary proceedings against him
transnational capitalists and corporations benefit for not respecting media clearance procedures
from these removals of borders and national restric- where all interviews/articles are pre-screened by the
tions to international flows which are themselves Bank (BWR, October/November 2001: 7). In this
promoted by a particular cult of doctrinaires and way the Bank has its own ‘thought police’ who seek
dogmatists. This chapter has focused on the emer- to intercept those people and documents that are
gence of dominant neoliberalising agencies since not ‘on message’. There is none the less now a grow-
the role of these agencies in macroeconomic gov- ing popular movement to redesign the Bretton
ernance and in the setting of political agendas must Woods architecture ‘from the ground up’. And that
be central themes in a reworked geography of means more than just tinkering with the wiring
development. What we are seeing is the ‘hollowing (Monbiot, 2001). Instead, we need a radical rethink
out’ of states from above by the increasing signifi- that will put humans in control, at the heart of the
cance of international political and economic global economy rather than at its periphery (Ell-
organisations which interfere in the conceptions of wood, 2000). According to an editorial in the New
development formulated by particular states. The Internationalist magazine in August 2001, a com-
multidimensional spatiality of boundaries and ter- mon sense of frustration is allied to a desire to plan
ritories produced by states (both rich and poor) for an alternative world:
does not simply disappear in the face of the ‘global’,
swept aside by an all-powerful ‘global capitalism’ [W]e keep waiting patiently for a miracle of pro-
more generally. gress which never seems to appear. The truth is
Much has been made of the existence of a post- the global economic system has broken down.
Washington consensus since the catastrophic 1997 Tired plans to dust it off and prop it up aren’t
economic meltdown in Asia and the subsequent cri- going to do the trick.
ses in Russia, Brazil and parts of Latin America.
World Bank economist William Easterly has alleged The World Bank has sought to respond to some
that aid financing, including US$1 trillion (£685 of these criticisms and launched a briefing in
million) in World Bank and IMF loans, have ‘failed April 2000 entitled Assessing Globalisation, which

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examined the implications of international trade for to make when we consider that a key aspect of the
poverty, inequality and the environment (World globalisation project has been ‘the reconfiguration
Bank, 2000a). The document set out to challenge a of nation-states into neoliberal states in the context
recent declaration of the International Forum on of the Cold War and its aftermath’ (Berger, 2001:
Globalization (IFG) that had argued that rather 1079). The political ‘theory’ that informs the vision
than leading to economic benefits for all, economic of the perfect neoliberalising state gives the appear-
globalisation has brought the planet to the brink of ance of being a universal, yet this has been reso-
environmental catastrophe, unprecedented social lutely and stubbornly Eurocentric (Lummis, 2002).
unrest, and an increase in poverty, hunger, landless- For some commentators, the explicitly ‘western-
ness, migration and social dislocation. This is a view centric’ character of contemporary political theory
shared by the Third World Network (TWN), which in development thinking is now ‘too obvious to
has argued that the economies of most countries are require a lengthy demonstration’ (Lummis, 2002:
in ‘shambles’ and that these neoliberal experiments 64).
‘may now be called a failure’ (Third World Net- As with all bodies of (development) knowledge,
work, 2001). The Bank document concludes that we need to view such models and theories of the
the poorest least developed countries are not being state as inextricably ‘rooted’ in particular locations
impoverished by globalisation but rather are in (e.g. Washington) and particular histories, cultures
danger of being excluded from it. The simplistic and traditions. This model of good governance and
logic of neoliberalism has it that just being a part of adequate statehood is thus universalising but not
export markets will automatically lead to better universal. It is none the less predominant and
technology. Yet even the Bank’s own research has increasingly influential. To suggest that the IFIs
found that there is no clear association between operate in a parallel universe, outside the messy and
growth and inequality. conflictual realms of the political, is quite frankly
The World Bank actually began as an institution ludicrous and profoundly contradictory. Central to
for postwar reconstruction and development. Since the IFIs’ dominant and highly influential vision is
11th September 11 2001 the US has abandoned its the idea of an:
‘isolationist approach’ in favour of ‘the pleasure of
multilateralism’ (Time Magazine, 15 October 2001). inexorable march towards global democracy and
US subscriptions to the UN have (finally) been universal free market prosperity which defines
paid, increased aid finance is promised and inter- democracy in minimalist terms (elections, uni-
national cooperation has become a new challenge versal suffrage and relative press freedom) and
for 21st-century America. Development assistance tends to downplay or ignore the connection
is thus once again being explicitly linked to post- between unequal capitalist development, social
Cold War geopolitical concerns, with ‘help’ inequality and political instability.
dependent on ideology and political affiliation to (Berger, 2001: 1079)
this or that particular coalition. The US govern-
ment readily removed aid sanctions on Pakistan, for The models of neoliberal ‘success stories’ favoured
example, and helped facilitate favourable debt by these organisations – countries such as Thailand,
treatment and speedy new IMF financing for the South Korea and (until recently) Argentina – were
country in return for its co-operation with the US- heavily based around state-centred notions of how
led coalition. The 50 Years is Enough! Campaign to create development, yet still an approach is advo-
was quick to comment on this problematic practice cated where the state is heavily rolled back before
of using the IFIs as instruments of the US (geo)- the market. As we have seen in earlier chapters, the
political agenda. Andrew Rogerson, a Bank repre- dominant market-oriented liberal conception of
sentative in Brussels, denied this, claiming that ‘the national citizenship has changed in many countries
Bank is not facing pressure from member countries (e.g. India and Mexico) which had experienced long
to take decisions based on geopolitics’ (Rogerson, periods of state-guided development histories based
citied in BWP, October/November 2001: 1). This around single-party politics. For states such as
and other major global development institutions Angola or Colombia, states in deep crisis, the ‘good
have however, as we shall in Chapters 8 and 9, governance’ agenda may not have much to contrib-
always and only ever made decisions based on geo- ute and may even accelerate the possibility and like-
politics. This is an amazing contention for the Bank lihood of political and economic disintegration.

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Figure 7.9 Cartoon of financial crisis

Source: CWS and Wonsoo

Figure 7.10 Cartoon of Asian markets

Source: CWS and Gable

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‘Good governance’ is a term that is typical of the mobilisation which urged a ‘strengthening of alli-
‘plastic words’ of the international aid and devel- ances’, a set of common actions seeking to reject the
opment community (Sogge, 2002: 131), a popular IFIs’ discourses and building international mobil-
catch-phrase that seems morally beyond reproach isation against NAFTA in particular (WSF, 2001:
while appearing clear and positive. 122). The WSF has argued that globalisation is
These plastic buzz-words and languages can be reinforcing a sexist and patriarchal system in which
deconstructed, as we shall see in Chapter 8. What is privatisation reigns and indigenous peoples and
most interesting is that pathologies which seemed knowledge are not valued. Neoliberal globalisa-
unique to Africa and other ‘backward’ regions tion, they argued, increases racism and does little
according to IFI discourses are now ‘starting to about the debt crisis. The challenge for development
appear with increasing frequency in the nation- geographies is to understand the spatial processes
states of Northern America and Europe’ (Berger, whereby exclusions and emancipations result from
2001: 1083). In this sense the emerging global globalisation and global social, economic and polit-
patchwork of resistance to neoliberalism, led by ical change. This may well involve challenging and
the WSF in Porto Alegre, may offer a way forward. confronting the normative and discursive nature of
The 2001 summit, for example, issued a call for development itself.

1 6 8
8
Th e D i s s e min a t io n o f
Development

principal question here concerns the formulation of

I N T RO D U C T I O N : D E V E L O P M E N T A S A
the rather pious ‘motherhood and apple-pie image
‘ G L O B A L M O R A L I M P E R AT I V E ’ ?
of development’ (Munck, 1999: 200). It is therefore
important to examine the ways in which discourses
I believe development as discourse has prevented
represent and place development as an ‘uncontested
us from seeing other very creative ways of
human good’ (Munck, 1999: 200). More import-
addressing the poverty problem.
antly, as Yapa (2002) contends, some of these
(Yapa, 2002: 41)
discourses of development have prevented us from
You are poor because you look at what you do seeing other, more creative ways of addressing the
not have. See what you possess, see what you are, ‘problem’ of poverty and the question of how to
and you will discover you are astonishingly rich. eradicate it.
(African proverb, quoted in Ndione, 1994: 37) In particular the relationship between knowledge
and power in development is also crucial here in
If neoliberalism has become the centre-piece of that it is necessary to explore the constitution of
development theology, then how do its preachers get ‘socially important’ knowledge of development.
their messages across and how can these theologies Further, it is useful to examine how power relations
be deconstructed and resisted? This book has shape the definition of scenarios and situations, set
argued from the outset that development is funda- the terms in which issues are discussed and under-
mentally about ideology and the production and stood and lead to the formulation of development
transmission of policy and discourses. As we saw in goals, values and objectives in particular spaces and
Chapter 7, there is also an important process at places. Particular forms of power then produce cer-
work whereby alternatives are often filtered out and tain realities or, in Escobar’s terms, certain
in a way delegitimised by the major global devel- ‘domains of objects’ and ‘rituals of truth’. In
opment players. Standard approaches to develop- important ways a discourse of development can
ment tend to focus only on the financial and determine how a country, a people and their past
material cargoes (e.g. in aid) that flow to peoples are represented. Discourses around the disciplining
and places (Sogge, 2002), but what of the important of weak, peripheral states in terms of the need for
flows of ideas that shape and structure our atten- ‘good governance’ are a good example of this.
tions towards the South or define our sense of its Through debates about political democratisation
‘problems’ and assign roles to ‘us’ or ‘them’ in these and development, the good governance agenda
dramas? This chapter continues the concern with comes to dominate the realm of what is said about
the diffusion of development ideologies in a ‘global- ‘developing countries’, foreclosing other ways of
ising world’ and suggests that one important way of thinking about politics and development. What we
viewing ‘development’ is to focus on the way in need to do here is to ask: Are there other, more
which its theories, strategies and ideologies are dis- important ways of addressing poverty and income
seminated (through language as well as in terms of inequality? If we have reached a situation of ‘enter
the material manifestations of development). The economism, exit politics’ (Teivainen, 2002), how is it

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possible to go beyond it? It has become increasingly countries listed in Table 8.1 ever receive anything
clear that neoliberalism dominates development like the kind of western media attention or the level
thinking and practice, but the way in which this par- of humanitarian assistance that had been on offer
ticular religion spreads its messages of progression to Kosovo in the same year? (Oxfam, 1999). It has
and forwardness is far from straightforward. been estimated that for every African life the world
The central objective of this chapter is to focus was willing to pay approximately US$10 in humani-
attention on the relationships between different tarian aid, whereas for a Kosovan the figure stood
groups in development and how they communicate at some US$600 (excluding peace-keeping and
knowledge and ideas between different cultural reconstruction costs). This theme of incomplete
and economic spaces and across different spatial coverage was also explored at a gathering of jour-
scales. In focusing on the power and knowledge of nalists from both specialist African and mainstream
development it is necessary to also pay attention to British publications in 2001, brought together to
the materiality of power relations, uneven develop- discuss issues of representation and responsibility
ment and income inequality in concrete and specific in covering stories about Africa and African
ways. As we have seen, stereotypical representations peoples. The editor of New African magazine (Baf-
of ‘Third World others’ obscure the structural four Ankomah) bemoaned the ‘heart of darkness’
forces which produce these very geographies of rhetoric which recurred constantly in western
inequality and unevenness. Actual political and reporting, perpetuating notions ‘from the ages of
economic processes that are producing different slavery and colonialism about why things happen in
material geographies of inequality are masked and Africa’ (Reporting the World, 2002: 1). Sensational
hidden behind the representations of agencies such pictures led the way with western audiences accord-
as the World Bank which ignore the material pro- ing to another journalist, with a consequent lack of
duction of poverty in countries where it has lending understanding of the complexity involved in these
operations. Thus we also need to understand the issues. Racism often predominated in representa-
spatiality of power and discourse in development: tions of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, for
who is allowed to speak in certain kinds of dis- example, characterising this as a spontaneous upris-
courses, where does this take place and with what ing of tribal hatred rather than an organised polit-
implications for power relations? There are import- ical campaign. During the Indonesian intervention
ant social relationships between professionals, in East Timor in the mid-1990s, many reports had
institutions and communities that we need to simply bought into a discourse of ‘disintegration’
understand more fully. In this sense the dissemin- and ‘instability’ used by President Suharto to justify
ation of development is a two-way process which is his authoritarian policies (Reporting the World,
never fixed in time or space but is rather fluid and 2002: 1). Accounts of violence in Indonesia were
dynamic, constituting peoples and places in a var- often presented through a range of ‘fire’ metaphors,
iety of contexts and settings. The spaces in between as riots ‘erupted’ and tense situations ‘ignited’,
discourses, institutions and subjects in development masking the real roots of violence and their rela-
are also important here, allowing us to pose further tionship to the regime in power. Journalists then
questions about the possibility of resistance to neo- talked of stretching the agenda ‘sideways’, making
liberal discourses. There are also important vari- extensions into wider issues of political change and
ations here between the urban and rural spaces of development. Ron McCullagh, Director of Insight
development and between different gender and class News, called for journalists to devise new ways to
groupings. make connections between the fate of African
One theme of this chapter concerns the way in people and our own lives in the West (Reporting the
which the image of ‘developing countries’ is dis- World, 2002). One key question posed in the
seminated in western contexts through media cov- conclusions of the meeting is particularly relevant:
erage of humanitarian crises, which is particularly
important in the context of debates about globalisa- What is ‘our’ role in this story?
tion (see Box 8.1). Media representations therefore Is the message that these people will not be OK
enframe the countries of the ‘Third World’ in mul- until our (benign) intervention, now in prospect?
tiple ways which often impact, through such pro- Or does the [media] report suggest that they
cesses as the ‘CNN effect’, on the nature and timing would be OK but for our (malign) intervention?
of humanitarian intervention. Why did none of the Reports about the continuing IMF dealings with

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Indonesia often include the phrase ‘further are disseminated partly through the mythology of
assistance’ [which should be] further interrogated development and its pharmacopoeia of remedies
– assistance for whom? What will the effect be of for poor countries. At the same time there are
the particular IMF remedies being advanced as important material causes and consequences of
conditions for the ‘assistance’? poverty, rooted in particular places and spatial rela-
(Reporting the World, 2002: 3–4) tions in a variety of societies that we also need to
bring out here. The concrete and specific ways in
What is ‘our’ role in the story of global develop- which poverty becomes a material reality for bil-
ment and why are these ‘remedies’ not more widely lions of people around the world is precisely what
explored and criticised by the media? What kinds of is overlooked in so many neoliberal scriptings of
intervention are ‘OK’ and when? Words like poverty international development. Through the variety of

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T A B L E 8 . 1 A F R I C A ’S F O R G O T T E N C R I S E S

Angola Ethiopia Eritrea Sierra Leone Democratic Total

Republic of
Congo

Number at risk 2,000,000 5,000,000 Up to 1,500,000 500,000 to 10,000,000

500,000 1,500,000 approx.
Number displaced 1,70,000 315,000 750,000 4,625,000
Death rates per 292 175 116 316 207
1000 for under 5s
Amount requested US$106 US$28 US$7.2 US$25 million US$38.8 US$205
by humanitarian million million million million million
aid appeals in requested
1999 by Eritrean
government
Amount pledged by US$57 US$26.6 n/a US$9.5 US$4.3 US$97.4
donors million million million million million
Notes 3 million 70% of Aid agencies
people were country restricted to
living in accessible to major towns.
inaccessible, humanitarian No data
rebel-held aid
areas. No data
Source: Adapted from Oxfam (1999).

global and national development institutions that to which the conceptualisation of these ideas
we have looked at so far it can be seen that each involves a ‘North’ to ‘South’ flow or diffusion. In
adopts its own myths of ‘positive change’ and what the language of modernisation geographies, how
is required to bring this about, all of which has much of a ‘return-cargo’ of ideas is there here?
important implications for the way in which the It is interesting that the practice of poverty eradi-
poor are represented and development becomes a cation strategies disappears from view in some
material reality. accounts, in that the practice of development
This book has focused on the need to contest the provides some of the clearest examples of this
misrepresentation of poverty and poor people, to spreading of ideas and knowledge with material
challenge some of the myths that surround devel- consequences. If we look at UNICEF’s report the
opment issues and to understand how international Progress of Nations (UNICEF, 2000) it is possible
development works both in theory and practice. In to examine some of the ways in which development
order to do this, we need to understand more fully agencies build a kind of branded image for them-
how development is diffused and disseminated, how selves and justify interventions around this.
it is invented and popularised in different contexts UNICEF’s concern with children and poverty is not
and how it is imagined socially and spatially. Ned- in dispute here; we are simply seeking to interrogate
erveen Pieterse argues that efforts to eradicate pov- further the ways in which such organisations con-
erty (as with the MDGs) are often not considered struct development as a kind of ‘global moral
by post-development writers and somehow ‘slip off imperative’. In this way UNICEF set out to reclaim
the map’ of their critique, but, as we shall see, this the ‘lost children’ of the world:
has not always been the case. One way of respond-
ing to this critique (or at least anticipating it) is to We know where to find the lost children. They are
focus on keywords such as livelihoods, social cap- in the tents and barracks of Africa . . . in the
ital and social exclusion, and to examine the extent brothels of Asia, the slums of Europe and North

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to be necessary, whether it be a brothel, a slum or a

sweatshop. The image of this world of ‘lost chil-
dren’ becomes clearer as they are seen to live in situ-
ations of danger, poverty and exploitation. These
are the most isolated children in the world but they
also live in Europe and North America, hence these
are not simple geographies. Let us therefore ‘extend
the gains’, the report continues; if only we all stand
firm, these children can be rescued. The strategies
of intervention adopted by UNICEF in these dif-
ferent contexts are quite varied however, but it none
the less tries to create a kind of ‘universal aware-
ness’ for its mission, through a certain kind a
discourse about ‘developing regions’.
When UNICEF talks about a ‘global moral
imperative’ it is referring specifically to the emer-
gency, relief and humanitarian nature of inter-
national development agendas, but the implications
extend much further than these discourses. What is
interesting here, however, is that where once it was
seen as universalisable, the meaning of ‘develop-
ment’ has often been narrowed in recent years to
focus mainly on humanitarian relief for groups suf-
fering the stigma of exclusion. Perhaps this is
expecting too much of an organisation such as
UNICEF, namely that it should open up its vision
of development and consider the causes of the
inequalities they importantly flag up. This narrow-
ing of the meaning of development around humani-
tarian and emergency discourses (though far from
Figure 8.1 Spyglasses for security
being unique to one agency) raises all kinds of ques-
Source: UN Department of Public Information tions about the legacies of the past. It is also surely
one of the ‘gravest signs of the crisis of develop-
America, the sweatshops of Latin America. See- ment’ (Rist, 1997: 241).
ing their faces, even if only for a fleeting moment, If such importance is attached to global poverty
how can we allow ourselves to forget them? Let us reduction programmes by organisations such as
extend the gains now enjoyed by so many other USAID, CIDA, DFID, OECD or the panoply of
children to this last, most isolated group. Let us UN agencies, surely we must be clear as to what we
be the ones who stand firm until all children lost mean by poverty to begin with (White, 1999)? The
in such dangerous obscurity emerge into a development studies literature stresses the multi-
brighter future. dimensionality of poverty (considering this not just
(UNICEF, 2000: 11) as material poverty but also as a lack of access/
entitlements, political freedoms, health status or
Children around the world, we are told, must environmental quality, for example). Differences
emerge or be liberated from this ‘dangerous obscur- between absolute and relative poverty and tempor-
ity’ (since ‘how can we forget their faces’?). The lost ary and permanent conditions of poverty are also
must be found and this should happen through important here (White, 1999). Are some kinds of
donations to a UN development agency, UNICEF. poverty (e.g. income poverty and lack of material
Through these and other reports UNICEF’s par- well-being) more immediate than others?
ticular approach to development is disseminated, The term ‘poverty’ is more often than not
creating a vision and a discourse around itself and employed in a wholly relative sense to refer to the
the grounds for intervening wherever this is deemed poorest. Poverty is now increasingly seen, however,

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also often not considered in global terms by many

geographers. There has, however, been a prolifer-
ation of poverty-related educational courses in
geography and other disciplines:

Global poverty is certainly not a fashionable sub-

ject for academic study, either in the countries
most concerned or in the richer parts of the
world. There is nothing to match the proliferation
of institutes, degree programmes and journals of
‘development studies’ which have sprung up in
the past half century (exemplified by the publica-
tion of the Development Studies Reader in 2001).
(O’Connor, 2001: 38)

Poverty exists partly because, as Grinspun (2001: 3)

Figure 8.2 Cartoon of UN poverty meeting
has put it, its persistence is ‘morally unconscion-
Source: CWS and Phore
able’, since the world has ‘the resources and know-
how to vanquish it’. Development therefore arises
as a phenomenon of many layers, determined by partly as a consequence of this ‘moral unconscion-
culture and power relations that range from the able’, of this desire to ‘vanquish’ poverty (through
household to the nation. Some recognition has also technology, resources and know-how). Organisa-
been made that seasonal changes and short-term tions such as the UNDP now construct a variety of
shocks affect people’s movements into and out of qualitative assessments of poverty, using household
poverty. Political violence can be a key part of this surveys and constructing ‘poverty maps’ to high-
process for many people in the South, further light disparities within national borders (Grinspun,
emphasising the need to ‘look more closely at the 2001). Fighting poverty, as we have seen, is a highly
social and political milieu that engender poverty’ political act therefore, involving ‘underpinning
(Grinspun, 2001: 7). Again this means paying assumptions’ and a ‘conditioning of mindsets’
attention to the specific local, national and global (Grinspun, 2001). How does this conditioning take
processes at work in the places and spaces of devel- place and how are these ‘mindsets’ and assumptions
opment. It also means bringing out the very real diffused and received? In addition to this focus on
differences within and between multilateral and discourses, knowledge and power we can usefully
bilateral development agencies and the cultural and draw upon deconstruction as a kind of method-
political gulfs between donors and recipients. Pov- ological stance which allows us to understand the
erty is seen quite commonly as the ‘antithesis of ‘truth claims’ that development texts make. Decon-
development’ (O’Connor, 2001: 37), yet these are struction is a method which interrogates the under-
not always exact opposites since complex processes lying and unarticulated presuppositions of a text
are involved. The term is seen as ‘generally meaning and seeks to challenge a variety of western binaries
a lack or deficiency’ and focuses in most inter- such as First World/Third World, by finding traces
national development institutions on ‘material pov- of one element or one world within the other,
erty in respect of money, goods and services’ thereby undermining dominant imagined
(O’Connor, 2001: 37). The Bank claims to have had geographies.
a new-found recognition of political power in recent Many geographers are sceptical of such an
years, but what role (if any) does it really have in approach, yet discourses on ‘sustainable develop-
eradicating poverty and in ‘empowering’ people, ment’ or ‘people-centred’ development or even
and to what extent is it prepared to take on in- ‘green development’ are clearly ripe for this kind of
country vested interests? method of critique (Watts, 2000). There is a wealth
In human geography, many debates about pov- of qualitative research documenting the variety of
erty and its definition are much more concerned subject positions that are lumped together in the
with poverty in the UK or the USA than in other category ‘poor’. The languages and buzz-words of
countries of the world (O’Connor, 2001). Poverty is development are also important here since they can

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mask continuity from colonial times in the represen- reduction strategies can actually achieve strong and
tation of groups in ways that justify their access to sustained economic growth (Jubilee Debt com-
resources and the exclusion of others from sharing paign, 2002). In effect, the Bank rebranded its
in these resources. A key contention of this chapter ideology as a way of deflecting criticism and resist-
then is that neoliberal development pathways are ing change to the fundamentals of its ideology. This
still rooted in colonial notions of the ‘deserving’ was reminiscent of the way in which the Bank
and ‘non-deserving’ poor and in a notion of poor ‘officially’ signalled the end of the long-standing
countries as subservient to the more enlightened, notion of development as ‘nationally managed eco-
all-knowing ‘developed world’ and its humanitarian nomic growth’ with the publication of the World
concerns for its ‘trustees’. It is argued here that the Development Report of the early 1980s which
latest catchwords and languages of international focused primarily on the world market and began to
development are producing new spaces of exclu- measure ‘participation in development’ in these
sion, particularly in the context of debates about terms (Munck, 1999). At this point the Bank wrote
globalisation, neoliberalism and development. out of the script any question of development fun-
damentally being about income redistribution. In
the words of the IMF, the ‘new’ PRSP approach is
OBSCURING THE CAUSES OF ‘results-oriented’, focusing on the outcomes that
P O V E R T Y: T H E P O V E R T Y P R O C E S S will ‘benefit the poor’ (Jubilee Debt Campaign,
A C RO N Y M S 2002). It emerged towards the end of the 1990s, a
decade in which the Bank shifted towards ‘neoliber-
[F]ighting poverty is highly political. It entails a alism with a human face’, and was also the result of
number of assumptions and perceptions that the Bank’s supposed adoption of a ‘Comprehensive
unconsciously condition mind-sets at every level Development Framework’ (CDF).
of governance, from the household to the state. The ‘comprehensive’ approach was intended to
By doing so, poverty develops a web of relation- involve consultations with ‘stakeholders’ in com-
ships that become self-perpetuating well beyond munities affected by Bank policies. The PRSP is, it
the ambit of the poor themselves. For this reason; is argued, ‘partnership-oriented’ and ‘country-
poverty cannot be dissociated from governance; driven and owned’. This institution requires gov-
they are two sides of the same coin. ernments to recognise and involve civil society in
(Grinspun, 2001: 16) the development process, but each context is very
specific and particular, and there has not always
One way of examining the flow of ideas between been an open dialogue between the two in some
North and South concerns the bewildering array of cases. It is worth remembering, however, that the
poverty process acronyms used by the major multi- Bank looks to engender participation mainly as an
lateral and bilateral donors (see Table 8.2). The end in itself, to produce the PRSP and then to legit-
most famous and perhaps most ill-advised of these imate this text before its audience and the inter-
came with the reference to adjustment programmes national development community. However, what if
or SAPs, but this was taken to a new dimension by ‘civil society’ groups do not wish to terminate their
the IFIs in the 1990s with the introduction of the engagement in politics at this point? Some argue
Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PGRF) that the process of participation in PRSPs repre-
which replaced the much maligned previous system sents a kind of ‘engineering of consent’ for struc-
used by the Bank entitled ‘Enhanced Structural tural adjustment policies (see Box 8.2). In Bolivia
Adjustment Facility’. In 1985 the external debts of the PRSP experience is often held up by inter-
African countries stood at US$95 billion, and at the national development agencies as a success story,
end of 2001 that figure had reached a massive with the country depicted as a mode structural
US$208 billion (World Bank, 2001a). In 1999 the adjustment performer; yet there were some harsh
World Bank and IMF decided to require countries lessons and mistakes made in these processes which
to prepare a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper are much less frequently mentioned. The language
(PRSP) as a condition for qualifying for conces- of ‘partnership’ which emerged from colonial
sional assistance and debt relief under the Heavily discourses of development is important here.
Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. This ini- Once completed, the ‘country-owned’ PRSPs are
tiative is unlikely to bring real benefit unless these assessed by the IFIs before relief is agreed and

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creditors dictate the terms of participation in the external factors, including lack of transparency in
process while demanding a final seal of approval for the IMF and World Bank, are key barriers to
the strategy. Their concern for good governance improvement here.
arises directly from colonial discourses. ‘Ownership’ At the UN Millennium summit in September
today is also still a prerequisite of nations rather 2000, ‘the largest high-level development constitu-
than individuals (Cooke, 2001). In Mozambique ency ever’ (Browne, 2001: xii), a variety of buzz-
and Mauritania the IMF even said that rapid words and phrases were also used by world leaders
approval for debt relief would be forthcoming only to talk up their commitment to poverty eradication.
if the government ‘did not put the PRSP out for Here it was declared that world leaders would ‘spare
public consultation’ (Elliott, 2000: 25, emphasis no effort to free our fellow men, women and chil-
added). A group of twenty-four southern countries dren from the abject and dehumanising conditions
published an important research paper on ‘Govern- of extreme poverty’ (cited in Foreword: iii). Once
ance-related conditionalities and the IFIs’ in 2001 again there is this notion that children, men and
(Santiso, 2001). It questions whether the IFIs actu- women must be ‘freed’ (by this particular constitu-
ally have the mandate or the competence to justify ency) from the enslavement of abject and dehuman-
imposing governance-related conditionalities in the ising conditions. The unjust nature of international
contexts where they operate. It raises concerns that trade and economics is thus quickly side-stepped,
IMF and World Bank country strategy papers are downplaying the centrality of crucial, structural
often full of ‘faddish ideas’, not realistic priorities. processes of politics and economics. Many institu-
The failure to acknowledge a whole variety of tions talk about long-term targets and strategies for

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the ‘alleviation’ or sometimes ‘eradication’ of pov- informed are these accounts of development by the
erty, but how seriously are these commitments voices emanating from the places and peoples dir-
taken? ectly affected by these strategies? Perhaps these are
Evaluations of PRSPs are sometimes carried out, static, ‘document-centric’ visions which bear little
but their widening adoption has been criticised in relation to views from below (BWP, 2002a). What
some quarters, in that reduction strategies must about continuing participation after the strategy is
always be linked to other macroeconomic trade lib- completed? The macroeconomic situation and the
eralisation measures and a singular ideology of entrenched political and economic processes which
development. In Angola, for example, the UNDP- produce inequality in the national and international
sponsored PRSP undercut local initiatives and was macroeconomy thus disappear from view and the
institutionally quite fragile, failing to build capacity core (neoliberal) assumptions remain unchallenged.
as is so often promised (González de la Rocha, The sense formulated here of joint learning and
2001). It is far from clear that civil societies and ‘the shared assessment across countries is a very shallow
poor’ have been involved in and empowered by this and superficial one.
process. Many of the former socialist countries of When the UNDP published a study of poverty
Eastern Europe have also had to grapple with this strategies entitled Choices for the Poor: Lessons from
question of defining a threshold for social assist- National Poverty Strategies (Grinspun, 2001),
ance (in a context of growing income and social UNDP administrator Mark Malloch Brown
disparities during the transition to capitalist, mar- pointed to the ‘technical and political complexity of
ket economies). Because each of these measures is developing comprehensive anti-poverty policies’
arbitrary in one way or another, they have also been (Grinspun, 2001: iii). Words like coherence, con-
quite controversial. None the less the existence of sensus, choice, capacity and co-ordination seem to
impoverishment in these contexts illustrates further abound alongside phrases like sustainable, extreme,
that development is not simply a ‘Third World’ success and failure. Choices for the Poor follows a
phenomenon but is something that organisations further UNDP initiative launched a few years earl-
such as the OECD are slowly beginning to see as ier in 1996 to help poor countries develop national
crucial for parts of Europe and the ‘developed’ and local strategies for poverty reduction. Through
world as well. this process (and the varied and multiple con-
Focus on the Global South issued a report in 2002 sequences it has in different contexts) we can see a
assessing PRSP processes in Lao PDR, Cambodia particular ideology, strategy and theory of devel-
and Vietnam based on interviews with World Bank opment being disseminated. The Poverty Strategies
officials and NGOs. The report concluded that the Initiative (PSI) became the UNDP’s major means
strategy papers came into conflict with long-
established development plans, directions and
debates in these areas. Even basic errors such as the
failure to translate the strategies into either Khmer
or Lao excluded many civil society groups (BWP,
2001b). There was also no transparent ‘route map’
to the process in Bangladesh, where the PRSP
remained a condition of the receipt of future fund-
ing. Even the Bank’s own Social Development
Department acknowledges that information dis-
closure and consultation is primarily an urban pro-
cess, confined to capital cities and particular social
groups. Despite all the talk of widespread consult-
ation, these processes are still driven by finance and
planning ministries and exclude non-conventional
NGOs such as community groups and some wom-
en’s organisations that do not quite match the
Bank’s definition of appropriate forms of civil
society. Bereft of any kind of gender analysis and Figure 8.3 Blowing a raspberry at UN commissions
often based on questionable data sources, how well Source: Cartoon by D. Cagle

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of implementing its commitment to poverty eradi- naturalise complex ethnic and cultural differences
cation (made at the 1995 World Summit for Social between peoples, despite the intense contestation
Development). and struggle that surrounds and defines them. Thus
It is useful to briefly consider here the experience the complex political and cultural struggles that
of the PSI and PRSP processes in the Middle forge particular nations and competing senses of
East, in the Lebanon and Palestine in particular. nationhood are not seen as relevant in the all-
For much of the Cold War, the USA pursued a inclusive, all-encompassing ‘catch-all’ models of the
strategy of ‘containment’ in the Middle East, which IFIs. The particular historical and political context
was allied to wider discourses of danger about the of Palestine, for example, does not seem to be well
Soviet Union. All manner of ‘containment activ- understood by many development organisations. At
ities’ were legitimated as a result of these discourses, the Copenhagen Summit for Social Development in
involving support for moderate and conservative 1995, the Minister of Social Affairs of the Palestine
leaders in states such as Jordan and Lebanon, the Authority felt it necessary to remind delegates that:
overthrow of the Iranian government, support for
Israel in the wars of 1967 and 1973, and the wide- Poverty in Palestine interlinks with factors differ-
spread distribution of arms through the region to ent from those in other countries, where it is often
aid struggles against the USSR (Pinto, 1999). When attributed to structural social and economic
Lebanon’s fifteen-year civil war came to an end in imbalances. In Palestine, poverty basically inter-
1990 many lives had been lost and severe disruption links with Israeli occupation.
caused to society by the conflict, damaging the (Al Wazir, 1995, quoted in Jerve, 2001: 310)
infrastructure and resource base. As Jerve (2001:
304) puts it: ‘[p]overty and social inequality in Leb- The UNDP Programme of Assistance to the Pales-
anon need to be understood in the context of these tinian People (PAPP) supported the preparation of
post-war traumas.’ In some ways it is precisely here a comprehensive situation analysis of poverty in
that the PSI/PRSP interventions seem to fall so far Palestine, which resulted in the publication of the
short, in failing to recognise and accommodate Palestine Poverty Report in 1998. An additional Par-
these specific postwar traumas. Violent conflict has ticipatory Poverty Assessment (planned with UK
continued not just in Lebanon but also in Palestine, DFID finance) has also since been prepared and a
where relations with Israel and the international National Poverty Commission (whose role remains
community are a crucial factor in national politics. unclear) has been set up. These kinds of reports
Unresolved territorial disputes and border closures, often waver, however, between two competing and
along with security problems, have made ‘long-term contradictory perspectives, from one based on a
national development planning virtually impos- notion of poverty as a lack of something (of assets,
sible’ in this context (Jerve, 2001: 306). In both basic services or income to sustain a minimum
Lebanon and Palestine these reports can be standard of living) to another exploring the rela-
engulfed in controversy. Critics of the regime in tionship of a person ‘to his or her social and phys-
Palestine used the poverty reports there to press for ical environment’ (Jerve, 2001: 312). Thus in the
changes in public spending by what was then the Palestinian context it is not clear if the material
Palestine Authority (the state), but on the other production of poverty is about a lack of assets or
hand the high poverty rates documented in the access or if this is also connected to the nature of
reports allowed the regime to lobby development the socio-cultural and geopolitical environment.
donors for continued international assistance. At the time of writing, all Palestinian cities are
In Lebanon, a document called Mapping Living occupied and remain under Israeli curfew, prevent-
Conditions in Lebanon (UNDP, 1998) was also pre- ing people’s access to basic needs such as food
pared in 1997 to 1998, identifying the spatial uneven- and water, and to schools and hospitals. In
ness of impoverishment. A fractured state, dealing addition, major human rights abuses have been
with many sectarian interests in Lebanon, can make committed by the Israeli forces in Palestine with
policy responses and development planning rather impunity and without a great deal of resistance
complex. National development in Middle Eastern from the international community. Over the past
countries such as Lebanon and Palestine is also eight years the Palestinian Authority has been
complicated by the fact that international agencies enthusiastically preparing industrial zones to be
see borders and boundaries in ways which serve to built on the border with Israel (with the assistance

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of USAID) in the hope that joint investment between early postwar period of 1992 to 1998 have not been
the two countries would cement a lasting peace, yet sustained, while declines in inflation rates and the
the Israeli occupation has today destroyed the Pales- return of foreign capital have not brought the pre-
tinian economy (Palestine Solidarity Campaign, dicted widespread benefits. What is important here
2002). In the late 1990s an emerging state apparatus though is the presumed universality of this method
in Palestine created some jobs, but unemployment of assessing and responding to poverty, through the
remained high and many Palestinian businesses use of certain kinds of languages, strategy papers
remained dependent on interactions with the Israeli and acronyms.
economy. The Israeli economy has also suffered, as
defence spending has risen by some US$2 billion a
year since the Intifada began. Just to keep the tanks P O V E R T Y, L I V E L I H O O D S D I S C O U R S E
rolling in Palestinian towns costs some US$70 mil- A N D S O C I A L CA P I TA L
lion a month (BBC, 21 June 2002). The US adminis-
tration has offered to support a new Palestinian state What binds development NGOs together above
but only under certain ‘democratic’ conditions estab- all is talk.
lished by Washington and without any clear time- (Townsend, 2000: 15)
table. The point here is that neoliberalism, and the
strategies and acronyms used to convey it, seems Another important and associated way in which we
unable to adapt and accommodate the specifics of can explore the dissemination of development is to
certain kinds of context (e.g. associated with conflict look at the increasing popularity of the concept of
and trauma) in particular places and communities. ‘livelihoods’ among many international donors and
These examples from the Middle East also high- northern NGOs. The way in which the discourse on
light some of the ways in which, as Pieterse and development is ‘institutionalised’ (Escobar, 1992)
Parekh (1995) argue, the region is commonly under- by multilateral and bilateral donors can be shown to
stood through a series of development-related partly condition what is ultimately written about
metaphors in general and by a ‘crisis discourse’ in development and what are constructed as its ‘truths’
particular. Divisions within the Middle East are (Escobar, 1995). The emergence of a Department
often papered over by accounts of the region’s for International Development (DFID) in Britain is
‘development’, but these divisions are significant and a good example of how ‘foggy aid-speak’ (Sogge,
have been historically produced (e.g. through the 2002) can come to dominate international develop-
Gulf War or the Cold War) (Aarts, 1999). The end ment practice today. An analysis of DFID
of global conflict, as elsewhere in the world, has approaches can tell us much about the ways in
thus led to the emergence of differentiated and con- which aid and development act as a kind of ‘feel
flicting national strategies for development which good’ or image industry that produces knowledge
need to be carefully understood. Slowly but surely, and ideologies which shape policy, norms and
from the mid–1980s onwards, governments across aspirations.
the region have begun diluting state-centred devel- Former UK Development Secretary Clare Short
opment strategies in favour of implementing ‘liber- spoke repeatedly of the need to ‘mobilise the
alising’ measures which coincided with an upsurge political will’ which was seen as widely lacking, par-
in the external debt of Arab countries (which had ticularly among an apparently increasingly less
reached some US$160 billion in 1990) (Aarts, 1999). charitable and more indifferent British public.
Arab states have been among the most reluctant to Interestingly, DFID has been quick to associate
subscribe to the new neoliberal orthodoxies but itself with the millennium international develop-
‘one by one they have begun cautiously to endorse ment targets, committing itself to closely following
its principles and adopt its tenets piecemeal’ (Aarts, the UN policy on aid provisions and the millennium
1999: 915). As a result the processes of economic development goal of a 50 per cent reduction in
and political liberalisation have been ‘conspicuously world poverty by the year 2015 (DFID, 1997). Even
partial’ in the Middle East. Results so far have been though DFID does not actually commit itself to
very mixed and how relevant is the outward- cutting world poverty in half by 2015, it does want
oriented growth strategy which promises macro- to play a part in the ‘noble’ and ‘moral’ task of
economic ‘stability’ and the creation of wealth and reducing the number of people living in absolute
investment? High economic growth rates in the poverty. Hewitt (2001) argues that DFID and New

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Labour have successfully popularised the develop- gender equalities, participation/empowerment,

ment agenda in the UK, generating more discussion good state–market relations and ‘good govern-
among the public and adopting ‘progressive’ pol- ance’), DFID has sought to position the British
icies. For some commentators at least, there is more state as global broker of the most harmonious and
discussion and talk of development in the UK ‘sustainable’ development drawing upon the very
under the New Labour administration than under latest ideals for development, circulating within the
its predecessors (Hewitt, 2001). ‘development industry’ of today (Power, 2000). The
The problem, however, is that this is ‘fuzzy talk’ importance of the Bank’s annual WDRs and other
which, in pointing to the future and 2015, camou- canons of neoliberal orthodoxy to the ideas drawn
flages actual political and economic injustices in the upon by DFID are somewhat alarming. Its position
present that DFID seems unwilling to deal with and on these debates is strongly underpinned by an
take on. In DFID parlance, aid and development international neoliberal consensus associated with
are overburdened with far too much hope and hype the major multilateral agencies and richest econ-
in ways which mask other important forces such as omies, suggesting that the recommended route to
unfair trade, undemocratic international develop- poverty reduction is by direct income growth
ment agencies, capital flight and ‘brain drain’, tech- among the poor rather than redistribution of
nological change and conflict. All of these are forces wealth, either internally or internationally. In this
that aid is of course itself impacting upon and way, there seems to be little about DFID that is
influencing. Thus none of this ‘progressive’ focus ‘conceptually new or operationally radical’ (Gould,
will successfully be brought to bear more widely as 1998: iv).
long as the ‘market fundamentalism’ of the IFIs This lack of anything ‘conceptually new or oper-
continues and is endorsed actively by bilateral agen- ationally radical to offer’ is deeply characteristic of
cies such as these (Sogge, 2002). DFID has quickly many debates about development today (Power,
become part of what Huntington once called the 2000). DFID is praised in many quarters, however,
‘Davos Culture’. Thus it has rushed lovingly into for its ‘progressive approach’, for example with
the arms of the many institutions and professionals respect to its concern for livelihoods analysis. DFID
which live from ‘development administration’ (Rist, now claims to recognise the ‘unremitting struggle to
1997). This is the kind of culture that has grown up secure a livelihood in the face of adverse social,
around organisations such as the World Economic economic and often political circumstances’ (Mur-
Forum which has usually met in Davos, Switerland: ray, 2001: 151). Rural livelihoods are multiple and
complex (households may derive a part livelihood
They know how to deal with computers, cellular from farming; a part livelihood from migrant labour
phones, airline schedules, currency exchange and undertaken by household members in urban areas
the like. But they also dress alike, exhibit the same or other rural areas, and/or a part livelihood from
amicable informality . . . and of course most of petty trade or informal activities). Gendered liveli-
them interact in English. Since most of these cul- hoods are also important here. Closely linked to the
tural traits are of Western (and mostly American) diversity of modes of livelihood at any one moment
provenance, individuals coming from different is the idea of diversification of livelihoods over time
backgrounds must go through a process of social- (Murray, 2001: 152). Through much of the 1990s in
ization that will allow them to engage. Africa, many people turned to non-farm sources of
(Huntington, quoted in Peet, 2002: 59) income in comparison to the previous decade
(which was in turn linked to the introduction of
DFID had no such problems in engaging with the SAPs, declining terms of trade and devalued cur-
neoliberal discourses on international development. rencies). Ellis (1998) points out that both rich and
DFID’s legislative statements have been strong on poor households can diversify their income in order
rhetoric and presentation but weak on the substan- to make ends meet and that migration has an
tive issues raised by policy objectives and on the impact on this process of diversification (see also
means to implement them, deliberately setting out de Haan, 1999).
to align itself with the very latest and contemporary One strength of this approach is that it does focus
knowledge of development. Replete with the attention on income diversification in (neoliberalis-
development buzz-words and phraseology of today ing) rural spaces and the societies that inhabit them,
(environmental conservation and sustainability, raising important questions about the impacts on

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farmers, rural markets and communities. Adjust-

ment involved the dismantling of many state agri-
cultural marketing boards and parastatals that had
supported producers and their input requirements
or had provided marketing facilities and controlled
prices. The approach does focus therefore on
responses to change in ways which are potentially
useful and instructive, examining the erosion of
communities or economies during the process of
market and trade liberalisation. The approach also
tries to be ‘dynamic’, committed to several dimen-
sions of sustainability simultaneously and aiming to
bridge the gap between macro and micro. It also
moves beyond some of the expensive, large-scale
surveys which generated masses of income and Figure 8.4 Fighting poverty through sustainable livelihoods:
expenditure data but could ultimately say very little UNDP and the ‘wheels of abundance’
about the diversification of responses to poverty Source: UN Department of Public Information
and of strategies adopted by people in particular
places to counteract it (Bryceson, 2002). There is and not simply a ‘thing’, while landlessness cannot
also a creative tension between several different be understood as a uniquely distinctive attribute
dimensions of analysis and the approach does try to of the rural poor. Rather, capital and landlessness
transcend binaries such as urban/rural, formal/ have to do with the ‘working out of unequal social
informal, industrial/agricultural, raising some ques- relations over time’ (Murray, 2001: 154). The
tions about intra-household and extra-household approach is seen as flexible, allowing for multiple
relations to a limited extent. Some scope for insti- realities, but it none the less represents a certain
tutional change is also envisaged, while the approach kind of discourse about poverty. Like numerous
is seen to recognise multiple influences, actors, strat- predecessors, the approach claims to be uniquely
egies and outcomes. Some geographers have argued ‘people-centred’, based upon popular participa-
that the concept of livelihoods can provide more tion and embodying the realities of ‘poor people’
nuanced understandings of rural development and themselves. The whole notion of a ‘vulnerability
can focus attention on the importance of place context’ deserves to be torpedoed however: argu-
(Bebbington, 2000). The sustainable (rural) liveli- ably rampant inflation, conflict, political instability
hoods framework has been particularly influential and unemployment are also relevant and more
in much recent research since its official adoption in important than allowed for in this framework. The
Britain by DFID which notes that: language of ‘multiplier effects’ which seems to
predominate here is quite bewildering, as is the
A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets somewhat bizarre notion of how it is possible to
(including both material and social resources) expand an individual’s ‘asset pentagons’. In-
and activities required for a means of living. A equalities of power and conflict are papered over
livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with either within or between communities in terms of
and recover from stresses and shocks and main- ethnicity or class, for example. As Murray (2001)
tain or enhance its capabilities and assets both has argued, questions of international political
now and in the future, while not undermining the economy often slip from view in the ‘seductive
natural resource base. rhetoric’ of livelihood discourses:
(DFID, 1999: Section 1.1)
It is an essential pre-condition . . . to undertake a
A ‘vulnerability context’ is constructed which strong analysis at the regional or national level,
defines shifting seasonal constraints such as short- and often at the international level also, of the
term economic shocks and rather vague longer-term political economy of change: key socio-economic
trends of change, deploying various ‘livelihood trends, shifting political and economic and insti-
assets’ or capital to construct the ‘asset pentagon’ tutional pressures [and] the social relations of
(Francis, 2000). Capital is a social relation, however, conflict and inequality that determine so many of

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the opportunities and constraints for different 2001). It is through such concepts that other alter-
social classes within and beyond the population native ways of thinking about capital are actively
of immediate concern. The seductive rhetoric of delegitimated. The term is now used to discuss a
‘participation’ offers no substitute for independ- wide range of issues and is often linked to discus-
ent rigorous analysis of this kind. sions of civil society. Its use by the Bank is a good
(Murray, 2001: 15) example of the way the organisation puts an econ-
omistic twist on so many aspects of social life by
The principal tension here is that participation is applying economic rationale and claiming to be
central to the discourse of intervention that is based ‘holistic’ in thinking about the ‘human’ implications
around the livelihoods framework and that there are of its actions. It also signifies the Bank’s unchecked
therefore some important contradictions between power to define truth and falsehood in development
these two objectives. If someone’s livelihood is circles (Sogge, 2002).
enhanced is it possible that another person’s liveli- The phrase ‘social capital’ figured especially
hood will consequently be undermined? Sustainable prominently in the 2001 WDR Attacking Poverty in
livelihoods debates are subject to the same criti- the sections on ‘empowerment’. Ben Fine argues
cisms and weaknesses that face discourses on sus- that social capital is part of the attempt by World
tainability more generally: sustainable under what Bank social theorists to be taken seriously by other
criteria, for whom and for how long? (Elliott, 1994). economists. The concept of social capital is also
Despite the occasional lip-service paid to public problematic because, like the livelihoods
participation, preference is still given to ‘control by approaches, it ‘compromises with established doc-
scientists/technicians, national decision-makers and trines, whilst absorbing and neutralizing more rad-
donors’ (Sogge, 2002: 151). This means that while ical and coherent alternatives’ (Fine, 2001, cited in
appearing to draw on local perceptions and know- BWP, 2001b). As Amin (2001b) has argued, it is
how, there remains a persistent inability to really possible to be ‘duped’ by the apparent changes of
grasp how local people understand and define such policy the Bank occasionally engages in, which
things as livelihoods which are instead recast in a claim to be part of the ‘struggle against poverty’ but
somewhat endogenous discourse encrypted by do not really prioritise the welfare of ordinary
‘outsiders’.
The intellectual understanding of capital
advanced by this approach is itself underdeveloped
and impoverished, while the causes of poverty
become issues of individual household attributes,
rather than being seen as arising from unequal
social relations between and within households and
communities (Murray, 2001). Associated with this
concern with livelihoods is the wider notion of
‘social capital’ adopted by some organisations such
as DFID and more generally by the World Bank in
recent years which can be critiqued for the extent to
which attention is also shifted away from inequal-
ities of power (Fine, 2001). This idea refers to the
ability of people to work together for common pur-
poses in groups and organisations and has been
held up by the Bank as a testament to its close prox-
imity to contemporary research. As we saw in
Chapter 7, this concept is particularly interesting in
that it raises questions about spatial patterns
(Mohan and Mohan, 2002) and about the colonisa-
tion of the social sciences by neoliberalism.
Although for the Bank this concept may adopt a
wider notion of what capital is, it still ultimately Figure 8.5 Drowning by numbers
opens up very little room for manoeuvre (Hart, Source: Bretton Woods Project

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people at all. None the less, the combined effect of million such organisations in the USA alone, three-
these changes has been a ‘move towards multiple quarters of which have been established since 1968
stakeholder approaches’ and the partnership forged (Watts, 2001). The 176 ‘international NGOs’ of
by states, capital and different groups of society 1909 had risen to some 28,900 by 1993, virtually 90
(Mohan and Mohan, 2002). Thus the nature of per cent of which have been established since the
relationships between plural actors is being drawn 1960s (Commission on Global Governance, 1995).
out to an extent, but the actual mechanisms which In and through this explosion of NGOs comes a
link the ‘networks’ and ‘organisations’ of social further dissemination of development as certain
capital are much less well understood by these agen- ideas, practices and discourses begin to emerge
cies. It may also be seen as quite a prescriptive around each one of them, representing a further
approach, suggesting that if development fails ‘institutionalisation’ and ‘professionalisation’ of
locally it is because of a lack of the right sort of development (Escobar, 1992). For some commenta-
social capital, which in turn legitimates interventions tors NGOs have mobilised little except ‘compassion
in ‘local’ political economies as development agen- for children and victims of disaster’ alongside large
cies seek to ‘build this’ (Mohan and Mohan, 2002) flows of income from donations (Sogge, 2002: 158)
in particular places. despite all the talk of ‘capacity-building’. Many
One important way in which the notions of ‘live- such organisations often seem more concerned with
lihoods’ and ‘social capital’ have been popularised their own survival than with challenging poverty or
and institutionalised in development circles con- tacking ‘real’ development issues:
cerns the role of non-governmental organisations
(NGOs). These organisations have been defined as a There is a great deal of talk about ‘participation’,
‘residual’ category that includes a wide variety of ‘listening to the poor’ and ‘partnership’, and the
formal associations which are not government led donor organisations are often committed to these
even though definitions vary enormously and goals in principle. But the practice usually falls
many NGOs do receive finance and support from short of this talk.
their home government. Between 1977 and 1978 the (Townsend, 2000: 1, emphasis in original)
Canadian government agency CIDA’s contribution
to NGOs was equivalent to US$44 million, but by Southern NGOs by contrast have much less power
1998 to 1999 it had risen to US$240.8 million des- to influence the kinds of project that are undertaken
pite those NGOs not having fared particularly well and the way they are conceived. Townsend (2000)
in alleviating poverty and protecting the environ- looked at the example of NGOs in India and found
ment (De Silva, 2002). These organisations can that even ideas which themselves originated in
operate at local, national or international level but a the South (such as the focus on microfinance) are
key issue that has been raised in critiques of NGO taken up and promoted by northern NGOs which
activity concerns the closeness of their contact with modify these ideas to fit neoliberal ideological pref-
‘local’ and national cultures and knowledge. erences in a way which ‘crowds out’ locally derived
Although many have argued that the work of alternatives and local conceptions of what consti-
NGOs is often poorly monitored and sometimes tutes development. What is interesting here is that
imposes foreign solutions in delicate situations, it all manner of NGOs claim to be engaged in the
has been suggested that such organisations can pro- local, to be ‘listening’ to the poor and to be facilitat-
vide an effective link between state and society, ing their participation, but in reality ‘local voices are
often working in ‘very practical ways’ (Edwards and often the last heard’ (Townsend, 2000: 4). In this
Hulme, 1992: 14). NGOs have also often formed way the ‘knowledge economy’ of the global devel-
important alliances with social movements of opment community of NGOs is dominated by a
various kinds. relatively small number of predominantly northern
None the less, since the 1980s and 1990s there has NGOs. This in turn is very closely shaped by global
been an amazing ‘explosion’ in the numbers of waves of ‘fashions’ in development thinking and
NGOs and GROs (grassroots organisations) or new buzz-words such as ‘livelihoods’ and ‘social
CBOs (community-based organisations). One study capital’ which arguably signals a lack of diversity in
which took a sample of only twenty-two countries practices and ideas. The participation of southern
found that NGO’s generate US$1.1 trillion in rev- ‘partners’ is thus to a degree conditional on the
enue (Ryan, 1999). There are now in excess of two extent to which they can articulate such fads,

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fashions and buzz-words in their applications for

funding and support. There is also something of a
‘report culture’ that has developed around many of
these northern NGOs which focus on measuring
and counting activities completed, ‘progress’ made
and ‘outputs’ and ‘indicators’ rather than on
deeper conversations and engagements with local
communities and cultures. In India, many South
Indian NGOs feel that money, power and informa-
tion is concentrated in the capital cities to such an
extent that they are geographically as well as
socially excluded from participation (Townsend,
2000). It is difficult to generalise however across this
mushrooming ‘community’ of NGOs but what we
can say is that it is important to focus on the ways in
which knowledge is traded, discussed and dissemin-
ated within this community and to examine how
this relates to the knowledge of local peoples in par-
ticular places that are the subjects of these
interventions.

Figure 8.7 Twenty years of South–South technical co-operation

Source: UN Department of Public Information, poster by Tracy Walker

DECONSTRUCTING THE
‘ D E V E L O P M E N T G A T E W AY ’

[The Bank has become] a clearing house for

knowledge about development – not just a cor-
porate memory of best practices, but also a col-
lector and disseminator of the best development
knowledge from outside organisations.
(World Bank, 1999: 140, emphasis added)

The UN Human Development Report for 2001

explores the potential of information and com-
munication technologies (ICTs), touching upon the
‘digital divide’ and its implications for the South –
recognising for the first time that this raises key
issues about partnership and interconnections in
an interdependent world. Much is made by inter-
national agencies of their capacity to close this
imagined ‘digital divide’ (Abbott, 2001; Main, 2001;
Mander, 2001; Winner, 2001). Allied to this is the
Figure 8.6 Come to the UN: ‘It’s your world’. The UN Secretariat
World Bank’s claim to have reinvented itself as a
building in New York
Source: Designed by Gibby’s Posters/UN Department of Public
‘knowledge’ bank, even though its notion of devel-
Information opment continues to be apolitical and economistic.

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What we need to examine here is the ways in which strations surrounding its recent ‘public’ meetings,
the Bank uses knowledge to legitimise and ration- the Bank has been forced to reconsider its own
alise certain positions. information disclosure policy and issues surround-
In particular the Bank’s plans to build a Global ing the kinds of information made available in its
Development Network (GDN) or gateway over the own consultations. None the less, by the Bank’s own
Internet are particularly interesting. The Bank admission there has been a continuing failure to
hopes the gateway will become the ‘premier web provide local citizens and stakeholders with the
entry point for information about poverty and sus- information they need ‘to meaningfully participate
tainable development’ but for whom? Less than 30 in decision-making about the projects affecting
per cent of the visitors to the World Bank’s existing their lives’ (Results Educational Fund, 2001: 2).
site come from outside the US (Patel, 2001). The There are thus major contradictions within and
gateway will have a mini-Internet bookstore (for between the Bank’s stated claims to be empowering
those with access to credit cards), while news is pro- people and allowing them to participate (through
vided by that well-known champion of grassroots certain kinds of communication) in national or
knowledge in the South, The Financial Times. local development. By the mid-1990s the Bank was
According to global agencies such as the Bank, producing some 350 to 500 publications annually
technology now permits rapid access to information and by 2001 it had even gone into television as well
scattered all over the globe, and enables communi- as the Internet (Sogge, 2002). Much of its research
cations and interactions that transcend geo- arguably contributes more to legitimating what it
graphical boundaries. The ‘material poor’ need no does rather than to actually advancing understand-
longer be the ‘information poor’ according to some ing of the development issues involved.
commentators (Schafer-Gross, 1995; Samoff and Strangely, the Bank overlooks all of this in its
Stromquist, 2001). It is argued that if the people are claim that there are those who can and are taking
considered ‘information rich’, they themselves can advantage of the ‘information era’ and those that
be ‘empowered’ to reduce inequalities of class or are falling behind:
gender. In this way, technology is said to permit a
faster take-off towards the good life such that Knowledge is critical for development, because
people can not only close development ‘gaps’ but everything we do depends on knowledge. For
also begin to ‘leap-frog ahead’. countries in the vanguard of the world economy,
This appears to be the philosophy behind the the balance between knowledge and resources
World Bank’s reinvention of itself and the creation has shifted so far toward the former that know-
of the Development gateway, a very ambitious, ledge has become perhaps the most important
far-reaching project costing US$69.5 million over factor determining the standard of living – more
the first three years and aiming to create a so than land, than tools, than labor.
‘mega-website’ to co-exist with the Bank’s already (World Bank, 1999: 16)
extensive external website. Part of a rash of
development-information portals on the web, it is Thus the Bank depicts a ‘revolution’ led by those in
rumoured that the idea first began with a meeting the ‘vanguard of the global economy’ and, by impli-
between Bill Gates and Bank President James cation, ‘forward-thinking’ agencies like the Bank
Wolfensohn (Patel, 2001). The Bank is seeking to itself. A variety of institutions and agencies in the
position itself as the world’s ‘mightiest think-tank’ development business have come to a similar realis-
on development issues, the leading producer of doc- ation that, as the Bank puts it in the 1999 World
trine and knowledge about how countries ought to Development Report, ‘knowledge is development’
develop, even aspiring to define the alternatives to (World Bank, 1999: 130). Some of these agencies,
its own visions (Sogge, 2002). Since the project however, hide behind the claim that the documents
began in 2000 to 2001, critiques of this ‘Tower of are ‘country-owned’ or ‘country-driven’ as a way of
Babel on the Internet’ (Wilks, 2001) have been justifying their non-disclosure of certain kinds of
numerous. These have focused on the confused cac- information. The policy papers that are produced
ophony of voices in this project and the unrealistic by technocrats within recipient countries can thus
‘visionary’ plans put forward by people such as be understood as little more than a ‘cardboard
James Wolfensohn. façade’ to reflect ownership of dominant ideas
Interestingly, as a result of the riots and demon- (Sogge, 2002: 155). The World Bank in particular

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often talks about the need to protect the ‘integrity and Stromquist, 2001). Information (of a very par-
of the deliberative process’ in the formation of ticular kind) has thus come to be seen as the princi-
development policies, suggesting that some aspects pal determinant of national economic growth and
of deliberations around adoption of its strategies development. As the World Bank explains in vari-
need to be kept private, secret and protected. This is ous sections of the WDR, poor countries ‘lag’ or
a massive contradiction, however, to the idea of ‘fall’ behind in a number of ways in this regard:
the Bank as a ‘gateway’ to development knowledge
when it deliberately holds back certain kinds of ‘Poor countries – and poor people – differ from
knowledge and information because they are seen rich ones not only because they have less capital
to interfere with delicate deliberations around pol- but because they have less knowledge’ (1999: 1).
icy. Perhaps it is rather the other way around here in
that the Bank ‘does not want the public’s deliber- ‘Indeed even greater than the knowledge gap is the
ations to interfere with its own private deliberative gap in the capacity to create knowledge’ (1999: 2).
process’ (Results Educational Fund, 2001: 5). The ‘The need for developing countries to increase
way in which the Bank still penalises those who leak their capacity to use knowledge cannot be over-
documents shows that the organisation is not keen stated’ (1999: 16).
on certain kinds of disclosure when it does not suit.
As usual, the 1999 WDR claimed to be inclusive ‘Countries that fail to encourage investment in
of a range of perspectives but actually contained ‘a the effective use of global and local knowledge
sermon about what is to be done’ (Samoff and are likely to fall behind those that succeed in
Stromquist, 2001: 635). The Bank (thankfully) encouraging it’ (1999: 25, emphasis added).
knows the way forward and preaches to its audience
about what is to be done in the future. In 1995, in a The Bank therefore is depicted as a global and
statement about education policy, the Bank argued local manager of knowledge for development, look-
that its main contribution ‘must be advice, designed ing to communicate information to planners and
to help governments develop education policies decision-makers and subsequently to the recipients
suitable for the circumstances of their countries’ of ‘development’ knowledge. What is missing from
(World Bank, 1995: 14). Thus by invoking a concern this account, however, is a sense of how context and
for local circumstances in recipient countries the agency can transform information into knowledge
Bank constructs itself as responsive, tailoring solu- (Samoff and Stromquist, 2001). Thus every indi-
tions to the particularities of peoples and places. vidual human being/agent or subject thinks their
What is also interesting here is the Bank’s sense that place in the world and transforms various forms of
knowledge is a ‘thing’ that can be acquired, borrowed, information into knowledge every day. The power,
appropriated or sold. The Bank’s role is therefore discourses and knowledge of the World Bank thus
one of ‘disseminator’ of ‘best’ knowledge and ‘best’ create models of subjectivity, which can, as Escobar
practices, but who classifies them as such? In this (1995) has shown, be seen partly as an effect of its
way knowledge becomes rather like a microwave, an networks of power–knowledge. All subjectivities
automobile or a radio: a thing that can be produced are gendered of course and are the product of a
or traded, exported or imported. According to the matrix of habits, practices and discourses (McDow-
Bank, developing countries will remain ‘importers ell and Sharp, 1999). Although the concept of sub-
rather than principal producers of technical jectivity is a complex one, it raises questions about
knowledge’ for some time (World Bank, 1999: 24). agency, action and authorship in the making of
Thus the Bank defines the roles for senders and development knowledge and about the situated
receivers of this knowledge and views this scenario and partial nature of knowing development.
as something which is likely to remain the case ‘for Information has to be repackaged, translated,
some time’ into the future. There is often a slippage contextualised and communicated through complex
in the Bank’s use of terms (as with other global pathways that are overlooked by the Bank and its
institutions) between the words ‘knowledge’ and ‘corporate memory’ of neoliberal best practices.
‘information’, for example, which seem almost to How is this information passed on, generated and
fuse together. ‘Knowledge gaps’ and ‘information appropriated? In this sense, ‘[h]uman agents, multi-
problems’ blur into each other quite often in the step communication flows, status-based transmis-
Bank’s reading of these debates however (Samoff sion barriers, and more, all disappear from view’

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(Samoff and Stromquist, 2001: 643). The Bank also which often has a limited sense of what is old and
adopts a rather static and linear model of the policy- what is new. How ‘empowering’ is this know-
making process. How is the same information ledge from the Bank for the world’s poor? Even
viewed differently by, say, a government official as when indigenous communities ‘produce’ the know-
opposed to a community activist? In a way there is ledge, they remain dependent on those who generate
an ideological arrogance in this, assuming that it is the technology employed to distil and distribute
unimportant for ‘developing countries’ to assess the that knowledge. Where poor countries and their cit-
value of others’ experiences for their own setting. Of izens are not technically excluded (and these areas
course the Bank will be quick to respond that are still vast), they therefore may sometimes be
‘indigenous knowledge’ is also important to its work ‘priced out of participation’ because of the uneven
(major sections of the 1999 WDR are given over to distribution of global resources (Samoff and
this), but this is again seen as something which can Stromquist, 2001: 650). As early as the Bank’s 1996
simply be appended to the Bank’s own knowledge annual meeting James Wolfensohn had talked of the
of development. In practice, this ‘knowledge’ is ‘light’ of knowledge ‘enlightening the lives of
simply not used by the majority of Bank staff in people everywhere’, representing knowledge as
their everyday practices: ‘What is old, or more often, something which ‘easily travels the world’ and the
what is deemed to be old, though in fact it may be only hope for billions of people ‘that still live in the
quite recent, becomes romanticized and at the same darkness of poverty’ (Wolfensohn, quoted in Patel,
time fossilized’ (Samoff and Stromquist, 2001: 647). 2001: 2). The parallels here with colonial represen-
The knowledge of the ‘indigenous’ thus is tations of enlightenment and non-western darkness
sometimes ‘romanticised’ and fossilised by the Bank are striking; perhaps the only difference is that the
Bank has its own Gospel.
For Appadurai (2000: 3) there has been a wide-
spread failure to recognise the significance of ‘glob-
alisation from below’ (see Chapter 9), which we
can argue is certainly true of the World Bank’s dis-
courses on global development. This relates to the
‘growing disjuncture between the globalisation of
knowledge and the knowledge of globalisation’
(ibid.: 3) and thus we might support the call for a
‘new architecture for producing and sharing know-
ledge about globalisation’ (Appadurai, 2000: 18).
This is a crucial argument here in that it suggests
that what is not needed is yet another global devel-
opment portal on the Internet (there are already
some much more critical and useful sites) but rather
an entirely and different new global architecture for
producing and sharing knowledge about develop-
ment. As we have seen, the Bank often crowds out
the search for alternative theories, strategies and
ideologies, as in the case of South Africa. The Bank
disseminates knowledge about development based
around its own ideology and notions of effective
development strategies, but how desirable is this
when it actively crowds out the scope for change, for
thinking outside of the development ‘box’? (Freire,
1970)? One interesting feature of the World Bank’s
website which came online in 2002 was a sub-
section entitled Ten Things You Never Knew About
Figure 8.8 Racial, linguistic and religious minorities: League of the World Bank (available in French, English, Span-
Nations poster, c. 1938 ish and Japanese). This site articulates an argument
Source: UN Department of Public Information that ‘the World Bank’s priorities have changed

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dramatically’ in recent years and seeks to remind us implementation of policy and covering up the con-
that the organisation is varied and dynamic: tinuity with their institutional predecessors (Cooke,
2001). Thus when these institutions use such
1. The World Bank is the largest external funder phrases as ‘ownership’ and ‘partnership’, these are
of education. not neutral, unproblematic and ahistorical, but in
2. The World Bank is among the world’s largest some ways serve to illustrate the legacies of earlier,
funders in the fight against HIV/AIDS imperial visions of development administration and
3. The World Bank is among the world’s largest trusteeship. These keywords and languages are thus
external funders of health programs. caught up in a kind of ‘semantic conjuring’ (Rist,
4. The World Bank strongly supports debt relief. 1997: 238) where an image and concept of ‘under-
5. The World Bank is one of the largest inter- development’ is constructed and disseminated,
national funders of biodiversity projects. defining and legitimating the terms of the debate. A
6. The World Bank works in partnership more good example of this is the way in which structural
than ever before. adjustment became unspeakable in the late 1980s
7. The World Bank is a leader in the fight against and early 1990s, while the Bank is apparently now
corruption worldwide. considering renaming its adjustment lending as
8. Civil society plays an ever larger role in the ‘development policy support lending’ (BWP,
Bank’s work. July–August 2002). This allows them to claim that
9. The World Bank helps countries emerging from the performance of these strategies is improving
conflict. and should be retained as lessons are learned and
10. The World Bank is listening to the voices of the reflected upon. In this process development
poor. becomes primarily a technical enterprise with an
([Link] ‘illusion of neutrality’ (Cooke, 2001: 18). This is a
complex process involving a whole range of actors
For all the rhetoric about ‘listening’ and ‘partner- from private aid agencies, NGOs and policy think-
ship’, the idea of funding and funders (‘the world’s tanks to bilateral and multilateral agencies such as
largest’) and the idea of the Bank as a ‘leader’ with USAID or DFID. Agencies such as USAID have
a ‘large role’ that seeks to ‘help’ the poor, remain even created think-tanks especially for the purpose
important in this vision. All but one of these ten of promoting neoliberalism and market funda-
‘facts’ we never knew starts with the words ‘The mentalism (Sogge, 2002).
World Bank . . .’. Shortly after this appeared on the In many ways the central argument here has been
Bank’s wedsite, the US campaign group Global that dominant discourses of development have
Exchange published a pamphlet setting down ten ‘prevented us from seeing other very creative ways
reasons to abolish the World Bank (Danaher, 2002). of addressing the poverty problem’ (Yapa, 2002:
41). It could even be argued that development, as
currently conceived by those at the commanding
CONCLUSIONS: SOLUTIONS IN heights of the development industry, is about send-
S E A R C H O F P RO B L E M S ? ing out solutions in search of problems (Sogge,
2002). Particular notions and maps of the ‘routes’
The answer is needed urgently. While there has and ‘directions’ countries should take and follow are
been more progress with poverty reduction in the prescribed and disseminated in a number of differ-
past 50 years than in any comparable period in ent ways through a range of different discourses
human history, poverty remains a dire global and institutions. Modernisation and ‘globalisation’
problem. are themselves examples of buzz-words which are
(World Bank, 2000b: 2, emphasis added) disseminated through the development industry and
have come to be internalised in various ways. This is
This chapter has focused on the way in which pov- not to downplay the very real differences between
erty is constructed as a ‘dire global problem’ bilateral donors (such as USAID, CIDA and
through a series of languages, discourses and buzz- DFID), but to try to understand more fully how the
words which enframe the people and places of the ideological space for thinking creatively about
South in particular ways. Words such as these have development is narrowed by these organisations
major consequences, framing the construction and and their visions, cultures and practices. Indeed

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in some ways it is the tensions and differences of subject positions that are lumped together
between these agencies which can trigger critique whenever these agencies talk about ‘poor people’
and counter-ideas. as if they represented some sort of uniform, homo-
The World Bank regularly uses phrases like geneous collective confined to a singular space.
‘country-owned’ and ‘country-driven’ in its discus- It is also necessary to call into question the
sions of the development strategies it is involved repeated exiting of politics and political economy
with, but to what extent is this really true? As we from the debate and the tendency to downplay and
have seen, the links to enlightenment ideals about misinterpret the complex realm of political and
truth and light and to colonial representations of economic struggles around ‘poverty’ and its varie-
the ‘other’ are important here: gated cultural and historical meanings. The bewil-
dering number of languages and acronyms of the
The parallels with the first chapter of St John’s PRSP and associated processes cover up the real
Gospel are striking. . . . The Bank’s Gospel in political and economic roots of struggles in soci-
developing countries has its precedent in Early eties undergoing neoliberalisation and simplify
Modern Europe and colonialism. The dispatch of very contested and dynamic political spaces such as
a battalion of consultants from head office isn’t those of Israel or Palestine. Similarly, the media can
called a ‘mission’ for nothing. offer simplifications of the political and economic
(Patel, 2001: 2) struggles waged by people across the South by
ignoring complex issues in programming schedules
Similarly phrases such as ‘participation’ are often and focusing instead on stereotypical images of
bandied about by development agencies with refer- hunger, famine and deprivation. In this way the
ence to a variety of spatial scales but the extent to media shape our understanding of ‘distant others’
which the ‘voices of the poor’ truly have an impact and the social and political worlds they inhabit.
on the deliberative process of these agencies The United Nations Development Programme
remains quite limited. As we shall see in Chapter 9, today talks about ‘human poverty’ and about ‘a
when these strategies have been called into the denial of choices and opportunities for living a tol-
question by social movements and international erable life’, while the World Bank frequently refers to
coalitions of various kinds, we are told that there ‘income poverty’ or to ‘living on less than a dollar a
are no alternatives. Thus (neoliberal) development day’. Then there is ‘absolute’ poverty – those below
is constructed as unquestionably a force for good, a defined poverty line or threshold (usually defined
as sweet as apple pie and as inherently progressive
as motherhood. Although there is much that geog- TA B L E 8 . 2 P OV E R T Y P RO C E S S
raphers can engage with concerning debates about A C RO N Y M S
social capital and livelihoods, it is worth recalling
that these are the latest in a long line of simplistic PRP Poverty Reduction Strategy
labels that have been placed on people and places PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper
that are far from homogeneous. The websites of IPRSP Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper
some of the major global institutions sometimes PRGF Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility
assemble a range of individual and community PRSC Poverty Reduction Support Credit
‘stories’ to illustrate successes and proximity to SAL Structural Adjustment Loan
‘cutting-edge’ ideas. The point here is not to call SAPRI Structural Adjustment Participatory
into question the authenticity of these stories but Review Initiative
rather to focus on the way they are conveyed in CDF Comprehensive Development Framework
order to disseminate a particular image of devel- CAS Country Assistance Strategy
opment. In a way this process can define and rank NSSD National Strategy for Sustainable
the categories by which development is measured Development
and understood, but it can also assign value and ESAF Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility
even label particular identities (Sogge, 2002). In this NEPAD New Economic Partnership for African
respect debates about postcolonialism are particu- Development
larly relevant in that they help to destabilise the SPA Strategic Partnership for Africa
myths that surround poverty and its eradication PEAP Poverty Eradication Action Plan
and go some way towards illustrating the variety

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in US currency) – as well as ‘relative’ poverty – As Patel (2001: 1) reminds us, the World Bank’s talk
where someone is poor in relation to those around matters ‘more than your average newspaper or
them. Not only do various types of poverty exist magazine’. The crucial point here is that very real
but there are also a number of particular ways of political and economic processes of exploitation,
speaking about and representing poverty, not all of unevenness and inequality are obscured in many of
which find expression in DFID, World Bank or these visions and representations of ‘Third World
UNCTAD reports. As Jerve (2001) has argued, development’. In addition, we have seen that a
most poverty research treats the urban and rural great deal of time and money is spent by the Bank
spheres as distinct sectors, despite the spatial con- in particular on ‘investing its products with the look
tinuum that often exists between them, which pre- and feel of impartiality’, using a number of estab-
cludes any easy or sharp demarcations. Static lished western academics to ‘manufacture know-
poverty concepts and measures fail to capture the ledge under the Bank’s brand’ (Patel, 2001: 3).
cyclical movements of people and the transfer of Thus the Bank and other agencies seek to brand
resources that bind urban and rural spaces together. their visions and approaches and to manufacture
How can poverty be understood when these crucial knowledge which supports their visions. It is there-
issues are so often neglected and how can broad- fore important to recognise that such repre-
based economic growth ever be created given this sentations are also bound up with the process of
common unevenness? perpetuating these relations of impoverishment
It is crucial not to misunderstand this argument and inequality and are thus related directly to the
however – we are not simply calling for a different material production of poverty. Recently, govern-
way of speaking about poverty, content to cast off ments have begun to use the term ‘social exclusion’
the notion of ‘poverty’ as something that becomes as a useful tool for describing what poor people
only a vehicle for the dissemination of development. experience. This is useful, as long as it is not an

Figure 8.9 Whole World (also known as ‘Tolerance flag’) by Robert Rauschenberg for the fiftieth anniversary of the WHO, 1948–1998
Source: UN Department of Public Information

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excuse for failing to invest in development assist- quite a significant turning point in that it introduced
ance but could be read as yet another example of a the idea of the Human Development Index (HDI).
‘northern’ concept which has been transferred from Although repeating the standard normative def-
North to South. Will there come a time when there initions of development and the usual claims to
will be a return cargo of ideas, a South–North focus on people, it did break (to some extent) with
transfer of poverty concepts and definitions? the sacred cow of economic growth and it did dis-
If some people, areas or communities are ‘socially tinguish that wealth was not created or accumulated
excluded’, then we need to know precisely what they simply as an end in itself. Quoting Aristotle, the
are excluded from and the extent to which this Report reminds us that ‘Wealth is evidently not the
forms the basis of development action and interven- good we are seeking, for it is merely useful and for
tion. Arguably, the dissemination of development is the sake of something else’ (UNDP, 1991). For
itself a highly exclusionary process, but this should many global development institutions wealth cre-
not allow us to lose sight of a concern for the ation is of paramount importance, but what is this
‘included’ and the reasons for their inclusion. The ‘something else’ for which wealth is useful and why
interesting point about all these definitions is that is this questioned so infrequently by these institu-
they only really define the poor: there are far more tions? Amartya Sen, one of the consultants working
words for poverty than there are for wealth. Yet it is with UNDP at the time this Report was prepared,
the poor who are often then seen as the ‘problem’ – has questioned the dangers of the ascendancy of
a problem that ‘will always be with us’ and one that economics in development thinking and the myopic
requires institutions at the vanguard of the world views that this has led to in some quarters, arguing
economy to vanquish its ‘darkness’. In the foyer of instead for increasing ‘human choice’ and placing
the Bank’s Washington HQ stands an (expensive) ‘freedom’ at the centre of the debate (Sen, 2001).
luminous sign which reads ‘Our dream is a world Thus age-old enlightenment ideals resurface once
free of poverty’ but why not dream of a world free again in contemporary development thinking, just
of inequality? Is it possible to dream of a world as they have at repeated junctures during the post-
free of the need for the World Bank? war ‘invention’ of development as an arena of
The concept of social exclusion does not always theory and state practice.
foreground the economic roles and relationships at In the past fifty years poverty has fallen more
the household and community levels that are per- than in the previous five hundred years, according
formed mainly by women. Yet women all over the to the UN and the World Bank. Over the course of
world bear the brunt of poverty, partly because of the twentieth century some three to four billion of
the extra burden of responsibilities they have for the the world’s people are said to have experienced
household and partly because they lack access to substantial improvements in their quality of life
land, credit and employment. Labels and measure- according to these agencies and their narrations of
ments are useful tools for dealing with poverty, but progress. Since 1960 in particular, we are told that
sometimes they can detract from what being poor child death rates in developing countries have been
really means in particular places. In the records and halved and malnutrition has declined by more than
statistics of World Development Reports there is a one-third. However, such figures hide the fact that
silence about the ways in which poverty is materially the absolute number of poor people is increasing as
created and produced by specific political and eco- a direct consequence of neoliberal strategies and the
nomic processes at work in each place and locality. resulting liberalisation of development. Between
There are also important silences here about the 1987 and 1993, in the heyday of structural adjust-
doubt and despair that come with being poor, des- ment, the number of people with an income of less
pite the Bank’s attempts to ‘listen to the voices’ of than a dollar a day actually rose by almost 100 mil-
the impoverished. What peoples in places of ‘social lion according to the Bank’s own statistics (World
exclusion’ least need, it would appear, is yet another Bank, 1995). World development institutions are
label (Van der Gaag, 2002); nor do they need increasingly coming to realise then that these con-
institutions that claim to hear their voices while cerns with poverty are not exclusive only to the
simultaneously silencing them and systematically ‘Majority World’ but are also very relevant in
disguising the material causes of their impoverish- the ‘developed world’, in Eastern Europe and in the
ment, which are local, national and global. countries of the former Soviet Union where the
The Human Development Report of 1991 was average incidence of income poverty increased

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sevenfold between 1988 and 1994 (Van der Gaag, World Bank is that it has maintained a remarkably
2002). consistent view of development as economic growth
The ‘champagne glass’ of global income will not (rather than (re)distribution) throughout almost its
be shaken up or turned on its head very easily, nor is entire history.
it likely that world poverty will be ‘eradicated’ by It is important therefore to consider the ways in
half by 2015. The most industrialised countries which development institutions (including NGOs,
today have some 147 of the world’s 225 richest global institutions such as the World Bank and
people, while globally the gap between rich and bilateral donors such as DFID) disseminate a par-
poor is increasing all the time – the three richest ticular notion of development, power and know-
people in the world, for example (including Micro- ledge. Certain visions of indigenous knowledge
soft CEO Bill Gates), have assets that exceed the have emerged and particular regions of the world
combined gross domestic product of some forty- are invented as ‘exporters’ of knowledge and expert-
eight countries of the South. We may well ask why ise, with others seen as long-term recipients. People
the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few is experiencing poverty are often aware that any ‘help’
never really an issue in poverty eradication cam- – whether from governments or charities – works
paigns and discourses. The urgency of addressing best when those being ‘helped’ are organised into
what the UN calls the ‘scandal’ of poverty is not workers’ movements, trade unions or women’s net-
hard to see (and is not being disputed here) but works, for example. It is also therefore necessary to
important doubts remain about whether this is truly find a range of new approaches to development co-
being recognised at the highest levels, particularly operation which are based on genuine partnership,
since links have been made between poverty and rather than empty, rhetorical commitments to
international terrorism in the light of the terrorist co-operation. Poverty eradication requires not just
attacks of 11th September 2001. an escalation of aid transfers but rather a systematic
Poverty is supposedly very much on the inter- and simultaneous reform on a whole variety of
national agenda today; the number of papers, fronts as well as the establishment of international
statements and targets has mushroomed, and ideas coalitions for change which begin with the needs
of social capital, participation and livelihoods have and interests of citizens rather than corporations.
become the new buzz-words. Every development For too long development has been posing as a
agency now claims they want to involve poor people solution when in fact it may well be a large chunk of
in the debate about what should be done, to the problem. Through quiet encroachments and col-
enhance poor people’s livelihoods or quality of life. lective insubordinations of various kinds, people of
It remains to be seen if theory becomes practice the South are beginning to show their belief in and
however, and if this will ever be more than just passionate desire for alternatives to ‘neoliberalism
‘talk’. If poverty is to be eradicated, it must be more with a human face’. Many observers have pledged
than talk and empty rhetoric as has so often been
the case in the past. Many people experiencing pov-
erty have another, even more radical and important
point to make. One of the most extraordinary
things about listening to people in poverty in differ-
ent parts of the world is that so many are concerned
not just about inequality, but about the way money
has become the measure of all things (Van der
Gaag, 2002). Is money and wealth creation what we
should value and aim to achieve through develop-
ment, and what happens if we use other ways of
valuing people; surely it is the poor who are rich?
Governments which aim for economic growth alone
often fail to address fully the causes and con-
sequences of poverty. The emphasis also has to be on
issues of equity and distribution, not just economic
growth per se but on issues of its social and spatial Figure 8.10 Earth Summit: recycling platitudes
unevenness. What is so disconcerting about the Source: CWS and Gable

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to avoid using the development gateway, for Network (SAPSN), are now seeking to support
example (Patel, 2001), and, to use a phrase borrowed alternative sources of knowledge, pursuing instead
from the Southern African People’s Solidarity a strategy of ‘constructive disengagement’.

1 9 3
9
‘ Th e o ri s ing B a c k ’
views from the Sou th and the globalisation of resis tance

The whole planet is witnessing a series of very varied and apparently unconnected social tremors . . .
Indirect relations affect hundreds of mllions of people who may not be aware of the link that binds them
to the world economic system but nonetheless suffer its disastrous consequences in their daily lives . . .
the chain of cause and effect is not obvious and requires exposition.
(Houtart, 2001, vi)
It takes a singularly disengaged person not to realise that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the
process and products of globalisation. . . . Rarely though, can resistance be easily pigeon-holed.
(Parnwell and Rigg, 2001, 206)

O P E N I N G A S PA C E I N T H E H I S T O R Y exploring the connections that can and are being

AND GEOGRAPHY OF made between peoples and places around the world
I N T E R N AT I O N A L D E V E L O P M E N T for the promotion of support and solidarity net-
works. In an earlier chapter we explored how de-
This chapter continues the focus on where and how pendency theorists had sought to ‘theorise back’, to
knowledge and theories of development have been countenance liberal assumptions about growth and
produced and considers the recent shift in perspec- progress. For David Slater, the dependency writers
tive towards a concern with redistributing power deployed a geopolitical imagination that sought
through popular ‘participation’ and ‘empower- to prioritise autonomy and difference in order to
ment’ approaches. In what ways do development ‘break the subordinating effect of metropolis-
theories and practices express centralising tenden- satelite relations’ (Slater, 1993: 430). This chapter
cies and why have ‘grassroots’ and ‘bottom-up’ seeks to extend this concern by focusing on insur-
approaches been important? Questions of social gent resistance groups and the ways in which they
and cultural identity (particularly to do with gender are also attempting to strike or answer back and are
and ethnicity) are discussed here, since it is neces- similarly deploying a geopolitical imagination in
sary to understand how the places and spaces of order to challenge western assumptions about
development are not socially homogeneous but development from afar and from below.
fractured by a range of important identities and As we have seen, many development practices
through resistances of various kinds. Apparently have resulted in the impoverishment and marginal-
unconnected ‘social tremors’ around the world in isation of indigenous peoples, women, peasant
recent years have highlighted the links that bind farmers and industrial workers and in a deterior-
peoples and places to the world economic system. ation of certain economic, social and ecological
The word resistance refers to ‘any action, imbued conditions. In addition, ‘western’ values have
with intent, that attempts to challenge, change, or sometimes been emphasised at the expense of trad-
retain particular societal relations, processes and/or itional and indigenous knowledge systems, while
institutions’ (Routledge, 1997: 69). This chapter certain groups have been excluded and marginalised
seeks to examine a wide range of resistance to neo- in the decision-making process (such as people with
liberal ideologies and free trade mythologies, disabilities). All this has led to the formation of

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through globalised resistance to ideologies such as

neoliberalism. Orthodox accounts of resistance
have focused on a dominating power source (such as
the state) and public forms of political resistance,
seeing power as being held by particular people or
institutions which is then used to repress identities
and knowledge. This is understandable since power
does accumulate in certain sites, producing an
uneven topography of power. Resistance is a form
of power in its own right however, and even the
most powerless and marginalised people have the
capacity to resist through a number of weapons.
Power is thus diffused through society in a web of
relations. In thinking about the ways in which to
conceptualise and visualise the changing geograph-
ies of governance and resistance it is important to
keep in mind this sense of the relational and diffuse
nature of power (McDowell and Sharp, 1999).
Important alternative geographies of development
emerge from resistance of various kinds that can
inform our concern to rethink and reconceptualise
approaches. In Chapter 7 we explored the shifting
geographical scales of governance in relation to
globalisation and neoliberalism and what we need to
do now is examine how these scales and forms of
governance are being transformed (if at all) by
networks of resistance and protest. If there is a
move away from the dominance of nation-states in
Figure 9.1 This poster concerning a meeting in Ottawa (2002) thought and practice towards the emergence of net-
highlights the recent protests in the cities of Prague, Genoa, Seattle works (Agnew, 1998), how does this relate to the
and Quebec contested nature of development and its geo-
Source: Adbusters political spaces? In the context of a globalising
world an effective theorisation of power can ‘no
‘myriad social movements which articulate struggles longer ignore the significance of space’ (Slater, 2002:
for political autonomy, and cultural, ecological and 255). Geographers then are well placed to map these
economic survival’ (Routledge, 1999: 77). changing cartographies of struggle around identity
Many of these struggles are important for geog- and society as well as themes of economic justice
raphers to study since they are often place-specific and can attempt to understand the intersections of
in character and we need to understand why and politics, culture and economy as they unfold in par-
where they arise. The various forms resistance takes ticular spaces and places on the ground. In Chapter
are not always public and overtly political but can 6 on postcolonialism we saw how struggles over cul-
be subtle, small-scale struggles and resistance tural difference were related to the meaning and
grounded in day-to-day practices, located within the imagination of contemporary development, but it is
space of the household (Mohanty, 1991; Radcliffe, also necessary to extend this concern to struggles
1999). Resistance may also occur around struggles around economic and political justice.
over access to resources or may be the product of Social movements can be very diverse and are far
various tensions and conflicts within society, reflect- from homogeneous, including squatter movements,
ing cultural, ecological, political and economic con- women’s associations, human rights organisations,
cerns (Routledge, 1999). These varied terrains of neighbourhood groups, indigenous rights groups,
resistance are not only based around particular youth groups and self-help organisations of various
places and localities, however, but may also be global kinds. In a way, these movements arise, most im-
in character, transcending the boundaries of nation portantly, as a result of tensions and contradictions

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Geographers can focus on the ‘everyday’ practices

that construct identities and forms of governance
(Thrift, 2000). What we have seen in recent years
across the South is that resistance is assembled
from the materials and practices of everyday life. In
Argentina this was powerfully illustrated when mil-
lions of people took to the streets with pots and
pans from their kitchens to communicate their pro-
test. In many parts of the South, women have been
particularly adept at making precisely this point
about the everyday implications of adjustment on
their lives by domesticating their struggles, by bring-
ing the private into the public sphere. With respect
Figure 9.2 This ‘think different’ poster from Aqitart highlights
to development the emergence of resistance is based
street protests partly around the demise of embedded forms of
Source: Adbusters statism and ‘developmentalist’ notions of nation-
hood. Important challenges from ethnic and gender
in the development process both locally and glo- identities have sought to counter state-centred views
bally and have occasionally moved beyond issues of development, creating new identities and polit-
raised by urban struggles to embrace wider com- ical spaces in the process. We have seen that in the
munities and priorities. Here we return to Escobar’s context of globalisation, deterritorialisation raises
concern with popular struggles to defend places and important questions about the power and role of
ecologies. In many ways social movements are the the state and its relations to place-specific identities
visible signs of deep transformations and of the (Flint, 2002). These identities and places have
growing emphasis on culture and identity politics, challenged local, state and global practices of
but also of wider shifts away from the state-led development. Places have both ‘real’ and ‘imagined’
developmentalisms of the past. They have ‘helped to significance in this regard in that all struggles over
lay to rest the myth of totality and [have] reinforced politics, the economy and culture are grounded in
the notion that society has no centre’ (Munck, 1999: particular places and in interpretations of those
206). Thus there is no developmental society ready places and their relations with other areas (Hol-
and able to automatically correspond to the mission loway and Hubbard, 2001). Since the early 1990s
of particular plans and administrations. Many of new transnational forms of resistance have been
these groups therefore emerge in response to the playing an increasingly important role in making
problems and limitations of development and can visible and combating the inequities of the post-
involve the formation of identities and solidarities Cold War international order (Boehmer and
based around class, gender, kinship or neighbour- Moore-Gilbert, 2002).
hood. Indeed, social and cultural identities are Stories about the power of development have
always a product of struggle and contestation over often been told rather problematically, giving
meaning. Many are multidimensional, addressing the impression that powerful people simply impose
issues of poverty, gender, culture and ecology in a their ideas and values on the groups below them
simultaneous fashion and many take place within (Holloway and Hubbard, 2001), but we need to
the realm of ‘civil society’. As geographers, therefore, understand the more subtle and diffuse relations
a contribution can be made in that: that exist between people and places at all scales
and levels of society, from the level of the individual
we can contribute to the understanding of strug- household all the way up to global relations. What
gles for survival in different cultural contexts. we need to examine is how these complex power
Given that we live within an increasingly inter- relations are changed and reordered by resistance
dependent world, we might also consider ways of of various kinds and in various localities. What
attempting to contribute towards these struggles, effect, if any, does rejecting the disciplinary power
to make our contribution towards an environ- of states and global institutions have on the theor-
mentally sustainable and socially just world. isation and practice of development in different
(Routledge, 1999: 83) places at different times?

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Thus it can be argued that: ‘decay’, but rather we must seek to grasp the real and
imagined connections and relations between people
Taken together, such a perspective on the rela- and places. For Foucault, power was something that
tions of place and power might appear to imply was exercised from innumerable points and also
that geography is ‘carved out’ by the rich and the something that comes very much ‘from below’. Prior
powerful, who occupy places of distinction and nationalist modes of resistance (which had ended
prestige while frequently relegating marginalized colonialism and western hegemony in parts of the
groups (and behaviours) to areas typified by dis- South between 1945 and 1975) had proved generally
investment and decay. ineffective and incomplete in some way. None the
(Holloway and Hubbard, 2001: 208) less, the formation of anti-colonial identities in the
struggles for national independence during this time
The objective here is not to carve out a mythical map came about partly as a result of the interrelation-
of universalised exploitation for all ‘Third World’ ships between different peoples, involving places
countries that are thus confined to a space of that were often ‘far from “home” ’ (Boehmer and

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discourses. The symbolism of the space of the

‘Third World’ in mobilising and legitimating strug-
gles around development is important here. An
extension of this view is to seek to understand the
symbolism of places and the identities and struggles
that emerge around them.
If there has been a failure to acknowledge the
power and significance of ‘globalisation from
below’ (Appadurai, 2000), how well placed are
social scientists to embrace such a form of global-
isation, in the context of apartheid in the academy
(which restricts opportunities for researchers from
the South) and of a continuing ‘cognitive colonial-
ism’ (Parnwell and Rigg, 2001: 206) in the theory
and practice of development? Do the required polit-
ical and economic structures exist for us to engage
with these changes from ‘below’? There is also a risk
here of misinterpreting and romanticising the resist-
ant and of inflating dominance. None the less, social
identities and changing social movements represent
a crucial component in any study of power (Slater,
2002). Geographers do have a role, however, in
mapping the changing spatiality of power and the
geographical expression of networks of governance
and resistance. In particular we can highlight the
ways in which discourses of ‘good governance’ seek
to contain the political and to ‘manage’ these new
Figure 9.3 World march of women in Mozambique (2000) networks of resistance. There is also the danger that
Source: Frelimo Forum Mulher resistance may be misinterpreted:

Moore-Gilbert, 2002: 17). In many cases these The emphasis on resistance [in post-structural
movements for national independence were the out- interpretations of development] is, in some sense,
come of a significant popular struggle (as in India welcome and appropriate, but to phrase it cat-
and Mozambique, for example). What is meant here egorically as resistance to state interventions, or
is that challenges to colonialism were never simply oppositions to modernisation, seems unhelpful:
about one singular space of identity but rather were for while explaining some phenomena, others
the product of interactions and interrelationships become harder to explain when resistance is
between different social and cultural formations. essentialised in this way.
New approaches to the theory and praxis of citi- (Bebbington, 2000: 513)
zenship have begun to emerge, through demands for
greater collective rights or more inclusive democra- Thus it is important not to romanticise resistance or
cies around the world. Addressing the post-Cold define restrictively only certain kinds of acts as
War predicament of development will involve, in resistance when in fact this can be multiple and var-
important ways, the efforts of global social move- ied. Resistance can be violent and authoritarian in
ments to ‘construct a new systemic alternative that nature and is not always inherently progressive.
builds on the failures and successes of progressive Identities are complex and plural and thus there are
initiatives in the twentieth century’ (Berger, 2001: also varied forms of identification. The term ‘archi-
1085). A key question that this chapter seeks to pelagos of resistance’ (Slater, 2002: 261) seems to
address is how best to understand the transnational capture this need to focus on how collective and
alliances that have been forged between different cross-cultural identities are formed around chal-
constituencies around the world of development lenges to the power of development’s discourses.

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These arise at particular points and in particular of people have often been overlooked and there
places, and are very important in how sense and has frequently been a failure to consider the
meaning is made of development as an idea or implications of development policies at the level of
organisational framework of practice. Individuals individuals, households and communities. Devel-
and groups create their own geographies, using opment policy is thus often likely to be undermined
places in a whole range of ways that were not always by this failure to view the household and families in
envisaged or intended by planners and adminis- a holistic manner (Potter et al., 1999).
trators (Holloway and Hubbard, 2001). Dam con- Inequalities also manifest themselves at this level
struction in Vietnam, China or the Lao People’s of the household, meaning that not all households
Democratic Republic, for example, may be viewed have the same level of access to income, assets (e.g.
through the lenses of local people, national gov- land) or local and national power structures. It is
ernments, multilateral agencies or NGO activists important therefore for development organisations
(Parnwell and Rigg, 2001). We thus cannot to understand the different roles and responsibilities
essentialise the ‘local’ as uniformly progressive or of men and women at the household level. Devel-
oppose this to an oppressive, reactionary ‘global’ opment strategies assume ‘people’ and ‘com-
(Kiely, 2000). The term ‘anti-globalisation’ is a case munities’ to be homogeneous and passive rather
in point, papering over the varied and multiple than differentiated and dynamic. Development
complaints that have emerged from different locales organisations have also made erroneous assump-
at different times and across a diversity of political tions about the distribution of power and decision-
ideologies. Rather, it is necessary to tease out the making at the household level, for example taking it
complex interweaving of sovereignty, governance for granted that there is an equal division of labour
and territory (Slater, 2002). This comes back to the between men and women within households and
need to move away from the simplistic image that communities (Power, 2000). As we have already seen,
there is some sort of ‘evil genie who organizes the national statistics often conceal marked variations
system, loading the dice and making sure the which exist within and between specific regions,
same people win all the time’ (Rist, 1997: 122). between rural and urban areas and between men and
The first section of this chapter deals with the women. The contributions of women in particular to
question of empowerment, exploring the notion of household income and welfare needs to be under-
people’s power and the use of other keywords such stood much more fully (Moser, 1993; Kabeer, 1994).
as ‘emancipation’. The second section focuses on Women have also been subject, in different regions
the notion of ‘geopolitics from below’ and discusses and settings, to the multiple failings of development
further the crisis of developmentalism in some programmes and discourses, but also:
states of the ‘South’. The third section raises ques-
tions about the extent to which networks and coali- to [the] misuse of international development
tions of resistances can be ‘grassroots’ as well as funds . . . to the impact of structural adjustment
‘global’ in terms of their reach and implications. A firings on marital relations; [women] have experi-
final section looks at the specific case of resistance enced the demolition of their homes and the
to neoliberalism in post-apartheid South Africa. destruction of the fragile balance of coping strat-
egies that formerly made it possible for them to
pay school fees for their children. And they
E M P OW E R M E N T F RO M A B OV E O R actively, efficaciously and indignantly resist such
BELOW? development . . . we are only beginning to record
[this story] across the globe.
People are unquestionably central to the develop- (Perry and Schenck, 2001: 257–258, emphasis
ment process and an integral element in all devel- added)
opment strategies, yet we have seen that this has not
always been the case. In looking at how develop- Women have been absolutely central to the very
ment pathways ‘from below’ have emerged from dif- formation of effective resistance around the world
ferent acts of resistance, it is possible to see how and the record of these important stories does need
people challenge the meanings and practices of to be much fuller and more able to inform develop-
development, through the formation of their iden- ment policy than is currently the case. The recent
tities, solidarities and resistance. The survival needs conflicts between ‘Third World’ and ‘First World’

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feminists are also interesting here. The global curtailed in the 1980s and 1990s by indebtedness,
and international nature of feminism has been char- reduced commodity prices, a growing dependence
acterised partly by struggles and differences between on international donors, and escalating recession
‘First World’ and ‘Third World’ feminisms over and protectionism in the global economy.
what constitutes a human right (Radcliffe, 1994) and This chapter suggests that a different focus, on
around the problematic notion of a ‘Third World peoples and places, on solidarity and struggle, is
woman’ (see Chapters 5 and 6). Western feminism useful and important here. State-centred accounts
thus has problems coming to terms with the ques- of development ignore the multiple ways in which
tion of difference and interpreting struggles of development is (re)made every day, on the ground
women in the ‘Third World’. Mohanty (1991) cri- or at the grassroots level by men, women and chil-
tiques the essentialism of feminist theory, seeking to dren around the world. There is therefore an
highlight the problems involved in downplaying cul- important connection we need to establish here
tural and economic differences separating women in between the subjective identities of development
supposedly common struggles and concerns. This and the changing nature of sovereignty. The
work also cautioned about the use of generalising important point is to focus on the ways in which the
assumptions in referring to resistance. The vari- authority of the state is being deligitimated and
ability of economic and cultural backgrounds from ‘hollowed out’ as a result of resistance and strug-
which feminist writings emerge complexifies the gles in different (yet often similar) places. There are
search for common understandings, definitions no universal definitions of the state to offer here
and declarations. Again this would seem to high- and we must remember that states do not behave in
light the importance of being sensitive to place and any predetermined way. That would be to subscribe
an understanding of difference in the formation of to some of the ‘Thirdworldist’ mythologies which
international coalitions and transnational networks. surrounded neocolonialism and the notion of states
The literature on gender and development suggests, acting like puppets on a stage with prearranged
among many other things, the different forms male roles and constumes. Ideology also has an import-
and female resistance can take and how women in ant bearing on the way the role of the state is viewed
particular have been able to challenge and overcome in development. Reflecting the World Bank’s neo-
male bias in the development process in their every- liberal framework, the World Development Report
day rejection of and resistance to development in a (WDR) views an effective state almost exclusively
number of different contexts and settings. This also ‘through the lens of economic efficiency’, with states
involves a concern for masculinity and the ways seen as providing either ‘barriers’ or ‘lubricants’ to
in which this is expressed through, or contested in, free market economic reforms. Not surprisingly, the
resistance of various kinds. Bank often ‘locks society out’ (BWP, 2000: 43) in its
As we have seen, mainstream theories of devel- definition of the state.
opment, although taking many different forms dur- The term ‘empowerment’ is now used regularly
ing the twentieth century, have often been centred by the Bank and other sections of the ‘development
on the primacy of the nation-state (Hettne, 1995; industry’ (Ferguson, 1990) to describe its com-
Kiely and Marfleet 1998). The state has been seen mitment to popular participation in decision-
typically as the primary agent of development, par- making for development. Although there is much
ticularly since the 1960s when many countries that is laudable about this agenda, it seems particu-
attempted ambitious large-scale modernisation pro- larly shallow and rhetorical, particularly when
jects with the backing of international development articulated by the (rather undemocratic) World
institutions and commercial lenders. The formation Bank. Facilitating ‘people’s participation’ is now on
of new states, particularly in Asia and in sub- the agenda of most international development
Saharan Africa, followed at a time when develop- institutions but, for Majid Rahnema, the increas-
ment ideals were becoming increasingly popular ingly widespread acceptance of the idea of partici-
worldwide. The ‘age of great optimism’ imbued pation suggests that it has been severely diluted and
these emerging states with a sense of the importance has lost some radical political potential:
of development in the postcolonial era. This was
originally underwritten by a degree of popular sup- governments and development institutions are no
port and legitimacy for newly formed states and longer scared by the outcome of people’s partici-
their visions and strategies, but this was severely pation . . . there is little evidence to indicate that

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the participatory approach, as it evolved, did, as a opment institutions and their ideals. Empowerment
rule, succeed in bringing about new forms of implies redistributing power and transforming
peoples’ power. institutions, but in many cases the principal struc-
(Rahnema, 1992: 118–123) tures of political and economic power have
remained relatively untransformed. The idea of
These ‘new forms of peoples power’ relate, in part, empowerment and its increasing acceptance in
to local experiences of governance and develop- development circles is partly a consequence of the
ment and the politics of everyday challenges to rising influence of non-governmental organisations
established institutions. Escobar (1995) also seems (NGOs), which have often been highly localised and
somewhat disillusioned with the development con- focused on particular issues. There remains little
cepts of ‘participation’ and ‘empowerment’, point- evidence, however, that NGOs are managing to
ing out that development planners and politicians engage in the formal political process successfully
have often tried to manipulate experiences of par- ‘without becoming embroiled in partisan politics
ticipation to suit their own ends. Throughout the and the distortions that accompany the struggle for
1990s there was a growing recognition of the need state power’ (Edwards and Hulme, 1995: 7). More-
to involve local people and communities as agents over, it remains ‘wildly optimistic’ to see this vast
of their own development ‘if only because of the universe of NGOs as anti-capitalist, radical and
manifest failure of the main theoretical perspectives emancipatory (Watts, 2001). The extent to which
on development’ (Thomas, 2000: 48). The problem such organisations are liberating in their interven-
remains, however, that participatory processes are tions is questionable, since:
often undertaken ‘ritualistically’ by development
agencies and NGOs that have turned out to be mani- Some of the emancipatory zeal has been har-
pulative, or harmful to ‘those who were supposed to nessed by the NGO community but the very
be empowered’ (Cooke and Kothari, 2001: 1). existence of dubious hybrid entities such as
While much is made of realising human poten- BONGOs (Business-oriented NGOs) or GRIN-
tial in development (even increasingly by those GOs (government-run NGOs), for instance,
with economistic interpretations), ‘people-centred’ exemplifies the extent to which the porous
visions of development have not always been as boundary between state and civil society can
‘empowering’ as they have claimed to be. substitute market-oriented individualism for the
Empowerment speaks of making people the agents radical autonomy of community empowerment.
of their own development, while doing little about (Watts, 2001: 177)
the causes of inequality, or about the need for trans-
forming the nature of ties with international devel- The relationship between the state and NGOs is
complex but these organisations can have an impact
on the possibility of democratic development in
many societies, particularly in situations of political
instability or conflict where they can sometimes
provide critical linkages in the absence of effective
or disputed state administrations. This, however,
assumes that these organisations fully understand
the roots and nature of conflict and conditions of
instability in which they operate, when this is often
far from being the case. In addition, why should
NGOs prop up a state that is ailing, thus allowing
state administrations to abdicate responsibility for
providing basic social services at all times? In some
ways therefore it is possible that many development
agencies fail to recognise and understand the causes
and conditions of political conflict and their wider
impact on development (P. White, 1999). To be crit-
Figure 9.4 Did someone say something? ical about the sense of ‘emancipatory zeal’ that
Source: Cartoon by Maddocks/ID21 NGO communities can harness for development is

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not to reject the ultimate objective of redistributing imperial powers and then proliferated in Latin
power but rather to raise questions about the America and among the ‘Superpowers’ (Atkinson,
missionary zeal with which this term is embraced by 2000; Dodds and Ó Tuathail, 1996). As we have seen,
some northern organisations. geopolitics stems partly from the recognition that
geography is fundamentally about power and the
authority to organise, occupy and administer space:
G E O P O L I T I C S F RO M B E L OW A N D T H E
C R I S E S O F S TAT E - C E N T R E D Geography is about power. Although often
D E V E L O P M E N TA L I S M assumed to be innocent, the geography of the
world is not a product of nature but a product of
The very concept of dialogue can turn out to be the struggles between competing authorities over
an ideological weapon in the hands of those who the power to organize, occupy, and administer
hold power. space.
(Houtart, 2001: viii) (Ó Tuathail, 1996: 1)

A crisis of state-centred development strategies and It is precisely these struggles over space and the
statist ‘developmentalism’ has been at the heart of a authority to organise, occupy and administer space
number of recent challenges to development theor- that the notion of ‘geopolitics from below’ seeks to
ies and practices that are emerging from below. flag up. Following Ó Tuathail and Agnew (1992:
There is a danger here, however, of drawing a veil 191) we can interpret geopolitics both as a self-
over the varied nature of these struggles, ‘down- conscious tradition (a corpus) of writings and
grading’ their specificities by exploring their com- institutions and as the discursive practice by which
monalities (Slater, 2002). The places and spaces of ‘intellectuals of statecraft “spatialise” international
development are not socially homogeneous how- politics in such a way as to represent it as a “world”
ever, but are fractured by a range of important characterised by particular types of peoples and
social and cultural identities and through resist- dramas’. Similarly it is useful to examine how vari-
ances, of various kinds. As we have seen, there have ous groups, concerned with development, seek to
been various forms of resistance to neoliberal ‘spatialise’ international economic and political
ideologies of development, sometimes grouped change and to represent this as a world character-
together as ‘globalisation from below’. This also ised by particular peoples and dramas. In order to
includes the emergence of ‘geopolitics from below’: understand these resistances we need to adopt a
broader and more ‘holistic’ view of politics, going
In contrast to official political discourse about beyond the ‘state-in-society’ approach of compara-
the global economy, these challenges articulate a tive politics which focuses on the social and political
‘globalization from below’ that comprises a ‘geo- interactions between states and societies.
politics from below’ – an evolving international As Agnew (1998) shows, geopolitical imagin-
network of groups, organizations and social ations or ideas do not simply exist ‘out there’ in
movements texts or policy documents but emanate directly from
(Routledge, 1998: 253). and feed into practice and social actions. What is
also important here is the ‘anti-geopolitics’ that
As we have seen, development knowledge is con- emerges from below through movements of resist-
structed from positions of power and privilege and ance that seek to challenge the claims of political
we need also to understand how the actions of classes, states and other institutions of development
states, elites and international institutions are con- (Routledge, 1998: 245). This can take myriad forms
tested by those who face domination and subordin- and can operate at a variety of geographical scales,
ation as a consequence of development knowledge including colonial anti-geopolitics, which points to
and practices. These varied histories of resistance the armed liberation struggles fought against colo-
may be termed ‘geopolitics from below’, in refer- nial powers and the movement of decolonisation, and
ence to challenges directed against the hegemony of ‘Cold War anti-geopolitics’, which involves depend-
certain kinds of visions of development. The region ency theory, the rejection of US containment dis-
of knowledge that later came to be known as ‘geo- courses, the emergence of an anti-nuclear peace
politics’ first emerged in the metropoles of rival movement and the resistance to socialist ideologies

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in Eastern Europe. Then there is ‘New World Order 1997; Routledge, 1999; MST, 2002). The movement
anti-geopolitics’, which refers to the contested dis- has targeted Brazil’s vast estates that lie unused by
courses surrounding the Gulf War and US private landowners, where illegal land invasions
involvement in the Middle East, the emergence of were organised to retake possession of these crucial
the Zapatistas and transnational resistance to the resources, and the land is then resettled, and com-
myths of free trade (Routledge, 1998). The relation- munities established. Symbolically, long marches to
ships between these geographies is important here the capital city, Brasilia, have been organised, often
since it raises questions about the networks of in opposition to the government of Fernando Hen-
power which operate around development and the rique Cardoso. The principal objective of the ‘sem
various different scales at which this occurs. terra’ organisation is to carry out land reform from
In terms of the economy, social movements often below and to challenge the elite’s grip on so-called
articulate conflicts around the productive resources democratic rule. In some ways the MST has created
in a society such as forest or water resources, calling many new co-operatives and is formulating an
for new services, new forms of access and more ‘alternative rural development strategy’, one which
equitable distributions. Many of these movements challenges the authority and neoliberal strategies of
seem on one level to express ‘political struggles’ for the state. In the MST’s manifesto to the Brazilian
power and resources, but also articulate cultural people of August 2000, the movement argued that
struggles over identity and attachment to place. In the country’s problems had become more acute
some ways these movements have stopped expecting under Cardoso and were made worse by the Presi-
everything to come from the good will of those in dent’s attempts to ‘modernise’ rural areas (MST,
positions of power (Rist, 1997) and instead organise 2000).
themselves collectively, inventing new forms of The MST manifesto also talked of ‘building
social and spatial linkages and new ways of securing another project for Brazil’, a popular project, one
an existence. The social and geographical diversity where people ‘take the reigns of economic policy’
of these struggles makes it difficult to generalise, but (MST, 2000: 2). There is widespread support for
exclusion does form a common ground and this has these objectives from many Brazilians, who share
even been claimed as the basis of the autonomy of a concern for democratising popular access to
these movements. resources such as land. The country’s largest
The Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem commercial agricultural enterprises comprise only
Terra (MST) or Landless Rural Workers’ Move- 1.6 per cent of all farms, yet they hold some 53.4
ment in Brazil is a useful example of the organised per cent of all agricultural land (MST, 2002).
struggle over access to socio-economic and political Challenging the global economic and political
resources. Forged around a mass social movement order imposed by the WTO, IMF and World Bank
that was first formed in 1985, the MST comprises in Brazil, this movement does have a quite extra-
many of those dispossessed in the course of Brazil- ordinary capacity to ‘mobilise the excluded’
ian state-centred ‘development’. The MST is thus (Rocha, 2002: 12) and has reinvented itself around a
made up of croppers, casual pickers, farm labourers more ecological focus in recent years, starting
and those dispossessed of their land by commercial environmental education programmes and aware-
agriculture or mechanisation (Langevin and Rosset, ness campaigns. In this sense, one reading of
this organisation is that it might be understood as
among the ‘torch-bearing front runners in the
global movement towards greater sustainability’
(Rocha, 2002: 3). Around the notion of ‘landless’
peoples, a variety of cultural identities have been
asserted, as these debates are also very much about
nationhood, belonging and values and meanings of
national citizenship. The movement now has com-
munity radio stations and its own newspaper. The
MST has also set up a National Collective for
Gender. Today more than 250,000 families have won
Figure 9.5 ‘We have a chance to lift millions out of poverty’ land titles to over fifteen million acres as a result of
Source: Oxfam the MST, transforming Brazil’s development and

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politics. It organises in states across Brazil, although took place around a particular locality within the
it is estimated that some 4.8 million farmers still capital city with all the symbolism that this act
have no access to land. The MST has also set up involved. In addition, these struggles have simul-
schools and food co-ops. taneously articulated ecological, cultural and eco-
The state-centred character of politics and devel- nomic objectives, waging their conflict on several
opment has also been challenged in Mexico through fronts and seeking to form alliances with similar
critiques of neoliberal strategies and the role of the organisations around the world. It is precisely this
Mexican state in forging development. According to kind of connectivity, linking peoples and places
Esteva, hundreds of associations across the country around resistance, struggle and solidarity, that
are struggling to ‘regenerate’ their local space geographers interested in development must focus
(Esteva, 2001). One of the most frequently cited on. In 1998 Subcomandante Marcos, spokes-
examples has been that of the Ejercito Zapatista person of the Zapatistas (EZLN), said that as a
Liberación Nacional – the EZLN or Zapatistas that result, his movement was little more than a
emerged in the state of Chiapas. The Zapatistas ‘symptom’ of something much bigger:
seek to resist NAFTA and is made up of predomin-
antly indigenous (Mayan) peoples. Chiapas is Don’t give too much weight to the EZLN; it’s
among the poorest states in Mexico and its nothing more than a symptom of something
resources have been ruthlessly exploited. In add- more. Years from now, whether or not the EZLN
ition, land ownership in this state has become is still around, there is going to be protest and
more uneven as a result of the free trade agreement, social ferment in many places. I know this
while the neoliberal principles behind it have had because when we rose up against the Government
many negative impacts on agricultural prices and we began to receive displays of solidarity and
markets. In their struggle, the Zapatistas have occu- sympathy not only from Mexicans but from
pied the capital of Chiapas State and many other people in Chile, Argentina, Canada, the United
provincial towns, and have made good use of the States and Central America. They told us that the
media in disseminating knowledge about the uprising represents something that they wanted
uneven process of development there and in build- to say, and now they have found the words to say
ing resistance to this. In March 2001 the Zapatistas it, each in his or her respective country. I believe
travelled from Chiapas through thirteen different the fallacious notion of the end of history has
states, arriving at the Zócalo – the central square of finally been destroyed.
the capital city in Mexico – to demand a place in the (Marcos, quoted in Ainger, 2001: 2).
constitution.
What was interesting about the march was the At the risk of giving ‘too much weight’ to the Zap-
extent to which displays of sympathy and solidarity atistas here, what is particularly interesting about
came from various parts of the Americas. It also Marcos and the Chiapas struggles is this key con-
cern with people and how they are able to make and
rewrite history, to change its course by popular
pressure ‘from below’. The Zapatistas first
appeared in the southern-most Mexican state of
Chiapas as the Cold War came to an end, chal-
lenging the liberal economic order that prevailed
there and the developmentalism of the Mexican
state. A key aspect of their politics has been their
efforts to create a space for new understandings of
politics and citizenship to those offered by the
dominant liberal vision which emerged among
Mexican political elites in the post-Cold War
era (Berger, 2001). They seek to articulate a new
form of politics that operates simultaneously at
Figure 9.6 Subcommandante Marcos discussing constitutional local, national and global levels. Moreover, the
reform concerning rights and indigenous culture, April 2001 Zapatistas have articulated an alternative geography
Source: EZLN (2002) of Chiapas, highlighting the economic, ecological

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and cultural exploitation of the indigenous Mayan states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and
peoples and peasants for the enrichment of national Gujarat, is a case in point. This project envisaged
and international markets (Routledge, 1998). Such the construction of some thirty major dams along
resistance is a response to local conditions (those the sacred river and its tributaries involving the
existing in Chiapas, Mexico and North America flooding of fertile lands and the submergence of
more generally), but they also acknowledge that long-established towns and villages, leading to
these outcomes are in part the product of global many evictions. Two of the major dams are already
forces at work in other spaces and places and there- built and in recent years protest has centred on the
fore in need of transnational responses. What we third Sardar Sarovar reservoir scheme and has been
need to examine here is how the Zapatistas’ struggle organised through the Narmada Bachao Andolan
articulated something that other movements of (Save Narmada Movement (NBA)). This dam is
resistance ‘wanted to say’ and how common lan- supported by a US$450 million loan from the World
guages of resistance have weaved webs of relations Bank, and threatens massive ecological damage and
between places that link and connect these common the displacement of hundreds of thousands of
struggles. people, many of them poor and indigenous.
The retreat from state-guided developmentalism The NBA has brought together individuals,
in a number of other ‘paradigmatic’ southern coun- groups and organisations from across and beyond
tries (such as India, Mexico and Brazil) has led to an India who have demanded an end to the project by
increasing number of resistance movements to disrupting construction, blockading roads and
national, regional and local strategies (Berger, through mass demonstrations (Routledge, 1999).
2001). This is not to downgrade the specificities of Protest has spread through the valley and has drawn
these countries’ histories, cultures and resistance international attention to the cultural heritage of
groups but rather to further interrogate the com- this region of India, and to the important spiritual
monality of developmentalism as the core of these connections to the place that these evictions seek to
related, but different, crises of state legitimacy and sever. The protests have thus simultaneously been
authority. In postcolonial India, for example, resist- about ecological and cultural survival and have led
ance has emerged around a whole range of themes to important debates about regional political
relating to social and cultural identities and the autonomy. In this way the geopolitical imagination
question of national economic justice. This has of India is also important here, as are the ways in
been evident at a variety of spatial scales, and each which different actors in Indian society seek maps
one produces a kind of ‘reinvention of India’ (Cor- of meaning, relevance and order and to project
bridge and Harriss, 2000). Struggles around the them on to the contested political universe
introduction of GM crops or the construction of a (Chaturvedi, 2000). Jawaharlal Nehru’s imaginative
dam, among others, have attracted the attention of geography of postcolonial Indian development,
both the national and international media. The which had a singular and monolithic vision of
Narmada River Valley project, which spans the national unity, failed to ‘displace the widespread
sense of attachment to “place” in India’
(Chaturvedi, 2000: 220), trying to substitute this
with a vision of the national collective.
In many parts of India the territories in which
people live have important historical and cultural
symbolisms of attachment to places and localities.
There has, however, been a growing feeling among
some groups of alienation from state-centred dis-
courses on development and visions of national citi-
zenship and identity, particularly during the 1990s.
In India the idea of decentralised democracy is evi-
dent in the way rural people have demanded control
over their rivers and forests. Here many people have
sought to resist the ‘centrifugal tendencies’ of the
Figure 9.7 Zapatista guerrillas in the Lacandon Forest state and the particular renditions that state-centred
Source: EZLN (2002) discourses on development involve (Chaturvedi,

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2000: 230). The new networks of international

resistance mean that different movements are learn-
ing from each other, sharing tactics and resources.
Thus NBA leader Medha Patkar has also sought to
explore commonalities between struggles in the
Narmada valley and those of more ‘global’ protests
against the IMF and World Bank in cities such as
Prague and Seattle (BWP, 2000). According to
Medha Patkar, this involves going beyond western
models:

If the vast majority of our population is to be fed

and clothed, then a balanced vision with our own
Figure 9.10 Medha Patkar with children at a peace meeting, Sat-
priorities in place of the Western models is a yagraha, August 2000
must. There is no other way but to redefine ‘mod- Source: NBA
ernity’ and the goals of development.
(Patkar, quoted in NBA, 1991: 1) development process and to redefine ‘modernity’ as
a consequence.
This then is an important part of the work of
organisations such as the NBA which are thus seek-
ing to formulate new goals and meanings for the ‘ W E D O N OT N E E D YO U TO S AV E O U R
FORESTS’

Protest, tremors and ‘social ferment’ around free

trade and development issues has also arisen in
Thailand, where many thousands of rural people
have gathered at the gates of Government House in
the capital city (Bangkok) to protest their exclusion
from the Asian miracles and success stories that the
IFIs are so fond of reminiscing about. These have
included villagers affected by big dam projects,
small farmers and fisher folk who came together to
create a rural coalition – the Assembly of the Poor –
comprising the excluded. Protestors went right to
Figure 9.8 Women protesting against the construction of the the heart of the capital city to erect a makeshift
Maheshwar Dam, July 2000 ‘village of the poor’, where they camped out in the
Source: NBA smog and the traffic for ninety-nine days, surviving
by growing vegetables illegally along the banks of
the city’s river (Ainger, 2001). They declared at the
time that:

Rivers and forests, on which the survival of rural

families depends, have been plundered from the
people. . . . The collapse of agricultural society
forces people out of their communities to cheaply
sell their labour in the city. . . . The people must
set up the country’s development direction. The
people must be the real beneficiaries of
development.
(quoted in Ainger, 2001: 2)
Figure 9.9 Adivasis from the village Nimrani at a rally, April 2000
Source: NBA The message from the assembly was clear: that

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the ‘development direction’ must be shaped by and thousands converged on the Asian Development
for the benefit of the people. In Thailand the inci- Bank meetings in Chiang Mai in May 2000. Some
dence of poverty has fallen in some areas of the of the protesters reportedly carried a tombstone on
country but not in others (Dixon, 1999), and growth their back on which were inscribed the words:
has often not extended far beyond the geographical ‘There is a price on the water, a meter in the rice
limits of Bangkok. Inequality has thus increased in paddies, dollars in the soil, resorts in the forests.’
Thailand as a whole (Jansen, 2001). The highly This notion of ‘dollars in the soil’ again seems to
uneven pattern of growth is distorted both region- resonate with the resistance of other excluded
ally (in favour of the metropolitan region) and sec- peoples around the world which have often been
torally (in favour of certain industries). The rapid centred on issues of access to ecological resources.
growth of the Thai economy has also had consider- One study in the late 1990s concluded that some 30
able environmental costs, with a loss of forest cover per cent of Thai children apparently believed that
and biodiversity, traffic congestion and air and the IMF was in fact a UFO! (Ainger, 2001).
water pollution (Rigg, 1995). It was even suggested, Few if any of the major institutions – the WTOs,
by Walden Bello of the Bangkok-based Focus on the World Bank, the IMF – have been able to meet
the Global South, that loose environmental controls in recent years without being accompanied by
actually attract foreign investors who face stricter visible signs of protest. The 2002 G-8 meeting in
controls at home (Bello et al., 1998), leading to the Western Canada, for example, spent some US$300
‘Siamese tragedy’ of Thai development. New pro- million on security measures and threatened the use
test groups are starting to emerge across Thailand of lethal force against protestors (BWP, July/August
however. In addition, there has been the emergence 2002). These amounts nearly outweighed new
of something of a ‘new localism’ (Pasuk and Baker, ‘commitments’ secured at the meeting on African
2000) which is now challenging many of the development. This also involved policing the peace-
assumptions that had underlain the orthodox ful parallel conference called the ‘G-6B’ (Group of 6
development doctrine of unfettered capitalism, par- billion) which met at the same time. ‘IMF riots’ –
ticularly since the melt-down of 1997. In some ways over the price of staples such as food and fuel – have
this new localism: been occurring across the South since the 1970s.
Some commentators have referred to an emerging
has drawn heavily on populist, nationalist, grassroots network or to ‘the multitude’ (Hardt and
romantic and Utopian visions of traditional, Negri, 2000). This is seen to represent the inversion
harmonious and self-reliant (typically rural) or the mirror image of a stratum of concentrated
communities, and prevailing anti-development or power ‘from above’, where the market is king. This
sustainable development discourses. ‘multitude’ embodies the real world below, all that
(Parnwell and Rigg, 2001: 207) cannot be reduced to the status of a commodity to
be bought and sold in a global marketplace, focus-
At the local level, what is emerging in Thailand ing on human beings, nature, culture and diversity.
are genuine and serious attempts by people ‘to In fact, it is problematic to talk of an ‘anti-global’
resist, mould, interpret and, indeed, vivify the forces movement at all, in that these different movements
of globalisation’ (Parnwell and Rigg, 2001: 207). A and multitudes, as we have seen, combine a geo-
small number of other Asian countries also enjoyed politics from below which is very much about the
high growth rates until the well-documented ‘Asian global and the power of global institutions. This
crises’ began in 1997. The ‘secret’ of the Asian suc- involves, as Hardt and Negri (2000) suggest, a chal-
cess stories depends on individual ideological per- lenging of the idea that ‘the global surfaces of
suasion and has been much debated, given its the world market are interchangeable’. Just as the
dependence on interactions between business and geography of modernisation and modernisation
the state (Haggard, 1998). There is no ‘East Asian surfaces was once seen as interchangeable, so neo-
miracle’ however; rather there are ‘several, different liberalism is based around a similar assumption that
stories of East Asian countries’ (Jansen, 2001: 352). free trade is good for all, irrespective of particular
The Thai ‘Assembly of the Poor’ came together cultures and economies. Against the religious
again in 1998 to join the coalition of protest move- orthodoxy and the model of a ‘single economic
ments against the IMF bail-out programme in the blueprint’, where the market rules, this ‘multitude’
wake of the Asian financial crisis, and again when represents diverse, people-centred alternatives. In

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Figure 9.11 World Economic System: ‘Error’ poster

Source: Adbusters

the Zapatistas’ words: ‘One no, many yeses.’

Against what Shiva (2001) calls the ‘monoculture’
of economic globalisation there is thus a growing
demand for a world where many worlds fit (Ainger,
2001: 2). This is an objective which must also be
central to any rethinking of development geograph-
ies, which seeks to contest singular blueprints and
orthodoxies and carves out a space for representa-
tions of other worlds. The call for ‘people-centred
development’ is far from new but its widespread
(mis)appropriation by neoliberal agencies has
devalued the idea of popular participation and
empowerment through development. New
approaches to the democratisation of development emerged so far. Created in 1992 (when peasant lead-
are unfolding across the world, and geographers ers from Central and North America met in Nica-
need to acknowledge these struggles and their sig- ragua), this international movement campaigns on a
nificance for theorising development. number of issues such as food sovereignty, agrarian
Vía Campesina is one particularly important reform, credit and external debt, technology,
example of an international peasant union uniting women’s participation and rural development. It is
farmers, rural women, indigenous groups and especially interesting in that it has a very wide
landless peoples and is one of the most innovative geographical coverage and holds meetings every
new forms of international networking that has three years, rotating the location of meetings

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between member regions. Again this organisation ised by the incredible energy of the NBA, unites
also targets the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO over a hundred mass organisations, from fisher folk
and seeks to build international coalitions. to farmers. Common to all the diverse struggles that
The movement declared 17 April 2002, for the NBA represents is the fight for people’s control
example, an international day of protest in order to over their own lives and resources. Sanjay Sangavi
‘delegitimize neo-liberal globalization’ (Vía of the NBA describes this as ‘the emergence of a
Campesina, 2002: 1). It also took an active role in new politics of environmental socialism in India’
the Porto Alegre WSF summits and has introduced (Sangavi, quoted in Ainger, 2001: 6). The potential
some important gender position papers used to political force as grassroots groups like these begin
inform discussion and policy within social move- to link up internationally is immense. ‘Our resist-
ments and social forums. These position papers ances arise separately, but we are beginning to rec-
often refer to the ‘enslaving dependence’ of TNCs ognize one another’ (Ainger, 2001: 1). Medha
and the impoverishment of women through Patkar of the NBA movement in India was on the
adjustment reforms. Members of the movement streets of Prague in September 2000, protesting
include the Landless of Brazil (MST) and the rad- against the World Bank and the IMF. At the time
ical Karnataka State Farmers’ Association of India. she argued:
With a combined membership of millions, it repre-
sents one of the largest single organisations of It’s not about the First and Third World, North
people opposed to the WTO. What is interesting and South. There is a section of the population
about this movement is that some of the first points that is just as present in the US and in Britain –
of resistance to global capitalism seem to be appear- the homeless, unemployed people, on the streets
ing from those people whose livelihoods still depend of London – which is also there in the indigenous
directly on everyday access to natural resources communities, villages and farms of India, Indo-
(Ainger, 2001). In response, movements of natural nesia, the Philippines, Mexico, Brazil. And all
resource-based communities have created coalitions those who face the backlash of this kind of eco-
of the dispossessed, excluded and marginalised. For nomics are coming together – to create a new,
example, members of a network of Indian adivasi people-centred world order.
activists invaded World Bank offices in New Delhi (Patkar, quoted in Ainger, 2001: 4)
and plastered its walls with cow dung. At the time
they declared: This is an interesting contention then that the labels
North/South, developed/developing, rich/poor or
For the World Bank and the WTO, our forests are First World/Third World are in a way irrelevant.
a marketable commodity. But for us, the forests Within London and Los Angeles are all of these
are a home, our source of livelihood, the dwelling dualities and more. Poverty and unemployment link
of our gods, the burial ground of our ancestors, people, places and communities in diverse locations
the inspiration of our culture. We do not need such that the fate and future of Mexican farmers is
you to save our forests. We will not let you sell our not entirely disconnected from that of American
forests. So go back from our forests and our farmers, for example, in that free trade agreements
country. and ideologies dominate political and economic
(quoted in Ainger, 2001: 5–6) interactions between these and many other coun-
tries around the world. Resistance at the ‘grass-
At the risk of over-simplification, the message that roots’ level is not new however. The question is: can
seems to issue from such movements is that we diverse, dispersed movements everywhere manage
don’t need ‘you’ (the World Bank, the IMF or the to construct bonds of solidarity and support? In
WTO) to save ‘us’ or our forests and communities. establishing ties these movements can manage to
Neoliberal institutions often efface or deny the his- support each other and ‘together they will be able to
tory of struggles in countries such as Mexico or change the course of contemporary history’
India, refusing to acknowledge the diversity and (Chomsky, quoted in Ainger, 2001: 6). Allied to an
inspiration of their cultures and heritage. These increasingly popular opposition to global institu-
institutions also often overlook people’s historic tions and neoliberalism in the North, ‘bonds of
and cultural attachments to place. The National solidarity’ can be internationalised and come to
Alliance of Peoples’ Movements in India, galvan- transcend the boundaries of place and nation. This

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comes back to legacies of ‘Thirdworldism’ and the many people in many places across this ‘rainbow
idea of a project of linked resistance. These sorts nation’.
of bonds and connections between countries of the The ANC itself was built around grassroots net-
South are an issue in postcolonial theory where a works of organisations and individuals that were
fundamental question concerns the postcolonial searching for alternatives and came together around
thematic of accepting and accommodating differ- cultural identities which were commonly excluded
ence and recognising shared or common histories of from society and the majority of political and eco-
exclusion and marginalisation. Can contemporary nomic spaces. The Reconstruction and Develop-
solidarities challenge the shape and contours of ment Programme (RDP) was the first attempt by
established geographies of development? Again the the ANC to map out a strategy of development in
need to rethink the local and global is paramount in post-apartheid times and aimed to be ‘people-
that it is necessary to examine how the context of driven’, ‘integrated’ and ‘sustainable’ in its con-
‘local’ struggles can be theorised in a way which ception. Its goals included one million houses,
allows for the fact that the local is not totally universal and affordable electricity, a national
bounded but is interconnected with global processes health scheme and social security. By 1999, follow-
and ideologies. In order to begin to answer this ing the adoption of the RDP, some three million
question we can explore the international roots of people were provided with safe drinking-water from
South African resistance. taps within 200m of their home (Peet, 2002), and
there were other advances in housing and health-
care, for example. None the less, since the mid-1990s
NEOLIBERALISM, DEMOCRACY AND there has been a growth in the pressure exerted on
R E S I S T A N C E I N P O S T - A PA R T H E I D the ANC to curtail the more radical dimensions of
SOUTH AFRICA the RDP’s objectives. The ANC has since then
changed quite substantially the course and
Neoliberal development discourse is utterly character of its ideology from that of the libera-
unsuited to the conditions prevailing in post- tion movement which took power on a wave of
apartheid South Africa. euphoria in 1994. The RDP began as a radical
(Peet, 2002: 66) social-democratic policy document based on the
Freedom Charter and centred on human, infra-
The liberation of South Africa from centuries of structural and economic development. In 1996,
apartheid in the early 1990s is a useful example of however, the ANC was forced by powerful investors
the importance of popular power, social movements and the IMF to adapt itself to the ‘realities’ of the
and international coalitions in bringing about rad- global economy with its new Growth Employment
ical change. Apartheid was centred upon a kind of and Redistribution strategy (GEAR).
‘governmentalisation of geography’, where racial This newer programme shifted the emphasis from
segregation created supposedly separate spaces of growth through redistribution towards redistribu-
development according to an individual’s racial tion through growth and has not been popular with
identity. The deracialisation of these spaces was a some of the unions, which have pointed out that
long and complex process. Soon after the end of GEAR is more a concession to the corporate world
centuries of apartheid segregation in South Africa, than it is to working-class South Africans (Peet,
the ‘sharks of global capitalism’ quickly came to 2002). International economic elites helped to ‘dis-
encircle the country (Haffajee, 2001). Many South cipline’ and shape this programme and its heart is
Africans have thus been frustrated with the severe neoliberal, placing macroeconomic targets such as
limitations placed on policy under a neoliberal low inflation and a low budget deficit (3 per cent) at
development framework and within the wider the apex of policy formation, and relegating devel-
neoliberal development agencies that dominate opment goals to second place. Since then, health,
contemporary development thinking (Peet, 2002). welfare, education, electrification and housing
After the country’s first two multi-party elections, budgets have been slashed (Bond, 2001). Income
the African National Congress (ANC) has made disparity has actually increased since the end of
some quite drastic reorientations of policy as a apartheid and unemployment stood at 37.6 per cent
result of external financial and political pressures in 2000 (Peet, 2002). Land redistribution has also
in ways which are increasingly being resisted by been slow, despite the highly organised network of

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social movements that were in place at the end of lion in loans to South Africa went to expand white
apartheid. consumers’ access to electricity, which was denied
For South African activists such as Trevor to virtually all black South Africans until the 1980s.
Ngwane the reason is that ‘[t]here’s been a shift in The apartheid debt inherited by the ANC in 1994
policy from a redistributive policy to a trickle-down was around US$25 billion, but because of power
policy’, where the benefits of ‘growth’ must trickle relations prevailing at the time, and a fear of offend-
down rather than be actively redistributed. A vet- ing foreign lenders, Nelson Mandela and his
eran anti-apartheid activist born in Soweto, advisers agreed to service the loans. In response a
Ngwane was expelled as a local councillor of the group of activists formed Jubilee South Africa,
ANC for Pimville in 1999, disciplined after object- demanding total cancellation by creditors in the
ing to the government’s World Bank-influenced USA, Switzerland, Britain and Germany. Led by
development model for Johannesburg involving pri- the Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu, by
vatisation (known locally as ‘corporatisation’) of Njongonkulu Ndungane and Mandela’s official
public services such as electricity and water. The biographer, Professor Fatima Meer, the Jubilee
struggle against apartheid in South Africa is so movement also demands reparations from finan-
recent that a proud culture of resistance is still ciers who supported apartheid and colonialism
latent in the townships, and it is this that is feeding throughout the region. The World Bank and Citi-
the groundswell of resistance at the grassroots level bank are other key targets, and Jubilee South Africa
(Haffajee, 2001). Many meetings have been organ- (working with other coalitions from around the
ised which have been allied to the Anti-Privatization world) has helped catalyse the World Bank Bonds
Forum, of which Ngwane is secretary, a national Boycott, reviving the international solidarity tactics
forum that links a range of organisations which once used to encourage disinvestment from com-
oppose various forms of privatisation and which panies doing business in apartheid-era South
assist with community struggles against them. Africa. This campaign highlights the fact that
Ngwane has protested in Washington against the because the Bank raises its funds by issuing bonds
World Bank, joining the World Social Forum in on the private financial markets, it is possible to
Porto Alegre, Brazil, and the World Economic bankrupt the Bank by boycotting the bonds that
Forum meeting on South African soil in June 2001. support it (Hari, 2002). Many US cities have
In conjunction with local and international academ- already joined the boycott, which has been attacked
ics, radical groups, trade unionists and others, this by Bank President James Wolfensohn and UK for-
new movement is nascent but has potential, and has mer Development Secretary Clare Short as ‘ill
been particularly effective in the protests against the advised’. This is very reminiscent of the ways in
global pharmaceutical giants and in favour of which many South Africans boycotted the payments
affordable AIDS drugs, for example. Of the ANC, for rent and services provided in the townships dur-
Ngwane argues that the organisation is: ing the apartheid era. In a similar way international
coalitions remind the development and commercial
a shell of its former self. It has no mass politics; it banks that ordinary people can very quickly bring
only prepares for power struggles . . . but most powerful organisations to their knees and force the
people are demobilized, cynical; they are leaving pace and direction of change in important ways.
the stage. . . . Our problem now is to provide a Johannesburg hosted the World Conference on
political home for these people, but there isn’t a Sustainable Development (Rio-plus 10) in August
consensus of how we relate to the state. We are a and September 2002 which fast became a focus for
young democracy remember. . . . The ANC in resistance to national and international develop-
power is very unresponsive. This is their big mis- ment discourses and the disciplinary power of
take. When people elect you, you’ve got to be the IFIs. In many ways hundreds of citizen mobil-
there for them. . . . When the next election comes isations around the world, from Seattle to
in 2004, there will be pressure from the left for a Cochabamba, from Prague to Harare, have pro-
more coherent approach. vided the inspiration for this (Bond, 2000a). Local
(quoted in Haffajee, 2001) activists in the healthcare, water, environment, eco-
nomic justice, community, women’s, youth, church
This is a view shared by Patrick Bond (2000a,b) who and labour movements were all involved in the
argues that half of the World Bank’s US$200 mil- meeting and did not hesitate to remind visitors that

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racial liberation in South Africa has come at a huge coalitions. A key question concerns the extent to
socio-economic cost: which the community of ‘experts’ now writing
South African development discourse are willing to
For Ngwane, the metaphor of the anti-apartheid respond to these struggles and the important ques-
struggle – such as has inspired the World Bank tions they raise. Neoliberalism may well be ‘utterly
Bonds Boycott campaign – also applies to unsuitable’ in this respect (Peet, 2002: 66).
‘decommodification’ struggles over land, air, Another issue concerns the importance of gender
water and everything in between, uniting grass- in some of these emerging networks of South African
roots progressives against common enemies and resistance. Morrell (2001) talks about how shortly
around ‘rights-based’ demands that put people after the ANC election victory of 1994 many com-
before profits. And perhaps Rio-plus 10 will be mentators had negative views of men, promoting
where we break the chains of global apartheid, stereotypes and isolating one or two aspects of
not least the neoliberal policies foisted on the new masculinity and assuming they are universal and
South Africa as part of its Faustian compromise commonplace. Much attention is still focused on
with globalization. the inferior position of women relative to men but is
(Bond, 2000a: 88) shifting slowly from a concern with women’s access
to resources to include issues of masculinity. Mascu-
Patrick Bond also focuses on the economic argu- linities are fluid (geographically and historically)
ments that were used to persuade ANC leaders of and are not fixed but are constantly being broken
the benefits of what he calls a ‘social contract capit- down, defended/protected and remade. Gender
alism’ (2000b: 53) and a ‘narrowing of economic relations are fundamentally about power and also
discourse’. In this it should be remembered that the about the ‘patriarchal dividend’ or the advantage
development aims of the GEAR and RDP pro- that accrues to men through the subordination of
grammes were initially progressive (although the women. Ethnicity and class can influence how this
ANC has subsequently failed to meet many of its ‘patriarchal dividend’ comes to men, how they
targets). The IFI-imposed strictures on public ex- understand their masculinity and how they seek to
penditure have limited this however. This comes back deploy it.
to the question of the damage done by the World Bank Predominantly, gendered power relations have
in ideology and policy spheres, where redistributive left a legacy whereby women are more likely to be
policies have been overlooked in favour of ‘essen- disadvantaged relative to men, have less access to
tially status quo arrangements’ (Bond, 2000a: 155). resources, benefits, information and decision-
The shape of alternatives to a dying Washington making, and fewer rights both within the
consensus is perhaps less clear however, except to household and in the public sphere. Thus far, then,
say that alliances of ‘progressive’ forces on a global these concerns and the struggle for gender equality
(but not globalising) basis are assuming increasing have been narrowly perceived to be a ‘women’s
significance. The nature of these types of alliance issue’ and gender programmes designed with a sole
needs to be specified much more clearly but can be focus on women. But if men generally benefit from
investigated through an analysis of resistance gender power relations, can we continue to ignore
emerging around specific products and processes their roles in the struggle for gender equality? The
(see Box 9.3). The World Bank’s strategies of co- development of gender programmes that involve
option and persuasion of key think-tanks, founda- men and the role they can play in a movement
tions and government officials are also interesting towards more gender-equitable development has
here. International solidarity led to the demise of been relatively slow in South Africa. The involve-
the apartheid regime, but the freedoms of South ment of men in the transformative process required
Africa are being curtailed today in a different sense to attain gender equality has a number of entry
because of neoliberal policies. Solidarity among points, some of which are: ending gender-based vio-
people who have been ‘pushed to struggle in defence lence, commencing human rights and peace initia-
of their standard of living’ (Ngwane, quoted in tives, and poverty reduction strategies (Moser and
Haffajee, 2001) involves connecting movements Clark, 2001; Moser and Norton, 2001). Much of
based in Soweto, the township that was a symbol of the literature continues to be ‘gender-blind’, por-
the struggle against apartheid, to a range of other traying men as perpetrators (in defence of their
local, national and international struggles and nation) and women as ‘victims’ of violence (of

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abduction and abuse). The causes, costs and con-

sequences of violence are gendered however.
Women should not be seen as ‘objects’ in the pro-
cess of resisting development but as active agents.
We thus need to be alert to the power relations of
gender as well as to local constructions of masculin-
ity and femininity.

C O N C L U S I O N S : A G L O B A L FA B R I C O F
STRUGGLE?

Over the past decade a transformation has been

taking place as the threads of local movements
are woven into a new global fabric of struggle.
They [social movements] are beginning to under-
stand that unless they can organize transnation-
ally, they’re dead.
(Ainger, 2001: 5)

A fabric of struggle linking cities such as Seattle,

Melbourne, Prague, Quebec, Genoa and Washing-
ton is beginning to be sown which raises important
questions about the order of twenty-first-century
century world development and the need for
democratising the major global development
institutions. In January 2000 the World Economic
Forum was again under siege at its base in Davos,
Switzerland. Throughout the year, women and men, Figure 9.12 ‘Get on board for Genoa’
farmers, workers, the unemployed, professionals, Source: Globalise Resistance
students and indigenous peoples expressed their
commitment to struggle for rights, freedoms, educa- ity measures imposed on their shattered economies
tion and employment. What we have seen is that after the financial crisis of 1997. Thousand of activ-
each resistance movement, in its own way, operates ists across Mexico mobilised millions of people,
to an extent outside the structures of state power radicalising communities as they went and calling
in attempting to (re)create models of some kind of for changes from within and ‘from below’, while
direct democracy, often based around the notion of articulating counter-visions and strategies. In some
some kind of ‘alternative’ development. For the ways, radicalised development geographies can seek
Zapatistas, the outlawing of the common ownership to focus on these expressions of ‘geopolitics from
of land (fought for by Emiliano Zapata, folk hero below’ and the alternative notions of development
of the Mexican revolution that began in 1910) was that are gradually emerging from them. Although
the crucial turning point. In Ecuador, the IMF- some of these struggles are avowedly about specific
imposed dollarisation of the economy was the issues of land and ecology, they are caught up with
match that ignited a variety of popular protests and wider issues of territory, identity and statehood and
struggles by indigenous peoples seeking to explore represent important practical exercises in ‘theoris-
the capacity to develop collectively (Ainger, 2001). ing back’. In a way, people’s identities are consti-
In Thailand and India, it was the plundering of tuted through these struggles and in relation to the
natural resources and the absence of popular par- forces they seek to resist. Activists have sought to
ticipation in development planning. For South shatter the image of world institutions as
Africans, post-apartheid ‘trade-offs’ with the global uncontested forces for good, disputing the power of
economic elite in the context of escalating income neoliberal agencies such as the IFIs, the WEF or
inequality has also led to new waves of resistance. WTO and rejecting their tendency to ‘interfere’ in
For much of Southeast Asia it was the IMF auster- national development policy debates. The World

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Social Forum ‘Call for Mobilization’ in January book, a simple blueprint that can be formed for all
2001 captures the reasons why these struggles are ‘developing countries’. The Porto Alegre call
necessary: for social movements (WSF, 2002: 1) had already
noted that ‘diversity is our strength, the basis of
we are fighting against the hegemony of finance, our unity’. In addition, it is not especially diffi-
the destruction of our cultures, the monopo- cult to see what these organisations are ‘for’: they
lization of knowledge, mass media and com- seek democracy, the abolition of indebtedness,
munication, the degradation of nature, and the freedom from poverty and violence, and gender
destruction of the quality of life by transnational equality and rights (among other things). What
corporations and anti-democratic policies. connects these various social tremors to earlier
(WSF, 2001: 122) waves of ‘Thirdworldism’ is a common concern for
self-determination, especially the rights of indigen-
The WSF in particular has begun to emerge as a ous communities with respect to land and resources.
global space and an alternative international Another key commonality in many of these
assembly for the discussion and networking that is struggles is that they centre upon those people who
taking place on a people-to-people basis between are excluded from development plans and strategies
grassroots organisations from around the world. or do not benefit directly from ‘progress’ in their
What is especially interesting about the forum is its societies. The term ‘multitude’ points up the fact
concern to contest the monopolisation of know- that these people are seen as the expendable, the
ledge about development by the IFIs and its insist- invisible people who global development ignores
ence that other ways of knowing are possible, with and those at the heart of what the Zapatistas call
indigenous sources seen as crucial to development the ‘fourth world war’ (Ainger, 2001: 5). New coali-
thinking and practice. In 2002, the second WSF tions of the dispossessed are uniting not just within
brought together 51,300 participants, representing countries, but internationally. Furthermore many
4,909 organisations from some 131 different coun- older social movements, principally labour and
tries (Brecher and Costello, 2002). The Forum has trade unions that have existed for some time, are
its critics, however, who argue that it has not yet also being drawn into these processes of mobilisa-
come up with a ‘blueprint’ for global social reform tion (the success of which will also ultimately
for all its global dialogues and attempts to avoid the depend on their participation). Thus a variety of
imposition of new ‘Third World’ elites. Again there social movements, as we have seen, have demanded
is this persistent notion that there is a single recipe land, constitutional recognition and, perhaps most
importantly, meaningful participation in develop-
ment planning. They represent a ‘troublesome for-
est that walks’, a ‘stream that joins other streams to
become a river’ in the words of Subcommandante
Marcos (quoted in Ainger, 2001: 5). In a variety of
spaces, from rural to urban, from the South to the
North, unrest against the global political and eco-
nomic order is quickly spreading. These disparate
threads are the early stages of a movement that is
beginning to reconstitute the global economic land-
scape, reshaping the way development is played out
in the twenty-first century. In addition, from these
disparate threads of global struggles against neo-
liberalism are emerging important new forms of
resistance, building solidarity and support networks
that unite diverse locations and struggles. The cam-
paign to make drugs available for AIDS patients at
reasonable prices is a good example of a struggle
Figure 9.13 A shirt urging people to Jam the World Trade that made connections between local and global in
Organisation terms of mobilising for wider popular access to
Source: Adbusters healthcare. There is some evidence that these kinds

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of campaigns are yielding some (although often favours globalisation based on solidarity among
rather limited) results, forcing changes in trade rules people, with priority to basic human needs, calling
and the operations of profit-seeking TNCs (Brecher for reviews of external borrowing and stressing the
and Costello, 2002). importance of promoting ‘home-grown’ solutions
The free trade agreements signed in the Americas to development rather than a ‘universal model’.
in recent years such as the FTAA and NAFTA and Future resistance may become more effective if
the summit meetings where their progress is dis- it relates more directly to particular ideologies of
cussed have been particularly important sites of development, such as those codified in the World
struggle in the internationalisation of resistance. Bank’s successor to structural adjustment, the Pov-
Protesters, aggressive and passive alike, have been erty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). This was a
met with clouds of teargas, water cannons, pepper classic case of new wine in old bottles, as the
spray and rubber bullets. All kinds of groups and ‘responsive’ Bank was seen to replace the infamous
coalitions have come together around these meet- adjustment policies of old, but the logic remains
ings however, often involving large numbers of local unchanged according to southern civil society
trade unionists (as in Quebec) and public groups such as Focus on the Global South and Jubi-
employees. At the alternative ‘Peoples’ Summits’, lee South. The views, the perspectives, the mode of
organised around these meetings, the voices of dis- analysis and even the menu of options brought by
sent against the modern-day ‘enclosures’ of free each country delegation remain much as before.
trade have been clear and articulate. Movements Focusing on poverty reduction in the way that these
across Latin America also mobilised for one of the agencies do arguably narrows the space for a discus-
largest, most ambitious self-organised referenda sion of other development issues and alternatives/
ever attempted, the consulta popular. At the end of models. Although the blueprint approach of the
2001 fourteen countries in the Americas were thus past may have been reworked, ‘civil societies’ are
asked to vote on the principles of the Free Trade not universally the same and depart from different
Area of the Americas. Broad-based social move- political and economic contexts and starting points
ments organised at a variety of spatial levels have which defy easy generalisation about their intended
been keen to enable this kind of popular consultation role in policy ‘dialogue’. Many texts on develop-
and are at least trying to illustrate its usefulness and ment uncritically praise the role of civil societies
necessity. The red banner of the MST, now a famil- without questioning their legitimacy, effectiveness
iar site at many demos in Brazil, seems to capture and capacity to represent their constituencies.
why this is important. Depicting MST workers with Various statements are made by the major devel-
tools, their flag symbolises the rootedness of their opment institutions about broadening and deepen-
work in the everyday struggles of workers and ing participation in policy formation in favour of
labourers. Most recently, the MST has begun to ‘civil society’, but real and active citizen engagement
work through organisations such as the CLOC is often a myth. The World Bank often believes that
(Latin American Co-ordination of Peasant Organ- any issue can be resolved if you throw enough stat-
isations) and has also begun exploring connections istics and references at it. Opening up the process of
with African organisations since early 2000 and the report-writing (e.g. on the WDR) would be the
beginnings of the WSF meetings. clearest statement yet from the Bank that it truly
The final communiqués which have been issued embraces ideas of widening participation. This
from a number of the ‘People’s Summits’ surround- chapter has drawn attention to the need to focus on
ing free trade meetings seem to suggest that varied and multiple forms of resistance to the
‘another world is possible’ and also desirable in the imposition of this ‘universal model’ in order to
context of neoliberalism. In December 2000 a meet- understand the capacity for promoting these kinds
ing of campaigners in Dakar (Senegal) assessed Afri- of alternative, ‘home-grown’ interpretations of
ca’s debt crisis and the human effects of SAPs. development. After an initial period of shock and
Condemning the neoliberal model, the participants confusion in the wake of 11 September 2001, cam-
(many from the Jubilee movement uniting North paigners have once again resumed protests against
and South) highlighted the ecological aspects of the IFIs and multilateral trade and economic organ-
debt and called for its total cancellation alongside a isations, restarting their campaign against this
rejection of the PRSPs and SAPs developed by the universalising model. In order to change these
IFIs. The Dakar manifesto issued at the conference agencies and to undermine the power and authority

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of their ideologies, new coalitions need to be stable and lasting if alliances are to be formed that
explored (as with the banana trade), linking worlds can be meaningful (e.g. with trade unions). Again
through wider senses of connectivity, linking people this is dependent partly on recognising the strength
and places, poverty and consumption, producers that comes from diversity and the particularly
and consumers, North and South. One of the prin- important contributions of women to traditions of
cipal obstacles to such connectivity is that: struggle and resistance in the South. At the same
time, existing forms of social organisation (such as
transnational resistance today itself depends on trade unionism) need to adapt to new forms of pol-
goods (from education to means of communica- itical and economic reality to revitalise their politics
tion like mobiles or computers) which are and to form alliances with other kinds of groups
unequally distributed throughout the world, and organisations. This will obviously take some
allowing certain groups (notably in the ‘north’) time and patience, particularly when it will also
far greater access to the circuits of resistance, necessarily raise complex issues of partnership.
encouraging them – if only by default – to ‘repre- A key objective for many post-development
sent’ less well-resourced constituencies. writers is to seek to ‘delegitimise’ the institutions of
(Boehmer and Moore-Gilbert, 2002: 19) global governance and the idea of development
more generally. As we have seen however, many
Important questions need to be asked here about critics point to the absence of alternatives and criti-
who is representing whom in the process of organis- cise post-development writers for romanticising the
ing transnational resistance and about who is local or calling for some kind of prejudicing of the
claiming to speak for the less well-resourced con- local over the global. The point rather should be to
stituencies of the unequal world in which we live. consider how democracies which emerge from the
Postcolonial studies have enormous potential in (often romanticised) ‘grassroots’ organisations can
this regard. This can help to point up the problems be linked to wider struggles and changes at a variety
involved in assuming that this unequal world speaks of geographical scales. None the less, surely the ini-
with one voice or is unable to represent itself. There tiatives of those excluded from development are
is a need to move away from what Pieterse (1998) preferable to ‘an anyway impossible transformation
refers to as the tendency in post-development and of international structures’ (Rist, 1997: 245)? There
postcolonial writings to focus on resistance but not has clearly been a flourishing of grassroots organis-
on empowerment. This comes back to the notion ing and as a result the very ideas of democracy and
that postcolonialism offers a useful critique but few development are being reinvented. As a result there
alternatives, avoiding complex questions concerning is also a need for new ways of thinking about sub-
development defined as liberation and emancipa- jectivity and political agency. It is not therefore a
tion. In addition, transnational resistance will need question of local vs. global but rather one of
to form structures and organisations which are rethinking the entire meaning of these terms, the
identities that are constructed around them and the
ways in which they come together in different times
and places (Massey, 1994; Massey and Jess, 1995).
In a globalising world the intersection of politics
and economics in a number of places and spaces
around the world is increasingly important and
must be a key focal point for challenging prevailing
inequalities of wealth and power (Wills, 2002).
In this chapter we have looked at a number of
countries such as Argentina, South Africa, India,
Brazil, Mexico and Thailand, each of which stands
as a different yet similar example of the grounded
and place-specific nature of resistance around
common themes of exclusion and impoverishment.
Figure 9.14 ‘Stop Sweatshops’ demonstration in New York, March Lasting coalitions for promoting global social
2001 change and reform will require further connections
Source: The author to be made between struggles for identity and

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economic justice, bringing together peoples and placed to map these changing cartographies of
groups to find and cement common causes and alli- struggle and to grapple with the intersections of
ances without masking the differences between politics, economy and culture ‘as they unfold on the
them. Post-development writers and social move- ground’ (Wills, 2002: 96). Rethinking geographies
ments share similar rejections of development and of development may also enable us to demystify
understandings of the crises of neoliberalism and in development and to focus on growth through equal-
this sense there is surely scope for much greater dia- ity rather than equality via growth (Wallerstein,
logue between the two. In addition, a postcolonial 1994). In this sense, Wallerstein (1994) argues that
geography, which involves close attention to iden- development can be a ‘lodestar’ for the hopes and
tity, culture and subjectivity, will have an important dreams of social movements rather than just a dis-
role to play in the way we seek to understand place- tant illusion. Quiet encroachments and collective
specific identities and practices. There is now a insubordinations of various kinds and in various
much wider recognition among social scientists of places have shown that there are alternatives and
the multiple and unstable nature of identities and new concepts of growth and progress are being
their constant reconstruction in the development fashioned through practices of various kinds every
process (Munck, 1999). Geographers are well day.

2 1 8
10
Conclusions
resis ting the temptations of remedies, mirages and fair y-tales

Once you grasp this, once you understand that neoliberalism is not a force like gravity but a totally
artificial construct, you can also understand that what some people have created, other people can
change.
(George, 2001: 7)

TOWA R D S 2 0 1 5 lenges and opportunities), while sub-Saharan Africa

is cloaked in the now familiar guise of endemic
The CIA report, Global Trends 2015, warns of the disease:
dangers associated with the polarisation between
winners and losers in the first fifteen years of the The interplay of demographics and disease – as
twenty-first century. It talks about the forecast well as poor governance – will be the major
global economic boom (compared with that of the determinants of Africa’s increasing marginaliza-
1960s and 1970s) and argues that there is a growing tion by 2015. . . . Conditions for economic devel-
global middle class which is now ‘two billion strong’ opment in sub-Saharan Africa are limited by the
(CIA, 2000: 22). The basic trend towards the expan- persistence of conflicts, poor political leadership
sion of international trade is seen in the report as and endemic corruption, and uncertain weather
both inevitable and inexorable and we are told that conditions.
there are real risks of emerging market countries (CIA, 2000: 45)
and economies ‘falling’ behind, save for a few pos-
sible ‘breakout candidates’ (CIA, 2000: 22) such as This marginalisation, however, is not seen as
China and India that might manage to escape this related to the functioning of the world economy, to
prescribed scenario. Great swathes of the globe the neoliberal strategies of organisations such as the
are seen as characterised by ‘endemic’ corruption World Bank or to the action of powerful states such
and political instability which is not regarded as as the USA. These countries ‘lag behind’, so this
the product of foreign interventions but of inter- argument follows, simply because of their failure to
nal breakdowns or autocracy (particularly in the pursue certain kinds of reforms or even because of
Middle East and North Africa). Growth will be un- the weather rather than as a result of the failures of
even, it is recognised, and liberalisation and global- multilateral institutions and their preoccupations
isation will inevitably ‘create bumps in the road’ with ‘free trade’ and markets. We have seen that
which may be highly disruptive. The possibility of the IFIs disseminate an economistic view of devel-
instability and turmoil spreading (from Russia to opment and adopt rather problematic and highly
Brazil) is also recognised in the report, with the US contradictory concepts of indigenous knowledge,
economy identified as ‘the most important driver participation and empowerment. Like many other
of recent global growth’ (CIA, 2000: 24). actors in the global development industry today, the
Middle-Eastern states are rather problematically Bank claims to be working in partnership with poor
portrayed by the CIA as sharing a singular, com- countries, ‘facilitating’ strategies which are ‘country-
mon view of globalisation (which sees more chal- driven’ and ‘country-owned’ wherever they go.

2 1 9
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Figure 10.2 Time for the UN to act to sustain global development

Source: Adam Lee and The Straits Times (Singapore)

cial support for the Bank, campaigners for reform

of the IFIs should lobby to move the organisation
since ‘after decades of interest payments many
Southern capitals could use the cash’ (BWP, May/
June 2002: 6). Strangely, at the G-8 summit in West-
ern Canada in June 2002 reform of the IFIs failed
to even make the agenda.
What is particularly interesting about the largest
global development agencies and their vision of
progress and positive change is the way in which
they are based on particular kinds of imagined
geographies of global difference and notions of
‘backward’, ‘underdeveloped’, ‘developing’ or
‘Third World’ countries. The debates of the 1960s
and 1970s about radical geography seem to offer
important beginnings here in formulating a critique
of these visions and imaginations in that they
incorporated a call for new relations between what
Buchanan (1977b: 366) called the ‘director’ and
Figure 10.1 Smart aid or smart bombs? ‘directed’ societies:
Source: CWS and Zetterling
Social, economic and ecological crises in coun-
tries such as the USA or Japan, conventionally
Surely the best way, however, to illustrate a regarded in the past as demonstration models of
commitment to decentralising power and formulat- the success of orthodox GNP-oriented develop-
ing more localised ‘ownership’ of development ment . . . these things are strengthening the
would be to move the organisation’s capital from argument of those who believe a complete re-
Washington, DC? thinking of the development issue is long over-
It has been estimated that the World Bank gen- due. And until this re-thinking is done the export
erates US$2 billion in economic activity for the of dubious models of development to the Third
Washington, DC region every year (BWP, May/June World is simply an act of irresponsible arrogance.
2002). These figures include some US$851 million (Buchanan, 1977b: 374–375)
paid to nearly 14,000 employees, consultants and
contractors and some US$217 million paid for Thus arguably this ‘irresponsible arrogance’ con-
goods and services. Clearly if the Bank left to go to tinues to shape development thinking today and as
another world capital there would be a ‘hue and cry’ such we might consider rejecting the formulae of
about the loss of jobs and income, but it would what Buchanan called the ‘dirty word’ of develop-
confirm the Bank’s willingness to base itself and its ment and its prescriptions aimed at ‘Third World
ideologies in other kinds of places and spaces. If the patients’. Radical geographers such as Buchanan
US Congress again threatens to suspend its finan- have refocused attention on individual human

2 2 0
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

beings as agents, envisioning ‘development as liber- basket are modest’ (Yapa, 2002: 36). The issue then
ation’ (an idea popular in Latin America when he is not that GNP, for example, as a measure of ‘pro-
was writing). Others have asked important ques- gress’ is fundamentally flawed (as has been more
tions about development ‘for whom’ and ‘for what’, than amply demonstrated in the literature) but
criticising the role of ‘experts’ and the technocratic rather that it is so frequently and unconsciously pre-
solutions they put forward, while refusing the idea sumed that access to per capita income will lead to
that development was about economic growth only particular patterns of consumption and to certain
and about ‘becoming some sort of replica of the kinds of goods associated with the historical experi-
developed societies’ (Buchanan, 1977b: 366). ences of a few.
Buchanan and others have also noted the confusing In an important book entitled Toward 2000,
and misleading nature of development and its per- Raymond Williams (1983) looks at the linkages
sistent failure, in some conceptions, to get to the between the cardinal points East–West and North–
root causes. Today this deception is more extreme South, acknowledging the extent to which, despite
than ever. its limitations, the concept of the three worlds has
Nearly forty years after Weisskopf (1964) dramatically focused attention on the ‘appalling
described the myth of a growing GNP as a dogma, facts of contemporary poverty’. Although the ‘three
a shibboleth, a golden calf and a centre of worship, worlds’ schema involves dramatic simplifications
few measures of growth, change and development and a number of simple pictures and images of
seem able to capture the diversity and multiplicity development, these are important beginnings:
of meanings and objectives involved in develop-
ment debates. Much is said about population Whether we are thinking of ‘the Third World’ or
growth in the ‘Third World’, but the consumption of of ‘The South’, it matters very much whether we
four-fifths of the Earth’s resources by one-fifth of its are seeing a blocked and generalised poverty, or a
population ‘remains largely unproblematised’ more complex system . . . there are not only rad-
(Yapa, 2002: 36). There are thus severe ecological ical but operative differences between the ‘newly
limits to the universal attainment of the good life industrialising countries’ (from South Korea to
predicted by certain models of development (with Brazil) and the OPEC oil producing countries,
its assumption that all consumers aspire to ‘western’ the strategic-mineral and cash-crop economies
affluence). Even the ‘champagne glass of inequality’ and . . . the most desperately poor and disadvan-
referred to by the UN points to certain kinds of taged peoples.
western consumption. The point here is that the (Williams, 1983: 203)
poor are so often ‘examined, judged and found
wanting because the contents of their consumption Thus the image of a ‘blocked’ and ‘generalised’
world of poverty ‘matters very much’ to the way we
distinguish economic and political difference
between countries. Major internal variations of

Figure 10.3 Poster advertising a ‘Buy Nothing Day’ Figure 10.4 Aids in Africa is swept under the cartographic contin-
(November 2001) ental carpet
Source: Image courtesy of [Link] (2002) Source: Cartoon by M. Keefe for Aids Africa

2 2 1
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

income and power further complicate these dramas Other Davos, in that it also aims to amplify the
and simplicities. Writing some twenty years ago, voices of those who are protesting against the struc-
Williams noted the sustained and ‘often reckless’ tural injustices of the current economic system in
development of an international credit economy order to raise awareness of the possibility of think-
(with commercial banks lining up to provide capital ing and planning the future differently. The Other
to ‘boost’ and ‘stimulate’ growth), and pointed out Davos refers to a meeting of social movements from
how the pressures for a continuing adaptation to different parts of the world that met in Davos in
‘externally conceived development’ were immense January 1999 at the time of the WEF meeting there,
(Williams, 1983: 207). In this way it may be seen that laying down some ideas and guidelines for the con-
development is inherently ideological rather than struction of networks of solidarity and collective
the natural, unfolding, evolving process it is some- action. These included the MST from Brazil, a trade
times seen as. This in turn ‘naturalises’ the process union group (PICIS) from South Korea, the
by which hierarchies are created and countries come National Federation of Farmworkers Organiza-
to be naturally seen as ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘devel- tions (FENOP) from Burkina Faso, the Women’s
oping’ according to predefined and prescribed Movement from Quebec and the Movement of the
models and histories. This also involves a natural- Unemployed from France (Houtart, 2001).
isation of borders and boundaries between ‘devel-
oping countries’, a downplaying of their fluidity
and contested nature as markers of cultural and GEOGRAPHIES OF
historical difference between states. In the global N E O L I B E R A L I S AT I O N
capitalist economy, but also in many actual and
proposed alternatives to it, the ‘idea of growth’ is Neoliberalism concentrates its efforts in three main
continually taken for granted ‘as the sovereign rem- areas: free trade in goods and services, the free cir-
edy for all existing economic inequalities’ (Williams, culation of capital and freedom of investment.
1983: 213). Thus there are ‘sovereign remedies’ Neoliberal agencies are very good at defining the
which reign at particular moments in time and for economic ‘winners’ but have far less to say about
many countries of the world through the disciplin- the losers: ‘to whom nothing in particular is owed’
ary power of the largest agencies. Thus what is (George, 2001: 15). In some ways neoliberal dis-
needed is a deliberalisation of development and a courses have changed the very nature of politics,
denaturalisation of the nebulous phenomenon that where exclusion is normalised and naturalised as
is neoliberalism, often seen as natural a force as acceptable and as part and parcel of transformation
gravity itself (George, 2001). or the inevitable ‘bumps on the road’ to progress. At
The changes involved in rethinking development the centre of the debate therefore is a liberalism
practice are so substantial and resistance from which sees competition as fundamental to success-
existing interests will be so certain and powerful ful development, a competition between nations,
that nobody can suppose that this will be anything regions, places or firms and between individuals.
but a very long and complex struggle (Williams, Competition works, neoliberal advocates argue,
1983). New forms of alliance and political and because it separates the ‘sheep from the goats, the
transnational labour struggles have begun to men from the boys, the fit from the unfit’ (George,
emerge but they remain disparate and in some cases 2001). The public sector has a limited role to play
incoherent. According to the WSF, people are here since it is seen as unable to obey the central law
organising resistance and engaging in struggles in of competing for profits. Alternative concepts of
order to create alternatives to such a scenario: growth, progress and even development itself may
well be forthcoming and result from these conversa-
Some are rebuilding knowledge on the basis of tions and dialogues. As we have seen, new ideas and
experiences of struggle, some are trying out new perspectives are being fashioned every day in and
economic forms, some are creating the basis of a through place-based identities and practices by
new kind of politics, and some are inventing new peoples across the South in multiple ways where
cultures. It is time to build on people’s resistance. development concepts and practices are continually
(WSF, 2001: 122, emphasis added) resisted and remade.
The IFIs continue to concentrate on building the
This book partly takes its lead from the WSF, the same model of a ‘steady state’ in the imaginary

2 2 2
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

2 2 3
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

space of the Third World (as obtains in the core) century a language of friends and ‘foes’ has been
which, as we have seen, is deeply problematic for all (re)invented, along a continuum or order and ‘sta-
sorts of reasons. Governance-related conditionali- bility’ that is defined from without, by ‘western’ pol-
ties from the donor and aid community overwhelm- itical leaders. By no means should we be tempted to
ingly dominate the agendas of the international see the ‘western’ state as a finished project however,
development architecture. Consequently (and not especially given all the problems and contradictions
for the first time) there has been a tendency to com- in the idea of being ‘western’. There are many prob-
pare the capabilities of postcolonial states with lems then with representing the dominant idea and
those of ‘western’ countries. The popular diagnosis practice of development as western instead of
which follows is that development aid and assist- something more specific such as ‘liberal’ (Berger,
ance can perform a transplant of the conditions and 2001). Deconstructive engagements with develop-
processes at work in donor countries and in the ‘civ- ment discourse have also shown how difficult it is to
ilised’ West. Once again postcolonial states are move outside and extricate ourselves from the idea
rudely abstracted from their specific socio-political and image of development as ‘western’. As
contexts, as their histories are denied and over- Mohammed Ayoob (1995) argues, the assumption
looked in search of the holy mantra of ‘good is that security-building in the ‘Third World’ is
governance’. necessary because of the lack of ‘adequate state-
A postcolonial critique of these discourses would ness’ that is seen to be found in the non-western
seek to illustrate how the pressure for ‘good gov- world. New conceptions of security are required
ernment’ is partly a legacy of the late colonial that move beyond the simplistic labels of ‘core’/
period and of emergent discourses of developmen- ‘periphery’, ‘First World’/‘Third World’ but rather
talism in the age of decolonisation. Writing in 1967, seek to blur and disrupt these artificial geographical
John Lee argued that the national development imaginings and boundaries. This is not a simple or
‘project’ emerging in Britain between the 1930s and straightforward project since so many Cold War dis-
1960s (and its emerging concern for ‘good govern- courses of geopolitics balkanised knowledge about
ments’) was an outgrowth of the late colonial era in international politics, annexing them into a range
Asia and Africa (Lee, 1967). During this period, the of separate disciplinary specialisms, including
idea of development was used increasingly as a development geography:
framework for metropolitan policy interventions
which claimed to be improving living standards Hence the importance of opening analysis up to
while relegitimating Empire (Berger, 2001). Britain the different processes of state formation and his-
could advise India on what was constituted by ‘good torical circumstances constitutive of various
governance’, so it was argued, since the metropole post-colonial states, thereby considering different
was truly enlightened and its democracy firmly forms rather than obscuring diverse trajectories
entrenched. The idea of good government here was of state formation.
central to the creation of modern subjects. Hence, (Bilgin and Morton, 2002: 73)
as Gupta (1998) argues, some strands of decolon-
isation discourses in India held that national devel- All too often the diversity of paths to development
opment involved ‘mimicking’ the historical trajec- or ‘trajectories’ towards the good life are obscured
tory of the former imperial ruler. This assumption by the reconstituted ‘Sinatra Doctrine’ of neoliber-
that development involves a mimicry or replication alism, founded as it is on the classical tenets of
of something that already exists has been common (European) Enlightenment rationality. In this sense
and is related very much to the way in which the we might follow the suggestion of Jean-Francis
‘metaphor of development gave global hegemony to Bayart (1991), who has argued that it is necessary to
a purely Western genealogy of history’ (Esteva, dispense with the idea of the ‘Third World’ by
1992: 9). Thus postcolonial geographies of devel- focusing instead on the specific historic trajectories
opment are partly about challenging the hegemony of postcolonial states and explorations of their
of these ‘purely’ western histories. interactions with different societies and cultures.
A whole variety of patronising references are More direct connections need to be made between
made continually in contemporary development human security issues (as in the US relationship
discourses to ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ states and even with Colombia) and wider development issues and
‘failed states’. At the beginning of the twenty-first concerns, relating to social, cultural and economic

2 2 4
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

processes. In this sense it becomes possible to turn

the IFIs’ notion of failure around on itself. As
Bilgin and Morton (2002: 63) have argued, rarely is
the question asked ‘Who has failed the “failed
state?” ’ Perhaps, therefore, rather than focus on
‘failed states’, increased attention should be given to
the ‘failed universalisation’ of the ‘imported state
within the post-colonial world’ (Bilgin and Morton,
2002: 75).
This then is a key issue here: rather than repre-
senting the absence of ‘development’ as the con-
sequence of a failure to obtain adequate statehood
in the eyes of a select band of ‘democracies’ (them-
selves forged over much longer time periods), the
objective therefore must be to ask questions about
why the universalisation of a particular model of
statehood or development has failed. There is such
enormous and apparent faith in the idea that polit-
ical democratisation is the corollary and the founda-
tion of economic liberalisation and social justice,
yet these ‘democracies’ often have little to offer in
terms of the active redistribution of wealth. More-
over, it is as if the World Bank and IMF themselves
are seen to be in no need of a dose of their own
medicine, as if they are wholly democratic, plural-
istic and open institutions engaged closely with civil
societies and communities everywhere. The reality is
surely altogether different, with all the silences and
absences in their annual writing of global develop-
ment ‘progress’, such as in the WDR, which ignore
a whole range of crucial debates about sovereignty,
political participation, class, gender and disability
(among others). No account is seen as necessary of
how a postcolonial state is formed or constituted
and limited consideration is given to each country’s
historical involvement with international political
discourses. These issues are dismissed as too Figure 10.5 The IMF: Helping the poor from above
abstract and ‘complex’ to enter into the intellectual Source: Andrzej Krauze, Guardian, 28 March 2002
universe of the IFIs.
Concepts of ‘rogue’ states (also known as ‘out-
law’ and ‘backlash’ states’) have dominated a great than from serious security concerns’ (Zoubir, 2002:
deal of the international development communities’ 33). The USA has accordingly expected the rest of
thinking on the Middle East, a trend which has the world to isolate these rogues by severing com-
intensified considerably in the wake of the terrorist mercial ties, imposing multilateral sanctions and
attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. embargoes and hampering the military and techno-
Except for Cuba and North Korea, most of the logical potential of these states. Middle-Eastern and
‘rogue’ states defined by successive US administra- North African countries can thus be forced to co-
tions are Muslim (Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria), with operate with the US geopolitical agenda, ‘including
Iran being the only non-Arab country among the pro-Israeli interpretations of the Middle East peace
group. The rationale for the emergence of the rogue- process’ (Zoubir, 2002: 37). UN sanctions on rogue
state doctrine stemmed ‘more from fears of budget states (such as Libya) have severely affected the
cuts following the vanishing of the Soviet threat development of these countries, as many Libyans,

2 2 5
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Figure 10.6 So many evildoers, so little time!

Source: Beattie: Atlantic Syndication

Cubans and Iraqis would attest. UN sanctions have

also taken a ‘tragic toll’ in Libya, costing the
country an estimated US$19 billion and leading to
some 21,000 deaths since their imposition in 1992, a
US$5.9 billion shortfall in national agriculture and
a major decline in the Libyan economy and in
standards of living (Zoubir, 2002: 38).
Countries that dare to reject US hegemony in
their region or are opposed to US and other foreign
interests and presence are isolated and punished in
this way, yet somehow are expected to liberalise and
develop their economies. In announcing a new tied
package after the UN Summit in Monterrey in Figure 10.7 Peace in the Middle East, 1989
2002, President Bush argued that ‘liberty and law Source: UN Department of Public Information
and opportunity are the conditions of development’
(cited in BBC, 22 March 2002). The relationship
between declining volumes of US foreign assistance
and the rising budget for the Department of Home-
land Security is complex but important in rethink-
ing ‘development’ and its geographies. It follows
that if the emphasis is on smart bombs rather than
smart aid, international development will continue
to occupy a low priority for the US state unless it
relates directly to the security of the US homeland
(Zuza, 2002). US aid programmes to the Middle
East will become the object of increasing scrutiny
and attention in the years ahead however. It remains
to be seen how this relates to the war on terrorism
which may mean that the USA will focus its spend-
Figure 10.8 The Parikrama begins with Didi offering prayers to
ing on foreign aid around unilateral concerns and
the Goddess Narmada. The Parikrama is an old tradition in which
priorities. It also remains unclear how these wars people living on the banks of the Narmada River get an opportunity
against terrorism will affect the World Bank’s con- to come out of their homes and mix with people from various com-
ditionality policies and Bretton Woods financing munities and get to know the different facets of their culture
more generally. Source: NBA

2 2 6
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

How do these countries go from rogue and out- inheritance of the colonial era, was the ‘poisoned
law status to adequate statehood in the eyes of the gift of national liberation’ at the same time as ‘the
world’s most powerful countries? The answers are nation’ became the prescribed, if not ‘the only
far from clear but will continue to pose recurrent way to imagine community’.
dilemmas for the meaning of international devel- (Berger, 2001a: 225, emphasis in original)
opment in the twenty-first century. The neglect of
Middle-Eastern geographies of development there- Thus the imagination of development and the
fore needs to be halted. As Chaudhry (1997: 29) imagination of the nation have been closely inter-
says of Saudi Arabia and Yemen, in ‘general discus- twined in a variety of spaces and places since 1945.
sions of political economy’ these are ‘two of the Even in the Soviet bloc of socialist regimes, the
least studied cases on record’. By widening the nation was seen as the natural unit of development
compass a little it is possible to engage this ‘region’ and the state was seen as the key in the struggle for
in a wider variety of debates about the meaning of modernity, to the extent of trying to achieve a ‘mim-
development and its principal agents. The case of icry’ of the economic achievements of the capitalist
Saudi Arabia, for example, offers a perspective on powers (Dirlik, 1994). What is particularly interest-
the origins or invention of these ideas about the [oil] ing about many debates concerning national and
firms as ‘agents of development’ (Vitalis, 2002: 186). international development today is that many
By looking at such cases there is much we can learn people are claiming exclusion from the imagined
about oil politics or neocolonialism today (relevant communities of development as the basis of their
also in the Niger Delta, for example), about ‘emer- cultural and political autonomy. In this way mar-
ging markets’ and the formation of states and state ginalised groups can make a virtue out of necessity
planning agencies. How indeed is it possible to by profiting from the fact that they are not allowed
understand the world economy or the role of the to share in the booty of ‘development’ (Rist, 1997).
USA in world politics and in shaping international In this way we can draw on the experiences of social
development discourses without reference to such movements, exploring the forms of social and spa-
countries? It is crucial, however, not to ascribe to the tial linkages that have been developed as new ways
Middle East a false unity when there is such polit- of securing an existence.
ical and economic diversity. There is thus no single In a way these varied resistances have often high-
Islam but several, just as there are different Ameri- lighted the ‘blindspots’ of development discourses
cas. ‘Islam’ and ‘the West’, as Said (2002) argues, and the overwhelming dominance of economistic
are inadequate banners to follow blindly and they approaches. This means that organisations such as
must not be allowed to obscure interdependent his- the World Bank proclaim, for example, to be cogni-
tories of injustice and oppression. The events of sant of gender, disability and other ‘social’ relations
2001 and the emergence of the global war on terror- but only ever in a rather limited, shallow and quite
ism illustrate how development discourses are ‘instrumental’ sense:
dynamic and influenced by changing geopolitical
circumstances. The only arguments that the Bank puts forward
A range of perspectives on development have to rationalize its interest in gender issues are gen-
been explored here, including those of the Asian erally of an economic order: investing in women
and African leaders who came to power in the 1950s is profitable, hence justified. Carried away by its
and 1960s, taking over the newly formed colonial focus on the economic, the Bank has undertaken
development projects established by imperial econometric analyses in several areas on the rate
powers in the dying days of colonialism and inherit- of return on investment in programmes promot-
ing the long-standing machinery of the colonial ing women.
states. The role of the state is crucial to rethinking (Bessis, 2001: 19, emphasis added)
development today and this means considering the
possibility of other ways of imagining community: Thus the Bank (and many other sections of the
international development business) is fond of
the terms on which the newly sovereign nation- econometric analyses, becoming carried away in the
states in Asia and Africa were both consolidated, process. PRSP processes, for example, have been
and then incorporated into the wider global characterised by a lack of transparency and
order, ensured that the ‘state’, often a direct accountability (to use the Bank’s favoured parlance)

2 2 7
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

as these crucial documents have generally been the ‘vulture capitalists’ and the UN meeting con-
scripted by an ‘inner circle from the Finance Minis- cluded with the recommendation that western coun-
try and the Bank’ (BWP, May/June 2002: 5). ‘Civil tries (reflecting their trusteeship and tutelage roles
societies’, as the IFIs like to call them, have been in the South) should provide legal support and
(tokenistically) asked for their input on the targets technical assistance to allow the countries affected
necessary to ensure poverty reduction but they are (such as Ethiopia, Peru, Bolivia and Nicaragua) to
far from being meaningfully involved in truly open fight their court battles. The point here is that these
discussions about how to achieve these aims and cases would never go to court in a world economy
objectives or about the desirability of alternatives in that had no place for ‘vultures’ of this kind. Fur-
each country. This is always off-limits for the Bank ther, why is it that the notion of trusteeship con-
and the Fund. Linking bilateral and multilateral aid tinues to shape the view of western states towards
to each country’s ‘compliance’ with these IFI- poverty, poor people and distant others? This image
scripted poverty reduction strategies has exerted of a vulture seizing upon weak and defenceless vic-
enormous pressure on recipient states. As we have tims and intensifying their decay (without resist-
seen, a key aspect of these debates is the need for ance) has also been a recurring theme in debates
‘ownership’ and ‘empowerment’. If this was really about ‘Third World’ others.
meaningful in the eyes of the international devel- We have seen how institutions such as the IMF and
opment community, then voting power at the IFIs World Bank engage in a kind of paradigm mainten-
would be based on democratic rather than eco- ance (Wade, 1996) fashioning the truth and telling
nomic considerations, such as population size stories about development successes and failures.
(Dowden, 2002). The Bank or Fund would then be The success of the East Asian economies in the
dominated by China or India and might operate 1970s and 1980s was seen as a model that could be
quite differently as a result. replicated and should be followed and imitated in
In 2002 UK Chancellor Gordon Brown called for Africa because it is ‘the most successful model for
urgent action to clamp down on ‘vulture funds’ – development that humanity has ever generated’,
financial institutions that buy up the debt of poor leading to the ‘biggest reduction in poverty for the
countries at knock-down prices and use the Courts largest number of people that humanity has ever
to extract payment in full with interest. The activ- generated’ (Clare Short MP, quoted in Dowden,
ities of ‘vulture’ funds have come to prominence 2002: 3). The Bank’s rendition of what it takes to
following the success of Elliott Associates – a New progress is backed up by a multi-million public rela-
York-based hedge fund – in a legal battle against the tions campaign which seeks to popularise and legit-
government of Peru. Elliott Associates paid US$11 imate these explanations (e.g. of why East Asian
million (£7.5 million) in 1996 on the secondary economies took the Rostovian take-off towards des-
market to buy US$20 million of Peru’s debt and then tination ‘good life’). Their knowledge will quench
sued for full repayment plus recapitalised interest the darkness of poverty and poor countries and
(Guardian, 6 May 2002: 17). At a UN meeting of finally slay the dragon of backwardness. The dom-
world finance leaders, Brown criticised the vulture inance of modernisation thinking and modernisa-
funds as a distraction from the global campaign for tion geographies is crucial to the very operation of
poverty eradication because they were diverting such institutions.
much needed capital resources away from poverty
reduction strategies into the coffers of western
banks. Heavily indebted countries, caught up in the IMAGINING A POST-DEVELOPMENT
‘cruel hoax’ of the HIPC, are being drawn into ERA
courts around the world by these banks as they seek
to extract their pound of flesh, but to focus on only A concern with the imagination of a post-
these kinds of funds (and not on the wider processes development era should not be pilloried but under-
of capitalist exploitation) simply obscures the real stood for what it can suggest about the powerful
and pressing problems at hand. The World Bank also nature of this organising principle of social life. The
shares the UK chancellor’s fear that commercial ‘nihilism of post-development’ (Hart, 2001: 654)
banks are undermining their own debt ‘relief’ strat- has been seen by many as extreme and reactionary.
egies and the force of their own prescriptions. There For some, these critiques have run their course and
are no existing mechanisms whatsoever for tackling serve only to take us further down a ‘cul-de-sac’ in

2 2 8
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

development thinking. In addition, there has been a ging them and making the world a better place (Peet
concern that such writings do not confront ques- with Hartwick, 1999: 12).
tions of capitalist development and ignore the For some geographers, a critical modernism and
‘multiply inflected capitalisms that have gone into critical developmentalism is possible here (Peet with
the making of globalization’ (Hart, 2001: 651). Hartwick, 1999: 209). This approach is concerned
Although the post-development approach focuses not just to discard development but to think about
on very particular kinds of social movement and how to replace it with something better, as a ‘uni-
the occasionally vague notion of ‘alternative devel- versal, liberating activity’ (Peet with Hartwick,
opment’, there is none the less a welcome recentring 1999: 209). This approach tries to go beyond the
of ‘local’ knowledge and practices which seeks to neglect of the material realities of deprivation in
ground global development in the embedded, in post-development writings and foregrounds prac-
particular places and localities. Critics have also tice and action rather than representation. What is
suggested that post-development writers present an particularly useful about this approach is that it
over-generalised and essentialised view of reality seeks to differentiate various types of developmen-
and that they romanticise local traditions, con- talism rather than seeing all forms as inherently
structing new kinds of ‘Thirdworldist’ mythology. ‘bad’ and negative. In some ways, the same is true
Perhaps a more important point here, however, con- for development geography in that there have
cerns the failings of some post-development writ- already been critical forms of developmentalist
ings to understand the embeddedness of the local in geographies, as we have seen, which can provide the
the global or in playing down ongoing contestation foundations for radicalising the study of develop-
of development ‘on the ground’. These disagree- ment today. These stem from important traditions
ments are in great part a consequence of ‘contrast- of opposition to development and an emphasis on
ing paradigmatic orientations (liberal, Marxist or the various trajectories of dependent societies (e.g.
poststructuralist)’ (Escobar, 2000b: 12). Writers of a in Marxism). This would therefore involve a dia-
Marxist persuasion have been particularly critical logue with these critical traditions of Marxist,
(see Corbridge, 1995; Pieterse, 1998, 2000; Kiely, feminist and post-structural critiques and would
1999). retain a belief ‘in the potential, rather than the pres-
In many ways, post-development writings pick up ent practice, of development’. In addition, this kind
on themes raised in the works of anti-colonial of development geography would also seek to com-
writers such as Cabral, Fanon, Freire or Nyerere bine popular discourses of social movements with
and draw inspiration from the insights of the the liberating ideas of modernism (Peet with Hart-
dependency scholars and Foucault which cannot be wick, 1999: 198). To an extent, this seems useful in
so casually dismissed (Escobar, 2000b). More that it recognises that ethical, critical and political
recently, Escobar’s work has taken on a much more principles are necessary in helping to form linkages
geographical concern with ‘place-based practices’, and connections between movements and places
calling for a ‘reassertion of place, non-capitalism and in understanding the connections and similar-
and culture’. In response to his critics Escobar notes ities between struggles in different but similar con-
that it is interesting that many are white male aca- texts. The key question here, however, is the extent to
demics in the North, arguing that the post- which developmentalism may be seen as a ‘mode of
development movement has been at least more progressive thought’ which has long contained crit-
diverse at this level, including men and women from ical versions and not always been negative (despite
both the North and the South, living and working its centrality to the ideology and new religion of
in both the North and South (Escobar, 2000b: 13). neoliberalism). Is the development paradigm at its
The post-development ‘project’ seeks, in part, the ‘last gasp’ (Rist, 1997)?
reclaiming and pluralisation of modernity and its Regardless of the answer to this question, critical
complex genealogies. In this sense we might also approaches to the study of modernism and modern-
explore the possibility of learning to live with isation theory will continue to remain crucially rel-
development by criticising and changing it rather evant to the study of (neoliberal) development
than by simply rejecting and discarding it. Perhaps today. Modernisation saw modern institutional
‘modernism is discarded too easily’ in that at least organisations and rational behaviours arriving in
critical modernism had a concern for examining the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe, seeing a
causes of material differences with a view to chan- related spreading of social progress and rational

2 2 9
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

action from efficient development institutions (Peet Eurocentrism, why are we still worshipping at the
with Hartwick, 1999: 14). In particular the critique altar of western Enlightenment ideals? As Rist
of modernisation geography is useful and insightful argues: ‘Whereas “development” offered hope, the
in interrogating the explanation of regional vari- rejection of “development” produces new wealth’
ations in development in terms of diffusion, ‘from (Rist, 1997: 248).
the originating cores of modern institutions and All this involves preparing the ground for ‘post-
rationalised practices’ (Peet with Harwick, 1999: development’, which should not be confused with
14). These authors are thus cautious of the ex- anti-development, since to want something different
tremist tendencies of post-development but still see does not mean simply doing the opposite. Admit-
in it one potential way of relearning to view and tedly, such approaches raise many more questions
reassess the realities of communities around the about development than they answer, but they do
world. Even the post-development approaches can push for new ways of understanding ‘that do not
be deconstructed themselves for what they reveal reproduce the centrality of Western ways of creat-
about the way development works implicitly ing the world’ (Escobar, 2002a: 195). My point then
through our assumptions and worldviews. is not that we should all sign up to some singular
How then should geographers seek to view and post-development perspective but rather to point up
conceptualise the social, political and economic a wider need to imagine a ‘post-development’ era so
autonomy of marginalised societies? In a way this as ‘to carve out a clearing for thinking other
depends on whether one is hopeful or optimistic that thoughts, seeing other things, writing other lan-
international economic and trade systems and rela- guages’ (Escobar, 2002a: 199).
tions will be fundamentally changed and reorgan- Focusing on questions about a ‘global sense of
ised in the near future. For Rist (1997) the initiatives place’ in development (Massey, 1992) on social rela-
of those excluded from development (e.g. in social tions and on the connections between places (with-
movements) are to be preferred to the ‘anyway out denying their specificity) is at the centre of such
impossible’ transformation of international struc- an agenda. Further study of exchange phenomena
tures. My own feeling is that it is necessary to go a is also needed so that we do not focus exclusively on
little further than a reinvented critical modernism by the hegemonic idea of the market and begin instead
aiming instead to ‘shatter the religious structure that to further understand the mutually constitutive
protects ‘development’ ’ (Rist, 1997: 245). A good nature of development processes. This also involves
example of this is the reluctance of Peet with Hart- interrogating the spatiality of development and a
wick (1999) to concede the term ‘progress’. This mapping of the apparatus of ‘knowledge–power’ as
mystical, religious structure of protection derives its well as a different kind of concern for those ‘doing
very authority from developmentalism (however the developing’ (Ferguson, 1990; Escobar, 2002).
critical) and the notion of organic, naturalised pro- The need for the dissemination of other languages
cesses of growth. The theorisation of post- is important here since ‘development talk’ (Sachs,
development is a pressing task in this regard. It may 1992: 1) pervades not only in official declarations but
seem blasphemous to say this, but the critical mod- also in the languages of grassroots organisations.
ernism perspective almost reproduces the arguments It is also important to understand how develop-
of the first generation of postcolonial leaders such ment is about the production of stories and narra-
as Nehru or Nkrumah who suggested that colonial tives (which has come with the turn to discourse),
state machineries could be made to work for the but these will remain just stories and narratives
people, if only they were imbued with different pur- unless there is a greater engagement with the polit-
poses and perspectives, or were instead steered by ical and the material (Watts, 2000), and greater dis-
nationalist movements. Perhaps what is necessary cussion of alternative stories and narrations of geo-
therefore is some distance from development in order graphical or economic difference. Corbridge (1999)
to effectively challenge some of the supposedly also warns of the dangers of excessive concentra-
given and self-evident ideas of economism. Thus if tion on the discursive aspects of development which
post-development critiques are about stripping the focus attention away from the materiality of
walls before putting fresh paint on, what point is social problems and the ‘very real successes’ that we
there in redecorating the edifice with the same col- might associate with development since 1950. This
our scheme? To put it another way, if geographies of is an important point but it ignores a key assertion
development were once characterised by a pious of post-development writings, namely that the ‘suc-

2 3 0
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

cesses’ of development and their definition are conceiving and reconstructing the world from the
socially constructed and have a particular spatiality. perspective of, and along with, those subaltern
The cultural politics of post-development thus groups that continue to enact a cultural politics
has to begin with the everyday lives and struggles of of difference as they struggle to defend their
real groups of people, such as women (Fagan, places, ecologies and cultures.
1999). This reminds us that these debates need to be (Escobar, 2000b: 14)
grounded in a concern for the materiality of dis-
cursive formations. A common problem of the cri- This politics of difference, as it emerges from
tiques of post-development writings is that they use struggles in particular places, is an important theme
the either/or language of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ notions in rethinking development and its contested geog-
of development. In this sense we must be mindful of raphies. Despite the postmodern beginnings of such
the effect of our distance from those whom we write a concern, this should not be seen as incompatible
about. Escobar’s concerns are indeed inspiring and with a concern for material differences and
do not seem to discard, out of hand, the utopian inequalities.
possibility of reimagining other worlds. This work
seems to suggest that it is necessary to map out the
multiplicity of these journeys of the imagination,
rethinking the cultural politics of difference in a D E C O L O N I S AT I O N A N D
more co-operative and collective way. No approach DEVELOPMENT (GEOGRAPHY):
is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ here and what is important for B E YO N D T R U S T E E S H I P
our purposes is the question of what enables and
provides the opportunity to take this journey in the Themes of cultural difference and identity tend not
first place: to be a feature of many undergraduate textbooks on
the subject of development. In this way there is evi-
For me, this is a journey of the imagination, a dence of the ‘academic socialisation’ of geography
dream about the utopian possibility of re- students into particular models of thinking about
the ‘less developed world’ (Yapa, 2002). In one US
textbook on ‘development’ (Fisher et al., 1995) the
authors divided the world into ‘more’ and ‘less’
developed realms, tapping into a variety of binaries
and divides (developed/underdeveloped, non-prob-
lem/problem, knowing-subject/needy-object, indus-
trialised/non-industrialised), with the first term in
each binary opposite seen as the primary and privil-
eged one (Yapa, 2002). Some introductory human
geography textbook representations of Africa also
seem somewhat fixated with notions of ‘tribes’ and
often generalise from highly localised geographies
which are ‘taken to stand for an entire continent’
(Myers, 2001: 523). A further device in many text-
books is to use images of mother–child suffering
which highlight helpless victims, thus reinforcing a
kind of ‘disaster discourse’ by showing ‘alarming
photographs of starving children, starving mothers,
desperate refugees, or charred human remains’
(Myers, 2001: 527). Some of the images are undigni-
fying to some of the people whom they seek to
(mis)represent, but more importantly they have mis-
led many generations of undergraduate geography
students around the world. The following section of
Figure 10.9 Middle East dartboard Lakshman Yapa’s critique is well worth quoting at
Source: Cartoon by M. Lane length here:

2 3 1
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

To the millions of people who live in Africa, countries), which is today one of the most unequal
China and India such photographs are a constant societies on Earth (George, 2001).
reminder of what they are not. Whatever else they The ‘socialisation’ of students in these binaries is
may be . . . is banished into oblivion by a univer- far from being unique to the US education system
salizing metric that rank orders peoples by the however, but has existed across the social sciences
average cash value of the nation’s market basket for nearly six decades now. Rethinking Development
of consumption. They are pitied, ‘wretched of Geographies attempts to offer something of a coun-
the earth’, living in the periphery of the world ter-narration, one which problematises all these
system . . . young American undergraduates . . . binaries and several others. The idea that peoples of
are told that Africans and Indians live in less the South may be considered rich in cultures and
developed countries. . . . Young as they are, they economies has been discussed as has the need to
know that they ‘rank’ higher than millions of highlight subjectivity and agency in meeting the
those ‘other’ people from underdeveloped coun- challenges posed by development and its absence. A
tries. . . . Furthermore, the discourse of the text powerful and enduring feature of many develop-
having created the less developed other, also rec- ment discourses has been the creation of an ‘Other’
reates the undergraduate reader in the image of to stand out against and be contrasted with the
the more developed self. ‘Anglo-American’, ‘western’ or ‘First World’. Thus
(Yapa, 2002: 43) a key question in future debates about development
geography is the extent to which it is possible to
Surely the use of such images must take some ‘think beyond’ and around the normative perspec-
responsibility for producing the patronising tive of the developed (Crush, 1995). In this respect
ethnocentric attitudes that societies learn to have it is vitally important to ‘de-familiarise the famil-
towards the people of Asia and Africa? There are iar’, to not accept ‘development’ as an automatic
a number of particularly crucial points that given, an end product which is self-evident and
Yapa’s intervention makes. First, we have this therefore unworthy of critical attention. This is not
pictorial reminder of what the poor ‘are not’. to argue that ‘language is all there is’, as Crush
Second, there is the pervasive influence of ‘univer- (1995: 5) points out, but rather to build on postco-
salising metrics’ which encourage students of lonial, feminist and post-structuralist critiques of
development (just as Walt Whitman had done in his development knowledge and to see what ‘develop-
anti-communist manifesto of the 1950s) to rank ment’ is and does in new ways, from new vantage
order the peoples of the world, to construct a points.
hierarchy of growth stages of global ‘civilisation’, What we can learn from this is that ‘patronising
viewed as degrees of democratisation or western- ethnocentric attitudes’ can and must be challenged
isation. Yapa powerfully illustrates how this met- and deconstructed in the process of rethinking
ric ordering of progress impresses upon ‘young development geographies. The World Regional
American undergraduates’ that they must be Approach that Yapa critiques re-creates an image of
higher up the global order of things than their the undergraduate reader in the reflection of the
Indian or African counterparts rather than seek- developed ‘western’ world with the USA at its
ing to make connections between the ideologies summit. The post-structural critique which Yapa
and practices which link the USA, India and (2002) brings to bear on this geo-writing of
Africa. Reading through debates about poverty in global development raises the possibility of think-
America, there is an overriding assumption that ing about social and spatial reality in a variety of
such poverty ought not to exist in the richest new ways. This book has sought to extend this con-
nation in the world and that it will be possible cern and in so doing hopes to build something of an
eventually to eradicate poverty as we know it ‘antiracist geography’ of development (Peake and
(Glasmeier, 2002: 161). According to US census Kobayashi, 2002), one that seeks to move beyond
data, some 11.7 per cent of the US labour force the colonialist heritage of development geography,
was born abroad, while immigration is up from to extent the bounds of disciplinary decolonisation
250,000 people a year in the 1950s to some one and to move away from racist images of an objecti-
million a year today (The Economist, 1 June fied other. This involves critiquing the privileging of
2002). In addition, poverty persists in the United whiteness in development geography but also
States (and in all other supposedly ‘developed’ exploring new forms of activism with new social

2 3 2
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

movements as genuine partners in research, centring that the club of the world’s richest countries can be
geographical practices ‘in the streets rather than in infinitely expanded, that eventually all latecomers
the academy’ (Peake and Kobayashi, 2002: 55). The will be able to join up or catch up with the party.
ways in which place-based identities shape our read- Postcolonial literatures offer a useful and much
ings and interpretations of racial difference and needed corrective to this way of thinking, aiming to
value or devalue spaces of cultural diversity are also re-centre development processes around notions of
relevant here. It is thus necessary to contest the way ‘time as lived’ (Mbembe, 2001) or to ground them in
in which development discourses engage in a social the consciousness of those subjected to develop-
construction of these differences, perpetuating them ment at all levels: local, national and international
and creating new spaces of exclusion. (Perry and Schenck, 2001). Only very recently, how-
Early ideas of development posited a whole set of ever, has the attention of postcolonial scholars
discourses about ‘latecomers’. These stories had it begun to focus on contemporary instances of

2 3 3
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

writings today is to mobilise resistance to certain

models of globalisation. For others, ‘what should be
addressed is not the postcolonial condition, but
post-Cold War capitalism’ (Berger, 2001: 222). Per-
haps it is possible to do both simultaneously? There
are numerous problems however, as we have seen,
with constructing capitalism as the central reference
point of development which holds sway everywhere
and always will (according to certain stories about
globalisation). Communities around the world,
despite the much vaunted global reach and penetra-
tive capabilities of capitalism and development,
have never allowed their identities to be completely
reshaped by these processes. Neither did they simply
surrender to development and ‘global capitalism’

Figure 10.10 We defend and destroy people we don’t understand

Source: © Protest Graphics

transnational organisation and protest (Boehmer

and Moore-Gilbert, 2002). Much more could be
said here about Seattle, Genoa, the Jubilee cam-
paign or the Fair Trade network or about the global
movement for reparations from slavery (central to
the agenda of the UN conference on racism in Dur-
ban, South Africa, in 2001). This does not only
involve political action and ‘taking to the streets’;
transnational resistance has been expressed through
new ideas, representations and sentiments, new cul-
tures, customs and habits.
We have seen that resistance to various forms of
western domination are not new but can be traced
to the struggles against colonialism, the writings of
anti-colonial writers such as Frantz Fanon, and the
establishment of the non-aligned movement, for
example. The political and cultural expressions of
transnational resistance thus have had a diversity of
historical and geographical forms (Boehmer and
Moore-Gilbert, 2002). For some writers on post-
colonialism (Ahmad, 1992; Dirlik, 2002) the most
pressing ethical and political duty of postcolonial

2 3 4
CONCLUSIONS
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

their indigenous models of economy or nature ment and this sense of relations over space. Geog-
(Escobar, 2002). raphers have shown that it is possible and necessary
Potter’s (2001b) call for geography to study to focus on the transformations of scale that occur
people and places in the ‘majority world’, to expand through international, national and local develop-
their global reach and enlist other geographers in ment. In this way it becomes important to trans-
the pursuit of social justice generated an exchange form perceptions, representations and images of
in the journal Area involving Adrian Smith (2002), other cultures and forms of social organisation. In
a geographer interested in the economic and social order for this to happen it is necessary to compre-
transformations of ‘post-Soviet’ East-Central hend further the spatial classification of different
Europe and the ‘Second World’. What was particu- worlds of development and to understand how this
larly interesting here was the way in which connec- has changed over time. In addition, attention must
tions were being made between post-Soviet Europe be shifted to the spatial nature of the associations
and different representations of the economic world that exist between First/Second/Third worlds and
which move away from ‘capitalocentrism’. In this their various cultures and economies alongside an
way anti-capitalist activism comes to be seen as awareness of the presumed spatial diffusion and
much less quixotic and ‘more realistic’ (Gibson- spread of capitalist modernity. Can geographers
Graham, 1999: 84). Importantly, this exchange also help solve issues of inequality, inequity and social
raises questions about the possibility of transcend- justice ‘as well as just identifying and cataloguing
ing simplistic notions of hierarchical scales from their existence’ (Golledge, 2002: 11–12)? This will
local to global and of thinking about the linking not be easy given that so much of the history of
and intertwining of places. development geography has been characterised by
This is a key challenge for development geog- the objective of identifying and cataloguing differ-
raphers, to think about this kind of critical ence, but social justice has rarely been the outcome
approach to the study of the spatiality of develop- of these endeavours.

2 3 5
Glossary

agency This is a concept that relates to the individual and the to the way in which territory is seen to lose significance as a
volition of his or her will and choices. If structures are fixed result of global-level change and the ‘unstoppable’ jugger-
then agency and agents are terms which refer to the power naut of global changes in information, knowledge and tech-
and capacity of people to operate to some extent independ- nology. It suggests that borders and divides are becoming
ently of the (social) structure. less important in a global context.
capitalocentrism This term refers to debates about globalisa- developmentalism This term refers to a view of Third World
tion and development and is based on the idea of clearing a spaces and their inhabitants as essentialised, homogenised
path for the consideration of the multiplicity of reality (in entities. It is also closely associated with an unconditional
this case capitalism) and the various struggles around it. belief in the concept of progress and the ‘makeability’ of
Capitalism is often presented as inherently spatial and society. It has complex historical and geographical roots but
as naturally stronger than the forms of non-capitalist econ- partly emerged from the organicist and evolutionary think-
omy (especially ‘Third World’ economies) because of its ing of the Enlightenment era in seventeenth- and eighteenth-
presumed capacity to universalise the market for capital century Europe.
commodities. This increasingly familiar ‘script’ or story of diaspora This term literally means the scattering of a popula-
globalisation clearly lacks nuance and assumes that all tion such as that of the African Diaspora that resulted from
other forms of economy will fall away as a result of its the slave trade. This involves transnational connections that
universal and overwhelming force in the (largely passive) transect the boundaries and borders of national com-
space of the ‘Third World’. This leads us to call into question munities. The term points to important geographies of flows
the naturalness of capitalist identity as the template of all and connections and to the openness of culture and identity
economic activity. What is ‘non-capitalism’ disappears here in the contemporary world.
before the assumed inevitability of capitalist ‘penetration’ in discourse/discursive These terms refer to written and verbal
the South. communications and relate to the variety of social practices
class refers to relationships, in terms of property and through which the world is made meaningful and intelligible
employment, for example, that produce systems of social to individuals and communities. Knowledge of the world is
classification and stratification. Karl Marx’s work under- produced and reproduced through representations and prac-
stood the power and wealth of the ruling classes as tices that thus come to be naturalised and taken for granted.
relational to the marginality and impoverishment of the Discourses vary over time and space and can be insti-
poor. The consciousness and agency of each group is not tutionalised as they are always, inseparably, bound up with
always clear however, and there has been a focus on fixed relations of power. Discourses of masculinity and femininity,
class structures rather than on their interactions with other for example, shape the behaviours, roles and aspirations of
social relations such as gender. men and women.
de-territorialisation This term seeks to focus on the dis- Enlightenment A period of change and an intellectual fashion
placement of identities, peoples and meanings that result associated with the rise of European modernity and liberal
from globalisation in a postmodern world system. It refers theory during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

2 3 6
GLOSSARY
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Enlightenment beliefs posited a singular view of progress distribute knowledge and resources socially and politically.
and assumed the superiority of western notions of science This is said to require a minimum of state machinery. Its
and reason. central point then is that the market mechanism should be
geopolitics The term ‘geopolitics’ is now familiar to many allowed to direct the fate of human beings, that economy
people bur remains quite difficult to define. It relates to should dictate its rules to society rather than the other way
studies of political geography that deal directly with inter- around.
national relations, international conflicts and foreign pol- pharmacopoeia This term refers to the idea of an officially
icies. The term largely refers to the way in which space is published text or book which contains a list of medicinal
important in understanding the constitution of international remedies and drugs that contain prescribed directions for
relations. A critical geopolitics of development may offer use.
some useful ways forward in understanding the history and postcolonialism/postcoloniality These terms refer to a var-
geography of the ‘Third World’ as a political idea. As a iety of theoretical positions and historical conditions
school of thought it focuses on political meanings and repre- associated primarily (though not exclusively) with the
sentations and explores the contestation of the geopolitical aftermath of colonialism. Postcolonialism seeks to critique
world. western ways of knowing and traditions of thought. It also
globalisation A much contested and often poorly defined term involves a retracing of the impacts of colonial processes with
that refers to a reordering of time and space, leading to new a particular concern for marginal or subaltern peoples.
forms of societal integration across the world. As geograph- post-structuralism This approach seeks to repudiate grand or
ers, this term has especial relevance in that it raises ques- master narrations of history and geography, focusing on
tions about the links between the local and the global and ‘local’ narratives and stories and drawing attention to the
how these links have changed over time and in different gaps and fissures in these stories and narratives as a better
places and spaces. Many geographers have studied the glob- way of understanding the past and the present.
alisation of socio-cultural and economic flows but this representation This term refers to the ways in which mean-
remains a complex and ambiguous term. ings are conveyed or depicted. Geographical representa-
governance A term that usually refers to the act or process of tions refer to writings of the world and its economic and
governing and is therefore sometimes seen as being syn- political spaces. There are many forms and strategies of
onymous with government. In terms of development debates representation, as well as a politics to acts of representing
however, the term focuses on the wider range of govern- others, which are inseparable from the subject being
mental and non-governmental institutions and actors that represented.
shape policy outcomes. The term also refers to the relation- resistance usually refers to any action, imbued with intent,
ships between different actors (ranging from government that aims to challenge, change or retain social, political and
institutions to non-government organisations (NGOs) and economic relations, processes and institutions. It may
social movements or private companies). involve action from individuals or from social groups and
neocolonialism A means of economic and political control movements. Resistance must be seen not as a simple heroic
articulated through powerful states and capital cities in the response to some dominating power but as a form of power
‘developed world’ over the economies and societies of the in its own right and diffused throughout the practices of
‘underdeveloped’ world. The dominated states may be for- everyday life.
mally independent but their economic and political systems subject/subjectivity ‘The subject’ is a term that refers to indi-
remain closely controlled from outside. The origins of these vidual human beings as agents and the ways in which they
relations lie in imperialism and they are often seen as dir- think their place in the world. There are a variety of theories
ectly linked to the continual development of ‘underdevelop- of subjectivity each imagining the subject in different ways,
ment’ in the periphery. as bounded, unique, contained and self-knowing, for
neoliberalism A range of ideas and theories, which have example. There is no subject prior to knowledge according to
become very widespread in the 1980s and 1990s, that posits some theorists; rather, subjects are produced by power and
the desirability of the market as the central organising prin- discourses. The ways in which subjects are used to justify
ciple for social, economic and political life. It is connected to discourses or to produce stable grounds of knowledge is an
particular liberal economic and political interpretations important theme here.
from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The pro-
market position of neoliberalism now closely informs the See also A Feminist Glossary of Human Geography edited by
development theories and practices of the multilateral regu- Linda McDowell and Joanne P. Sharp (1999) and The Dic-
latory institutions such as the World Bank and IMF. The tionary of Human Geography edited by Ron Johnston, Derek
central claim is that free and neutral markets can effectively Gregory, David Smith and Mike Watts (2001).

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I n d ex

Page numbers in italics denote references to Figures.

Aarts, P. 39, 179 agriculture 156, 157, 180–1, 203–4

Abdel-Malek, A. 52 Ahluwalia, P. 136, 137, 139, 146, 152
Abrahamsen, R. 77, 80, 81, 84, 86, 114 Ahmad, Aijaz 106
Achebe, Chinua 123–4, 129 Ainger, K. 204, 206, 209, 214, 215
Adebayo, Adedeji 223 Alea, Tomás Gutiérrez 127
adivasi activists 206, 209 Algeria 116
Afghanistan 1, 37–8, 80, 117 alienation 130
Africa: alternative geography of 66–7; anti-colonialism 83, Allen, T. 6, 11, 20, 27, 77
110; Bandung conference 103; Blair’s neocolonialism 133– Allende, Salvador 104
4; British public perception of 36; Buchanan 55; Césaire Americocentrism 7, 27
129; CIA report 219; colonial artificial territorial Amin, Idi 60
boundaries 98; dependency approach 81; development aid Amin, Samir 42, 64, 81, 107, 163; Bandung Era 103;
35, 37; Eurocentrism 102; European view of history 50, globalisation 146; World Bank 182; World Forum for
51; forgotten crises 172; free trade 156; globalisation 6, Alternatives 208
146, 151, 154–5; Hegel 76; images of 232; imagined ANC see African National Congress
geographies 6; IMF conditionality 164, 165; Institute of Anderson, B. 53
British Geography 58; media representations 170; military Angola: anti-imperial struggles 53; corruption 162; good
geographers 49; modernisation theory 59; modernity 138, governance agenda 166; humanitarian crisis 172; peace
146, 151; nationalism 53, 55, 83, 108; New Economic demonstrations 82; postcolonialism 121; Poverty Reduction
Partnership for African Development 104, 133, 135–6, Strategy Papers 177; socialism 81; US intervention
223; new states 200; non-farm income 180; popular 115; Western sponsoring of anti-socialist guerrilla
perceptions of 10; postcolonialism 108, 122–3, 124–5, movements 80
129–30, 137, 140; Prothero 58; reduction of US aid 114; Ankomah, Baffour 170
role of the state 227; share of world trade 146; state Annan, Kofi 15, 36, 223
labelling 97–8; stereotypes 139; structural adjustment 154; anti-capitalism protests 18, 25–6, 42, 89, 195, 235; see also
textbooks 231; ‘three worlds’ concept 105, 111; anti-globalisation
underdevelopment debates 64; Western handbooks 48–9; anti-colonialism 55, 64, 110, 116; Césaire 129; Marxism 83;
Western hegemony 84 public opinion 114; resistance 197, 234; see also
African National Congress (ANC) 210–12 decolonisation
Africanist discourse 46 anti-communism 31–2, 78, 80, 104, 114, 132
Afro-pessimism 136 anti-development 49, 83, 89, 90, 230; localism 207; McGee 61,
agency 119, 126, 236 66
Agnew, J. 202 anti-geopolitics 202–3

2 5 9
INDEX
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

anti-globalisation 18, 199; misleading nature of term 42; Bolivia: debt reduction 23; drug industry 33; Poverty Reduction
protests 26, 143, 155, 156, 195, 209; see also anti-capitalism Strategy Papers 175; US aid 34; vulture funds 228
protests Bond, Patrick 135, 136, 211, 212
Antipode (journal) 60, 80, 111 Bonds Boycott 211, 212
apartheid 55, 97, 111, 113, 210, 211 Botswana 121
Appadurai, A. 163, 187, 198 Bourdet, Claude 102
Apter, D. E. 1, 4, 27–8, 79, 89, 90, 91 Braden, K. E. 96, 98, 99
Arap Moi, Daniel 223 brands 13
area studies 58–9, 106, 110 Brazil 9, 99; banana trade 213; cinema 127; DARG research
Argentina: crisis 197; IMF policies 42; neoliberal ‘success projects 64; dependency approach 81; financial crisis 165;
stories’ 166; postcolonialism 121; resistance 152, 196, 197, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra 203–4,
217; ‘Third Way’ 127 209, 216, 222; postcolonialism 121; resistance movements
arms trade 108, 133 203–4, 216, 217; reverse cultural currents 109; Western
Arnold, G. 114 defence of dictatorships 80
Ashcroft, B. 123, 137, 139 Brazilian geographers 60
Asia: anti-colonialism 110; Bandung conference 103; Bretton Woods institutions 24, 84; see also International
development aid 35, 37; financial crisis 42, 153, 165, 207, Monetary Fund; World Bank
214; globalisation 6; images of 232; imagined geographies 6; Bretton Woods Project (BWP) 200, 220, 223, 228
IMF conditionality 164, 165; macroeconomic instability 152; bribarisation 160, 163
nationalisms 53; new states 200; popular perceptions of 10; Britain see Great Britain
postcolonialism 140; postwar independent countries 31; role Brookfield, H. C. 56, 59, 61
of the state 227; ‘three worlds’ concept 105, 111; tiger Brown, Gordon 228
economies 107, 160; Western pre-war research 47; see also Browne, S. 176
Southeast Asia Brundtland World Commission on Environment and
Asian Development Bank 38 Development (WCED) 13
Australia 35, 102 Buchanan, Keith 49, 54–7, 220–1; critique of Rostow 78–9;
Ayoob, Mohammed 224 fieldwork 67; imperialist power relations 62; radical
geography 61, 66, 68, 69
Bakan, A. 147 Buchanan, R. O. 49
Baker, S. J. 52 Burkina Faso 222
banana trade 213 Burma (Myanmar): Bandung conference 103; independence
Bandaranaike, Sirimavo 104 31; military geographers 49; perceived importance of 99;
Bandung conference 49, 102, 103, 104, 116, 129 Western pre-war research 47
Bangladesh 158, 177 Bush, George W. 2, 15, 33, 38, 223, 226
Banzer, Hugo 33 Butlin, R. 47, 57, 58
Barbour, Michael 57 BWP see Bretton Woods Project
Barnes, T. J. 66
basic needs approach 66 Cabral, A. 229
Bauman, Z. 25 cacerolazos 197
Bayart, Jean-Francis 69, 224 Cambodia 177
Bebbington, A. 198 Canada: bilateral aid programme 32; development aid 35,
Belgian Congo 48 223; development geographies 7; World Trade Organisation
Belize 89 147
Bell, M. 108, 111 Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) 32, 173,
Bello, Walden 207 183, 188
Berger, M. T. 105, 140–1, 166, 168, 198, 227, 234 capital liberalisation 152, 163
Bessis, S. 227 capitalism 2, 28, 43, 76, 234, 235; Asian financial crisis 153;
Bhaba, H. 27, 119 Cold War 11, 97; colonisation 100; critiques of 56, 60;
bilateral aid 32, 34, 35, 228 dependency theory 81, 82; economic rationality 87; foreign
Bilgin, P. 224, 225 aid 39; globalisation 143, 145, 146, 149, 152–4; hegemonic
biotechnology corporations 157 149; inequalities 9, 78; Islam 111; ‘little d’ development 16;
Bishop, Maurice 104 Marxism 62, 155; modernisation theory 78, 79;
Black, J. 73 neocolonialism 102; post-development 229; postcolonialism
Blair, Tony 3, 84, 117, 133–4, 223 121; Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers 23; resistance to 28,
Blaut, Jim 55, 56, 57, 61, 67, 68 150, 209; ‘Third Way’ 117; see also anti-capitalism protests
Boehmer, E. 141–2, 197, 217 capitalocentrism 149, 150, 235, 236
Bokassa, J. B. 60 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique 203

2 6 0
INDEX
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Caribbean: colonisation 100; dependency approach 81, 90; ‘Tropics’ concept 45; trusteeship 131; see also anti-
development aid 35; popular perceptions of 10 colonialism; imperialism; neocolonialism; postcolonialism
CBOs see community-based organisations Columbus, Christopher 95
Central America 6 Commonwealth 31, 60, 128
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 12–14, 39, 59, 149, 219 communism: anti-communism 11, 31–2, 78, 80, 104, 114, 132;
Césaire, Aimé 107, 129 Cold War 11, 97; imagined geographies 57; modernisation
Ceylon (Sri Lanka) 1, 99; Bandung conference 103; theory as counter to 77; ‘three worlds’ concept 102; see also
colonisation 100; independence 31; military geographers 49; Marxism; socialism
socialism 104; tropical geography 52 communities 4, 7
Chad 114 community-based organisations (CBOs) 183
Chakrabarty, D. 124 competition 222
Chaliand, G. 111 Conable, Barber 24
Chambron, Anne-Claire 213 conditionality 164, 165, 176, 223, 224, 226
‘champagne glass’ of income distribution 9–10, 10, 192, conflicts 12, 98, 201
221 Congo, Democratic Republic of 172
Chaturvedi, S. 76, 205 Connell, J. 56
Chaudhry, K. A. 227 consumerism 13, 108, 149
Chile: dependency theory 81, 83; socialism 104; US consumption 13, 221; developed countries 67; Rostow 78, 79,
intervention 115; Western defence of dictatorships 80 81, 82
China 9, 48, 141, 228; Buchanan 55, 57; CIA report 219; control 15–16
communism 31; cultural revolution 68, 107; dam Cooke, B. 131, 132, 188, 201
construction 199; DARG research projects 64; development Coppock, J. T. 49
aid 35; images of 232; perceived importance of 99; relatively Corbridge, S. 27, 66, 205, 230
little attention given to 65; socialism 18, 82; ‘three worlds’ core-periphery relations 31, 40, 62–3; dependency approaches
concept 102, 104; tropical geography 53 81, 82, 83; modernisation theory 79, 80; postcolonialism 119
Chirac, Jacques 15 corporate liberalism 25
Chomsky, N. 37, 209 corruption 60, 107, 162; CIA report 219; Mozambique 160;
Chossudovsky, M. 13 ‘the West’ 101
CIA see Central Intelligence Agency Costa Rica 213
CIDA see Canadian International Development Agency Cousins, Jim 162
cinema 109, 127–8 Cowen, M. P. 28, 73, 130–1
cities 65, 109, 139, 140, 151; see also urban areas critical geopolitics 95, 96–7
citizenship 19, 124, 141, 166 Crow, B. 108
civil society 98, 117, 135, 216, 228; globalisation 148; map of Crush, Jonathan 4, 14, 64, 138, 232
development discourse 62; Poverty Reduction Strategy Cuba: cinema 109, 127, 128; dependency theory influence 83;
Papers 175, 176, 177; social movements 196 development aid 35; as ‘rogue’ state 225; socialism 18, 81,
‘civilisation’ concept 48, 53, 75 82; US intervention 115
class 56, 149, 162, 170, 236; livelihood discourses 181, 182; cultural studies 110
social movements 196; women 125 culture: colonialism 130; globalisation 146; imperial 120;
‘CNN effect’ 36, 170 ‘Third World’ 109
Coetzee, J. M. 123
Cold War 11, 16, 80; Afghanistan 38; anti-geopolitics 202; end Dabashi, H. 90, 101, 141
of 106, 114; foreign aid 31, 32, 64, 132; geopolitics 41, 43, Dakar declaration 216, 223
59, 97, 107, 224; India 30; Marshall Plan 31; modernisation DANIDA 135
theory 79; Non-Aligned Movement 103–4; ‘three worlds’ DARG see Developing Areas Research Group
conceptualisation 96, 105 Darwinism 47, 77
collectivism 107 data collection 21
Colombia: banana trade 213; dependency approach 81; Davies, Mike 57
Escobar 85–6; good governance agenda 166; US Plan De Soto, Hernando 42, 43
Colombia 33–4 De Sousa, A. R. 56
colonialism 19, 28–31, 86, 100, 227; artificial territorial debt 22–5, 175; Argentina 197; cancellation 25, 133–4, 176,
boundaries 98; Bandung conference 103; ‘colonial 216; crisis 23, 35, 150, 168; private capital flows 35; South
geography’ 48; critiques of 129; dates of independence 17; Africa 211; vulture funds 228; see also Heavily Indebted Poor
dependency theory 81, 82, 83, 100; Gourou 53; independence Countries; Jubilee 2000 campaign; Jubilee Debt Campaign
movements 10, 11; internal 141; modernisation theory 56, decolonisation 11, 16, 30, 59, 77, 129; cinema 127; of
61; Orientalism 46; radical geography 68; Southeast Asia development thinking 25, 29, 41, 67; of geography 47, 49,
140; Third World definition 116; tropical geography 58; 232; geopolitics 97; incompleteness 137; India 79, 224;

2 6 1
INDEX
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Middle East 141; paradigm shifts 46; postcolonialism 120, Donovan, P. 213
121; postwar 101; Subaltern Studies Group 124; Third World Doty, Roxanne L. 66, 86, 107, 116
cities 139, 140; trusteeship 131; see also anti-colonialism Driver, F. 45, 46–7, 52
deconstruction 16, 90, 174 Drop the Debt campaign 133
deliberalisation 145, 222
democracy 84, 114, 152, 166, 205, 215 ‘the East’ 95–6
democratisation 89, 169, 225 East Asia 87, 160, 207, 228
Denmark 135 East Indies 100
Department for International Development (DFID) 132, 133, East Timor 153, 170
134, 179–81, 182, 188; development dissemination 192; Easterly, William 165
poverty 173, 190; research opportunities 233 Eastern Europe 106, 191, 235; IMF conditionality 164, 165;
dependency approaches 23, 56, 60, 72, 81–3, 90; capitalism official aid 37; postcolonialism 140; social assistance 177;
155; colonialism 81, 82, 83, 100; critiques of 82–3, 88–9; socialism 105, 202–3; US aid missions 114
hegemony 91; neocolonialism 122; post-development 88–9, Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) 82
229; resistance 194; underdevelopment 117 economic determinism 82
depoliticisation 81, 87, 89 economic geography 72
deregulation 9 economic growth 60, 136, 191, 192, 221; Middle East 179;
Derrida, Jacques 16, 72, 93, 102 neoliberalism 9
Desforges, L. 5 economics 143, 191; neoclassical 62, 63, 64, 72, 155;
deterritorialisation 6, 152, 163, 196, 236 neoliberal 9, 94, 237; new institutional 63
Developing Areas Research Group (DARG) 64 Ecuador 214
developing countries 11, 18; agricultural exports 156; CIA education 22
report 12–13; data collection 21; fieldwork 67; ‘knowledge Edwards, M. 201
gaps’ 186; media representations 170, 171; Western Egypt: Bandung conference 104; development aid 39;
intervention 87; see also Third World development texts 91; historical particularity 58; reverse
development 16–19, 232–5; ‘big D/little d’ distinction 16, 28; cultural currents 109
colonialism 28–30; critical developmentalism 229; El Salvador 115
decolonisation 11; deconstruction of 16; definitions 1–2, 4; elites 98–9, 102, 115
deliberalisation of 222; disability issues 92–3; discourse of Elliott, L. 176
14; dissemination of 19, 169, 172, 183, 191, 192; Ellis, F. 180
Enlightenment 74, 75; global moral imperative 172–3; Ellwood, W. 143, 155
Hegelian principle of 76; indicators 20–2; international empowerment 132, 194, 199–202, 228
financial institutions 161, 162; map of development discourse end of geography 6, 152
62–3, 62–3; meanings of 94; modernisation theory 59–60, Engardio, P. 31
77–81; post-development critique 26–8; radical geography Enlightenment 28, 72–7, 83, 89, 230, 236–7; Africa 58;
60–6, 68, 69–70; ‘religious’ conception of 7–8; spatiality 5, colonial geography 48; developmentalism 236; European
41, 100, 230, 235; uneven 9, 107–8, 170; World Bank colonialism 100; influence on neoliberalism 73, 94; legacies
‘development knowledge’ 184–8; see also anti-development; of 71, 90, 119; trade 155; trusteeship 131; universalism 90
developmentalism; post-development; sustainable environment 13, 108, 111; globalisation effect on 145, 148,
development; underdevelopment 166; millennium development goals 22; resistance movements
developmentalism 28, 29; critical 229; critiques of 74; 203, 207
decolonisation 224; definition 236; demise of 196; environmental determinism 58
evolutionary thinking 77; nationalist 77; progress 230; Equatorial Guinea 49, 60
state-centred 202; Third World cities 65, 109 Eritrea 172
DFID see Department for International Development Escobar, Arturo 22, 52, 115, 116; critique of developmentalism
diaspora 121–2, 236 74; ‘domains of objects’ 169; knowledge 93; neoliberalisation
difference 18, 89, 111, 195, 233; cultural politics of 231; 145; participation 201; place 151; popular struggles 196;
Orientalism 46; postcolonialism 123 post-development 85–6, 87, 88–9, 102, 229, 230, 231;
digital divide 184 subjectivities 186
Dimbleby, Jonathan 171 Esteva, Gustavo 71, 86, 91, 204, 224
Dirlik, A. 27, 94, 123 Ethiopia 36, 58, 172, 228
disability 92–3, 227 ethnic politics 98
discourse 115, 116, 169, 170, 224; definition 14, 236; post- ethnicity 60, 125; see also race
development 85, 86, 87, 90; postcolonialism 119 ethnocentrism 61, 115, 123, 232; see also Eurocentrism
diversity 18, 137, 215 EU see European Union
Doherty, T. 74, 76 Eurocentrism 27, 64, 96, 102, 166, 230; Africanist discourse
Domosh, M. 66 46; Enlightenment thinking 71; globalisation 154; imagined

2 6 2
INDEX
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

geographies 7; modernisation theory 90; modernity 72; 137; Movement of the Unemployed 222; overseas research
postcolonial critique 119, 120, 123; postmodernism 91, 93; 47, 52; three ‘Estates’ 74, 102
racism distinction 115; socialism 107; status of geography Frank, André Gunder 60, 78, 79, 81, 82
49; systems of ordering the world 118 free trade 19, 162, 163, 207, 222; globalisation 143, 148, 153,
Europe 14, 67, 100; capitalist expansion 62; colonialism 29, 155–7; resistance to 203, 209, 216; Smith 73; US promotion
45, 68, 100–1; Enlightenment 72–7; free trade 133; of decolonisation 101; World Trade Organisation 147; see
nationalism ideals 114–15; Orientalism 46; perceived also liberalisation; neoliberalism
importance of 99; pre-war research 47–8; ‘three worlds’ Freire, P. 229
concept 102; see also Eastern Europe French Equatorial Guinea 49
European Union (EU): development aid 34, 35–6, 223; Friedman, Milton 9
research opportunities 233; World Trade Organisation 112,
147, 155–6 G-8 states 25, 26, 84, 207, 220, 223
evolutionary theories 76–7 G-77 states 103, 104, 155
exclusion 7, 151, 175, 227, 230; neoliberalism 222; new spaces Gandhi, L. 138
of 233; social 190, 191 Ganokar, D. P. 66
Gariyo, Zie 176
FAA see Foreign Assistance Act Gates, Bill 185, 192
fair trade 147, 149, 153, 213, 234 GATT see General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
Fair-Trade Network 135, 234 Gay, P. 73, 74
famine 36, 64, 111, 171 GDN see Global Development Network
Fanon, Frantz 102, 119, 129, 229, 234; alienation 130; Gelinas, J. B. 23
colonialism 100–1; national culture 127 gender 64, 170, 212–14; identity 141, 196; modernisation
FAO see Food and Agriculture Organisation theory 80; postcolonialism 123, 125; social movements 196,
Farmer, B. H. 48, 50, 52, 57 215; South Africa 212; World Bank 227; see also feminism;
FDI see foreign direct investment women
feminism 69, 108, 111, 199–200, 229, 232; postcolonialism General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 147
125; postmodernism 93; radical geography 66; see also geopolitics 18, 25, 37–40, 41, 98, 99; Cold War 41, 43, 59, 97,
gender 107, 224; critical 95, 96–7; definition 237; from below 202,
FENOP see National Federation of Farmworkers Organizations 214; influence on World Bank 166; Plan Colombia 33–4; of
Ferguson, James 75, 86, 87, 88, 121 race 12; Russian national development 105; see also politics
Fieldhouse, D. K. 102 George, S. 158, 219, 222
fieldwork 55, 57, 67, 139, 140, 233 Germany 35, 47, 52
Fiji 35, 49 Gettino, O. 127
Fine, Ben 158, 160, 161, 162, 182 Ghana 10–11, 59–60, 104, 128
Fink, C. 107 Ghosh, Amitav 233
First World: colonial ideas about intervention 131–2; culture Ghosh, D. 128–9
109; Fanon 101; feminism 199–200; South Africa 113; Gibson-Graham, J. K. 149, 235
‘Thirdworldisation’ 11; ‘three worlds’ conceptualisation 96, Gilbert, Alan 56, 65
102, 105, 106 Gilbert, E. W. 48
First World War 100 Gilroy, P. 11–12
‘Firstworldisation’ 11 Gleeson, B. 92
Fisher, C. A. 48, 49, 58–9 Global Development Network (GDN) 185
Fisher, W. B. 49 Global Exchange 188
Floyd, Barry 57 global village concept 163
Focus on the Global South 145–6, 177, 207, 216 globalisation 5–6, 19, 83, 112–14, 143–68, 188;
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) 21, 52 capitalocentrism 236; CIA report 219; critiques of 139;
Forbes, D. K. 60 cultural identity 130; definition 237; deterritorialisation 196,
foreign aid 15, 18, 22, 25, 32–7; conditionality 223, 224, 226; 236; from below 187, 198, 202; modernisation paradigm 94;
critics of 32; geopolitics 39–40, 41, 97; net flows 32; postwar monoculture 208; post-development 89, 90; postcolonialism
31; US security interests 226; Zambia 88 123, 137, 139; resistance to 26, 42, 194, 195, 234; sub-
Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) 31, 41 disciplinary interaction 65; Zambia 88; see also anti-
foreign direct investment (FDI) 35, 39, 152, 158, globalisation
159–60 glocalisation 154
foreign investment 42, 150, 152, 158, 159–60 GNP see Gross National Product
Foucault, Michel 15, 16, 72, 85, 98, 197, 229 Goldsmith, A. A. 39
fourth world 111 Golledge, R. G. 235
France: development aid 35; globalisation 150; imperialism Gonsalves, S. 26

2 6 3
INDEX
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

‘good governance’ 114, 131–2, 166–8, 169, 176, 198, 224 Holland, M. 158
Gould, Peter 59–60, 61, 180 Holloway, S. 197
Gourou, Pierre 46, 47, 52–3 Hong Kong 61, 153
governance: definition 237; everyday practices 196; global 148; Hoogevelt, A. 26, 154
‘good governance’ 114, 131–2, 166–8, 169, 176, 198, 224; Hooson, David 57
international institutions 150; macroeconomic 145, 166; households 199
resistance 195; see also state Houtart, F. 194, 202
grand narratives 72, 84, 237 Hubbard, P. 197
grassroots organisations (GROs) 183, 209, 210, 215, 217, 230; Hulme, D. 201
see also social movements Human Development Index (HDI) 2–3, 191
Great Britain: Buchanan 55; Commonwealth 31; datasets 21; human geography 64, 174
development aid 31, 35; good governance 132; imperialism human rights 89
137; India 76, 124, 224; Institute of British Geography 58, humanism 72
64; overseas research 47, 48, 52, 58; partnerships 132; humanitarian assistance 138, 172, 173
postcolonialism 133–4; principal ports 45; television 171; humanitarian crises 34, 36, 170, 172
urban life 109; see also Department for International Huntingdon 180
Development; United Kingdom hybridity: postcolonialism 119, 120, 123, 130, 139; resulting
Grenada 104 from colonialism 110
Grinspun, A. 174, 175, 177
GROs see grassroots organisations IBG see Institute of British Geography
Gross National Product (GNP) 3, 8–9, 34, 221 ICC see International Chamber of Commerce
Group of 8 (G-8) 25, 26, 84, 207, 220, 223 IDA see International Development Association
Group of 77 (G-77) 103, 104, 155 identity 109, 198, 218; critical geopolitics 97; cultural 130,
Guatemala 80 194; ethnic 196; gender 141, 196; multiple 154;
Guevara, Che 112 postcolonialism 120, 123–4, 126, 130, 137, 139; social
Guha, Ranajit 124 movements 196; travel relationship 5; see also national identity
Guinea Bissau 53 identity politics 196
Gupta, Akhil 124, 224 ideology 71, 100, 200
IDPM see Institute for Development Policy and Management
Haas, William H. 53 IFAD see International Fund for Agricultural Development
Hadjor, K. B. 114 IFC see International Finance Corporation
Haffajee, F. 210, 211, 212 IFG see International Forum on Globalization
Hall, Stuart 99–100 IFIs see International Financial Institutions
Halliday, F. 39, 141 Ignatieff, M. 36, 115
Hance, William A. 53 ILO see International Labour Office
Hanlon, Joe 160 imagined geographies 6–7, 57, 174, 220
Hardt, M. 108–9, 207 IMF see International Monetary Fund
Harriss, J. 205 immigration 116, 232
Hart, G. 16, 28, 161, 228, 229 imperialism 29–30, 43, 48, 100, 109, 116; British 124;
Hartwick, E. 22, 27, 29, 68, 78, 94, 229–30 core–periphery relations 31; globalisation 139; multiple
Harvey, David 57, 61 identities 154; neocolonialism 237; NEPAD 136;
Hatoum, Mona 127 postcolonialism 120, 123, 138; radical geography 61, 62;
Hayter, William 58 reason 76; Said 137; trusteeship 131; United States 39, 111;
HDI see Human Development Index see also colonialism; neocolonialism
healthcare 22 import-substitution industrialisation (ISI) 82
Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) 23, 27, 104, 154; debt incomes: ‘champagne glass’ of distribution 9–10, 10, 192, 221;
relief 133, 175, 176; NEPAD 136; vulture funds 228 diversification 180, 181; inequalities 144; mapping of 9
Hegel, G. W. F. 76 independence movements 10, 11, 98–9, 106, 197–8
hegemony 84, 91, 101, 114, 224; Africanist discourse 46; India 9, 48, 99, 141, 228; adivasi activists 206, 209;
capitalism 149; cultural 122; geopolitics from below 202; agriculture 156, 157; banana trade 213; Bandung conference
globalisation 164; United States 225 103, 104; CIA report 219; citizenship 166; colonialism 76,
Held, D. 151 100, 224; corruption 162; dam projects 125–6, 205; DARG
Hettne, B. 71, 89 research projects 64; decolonisation 79; Enlightenment
Hewitt, A. 179–80 project 76; images of 232; independence 31, 198; military
HIPC see Heavily Indebted Poor Countries geographers 49; Narmada Bachao Andolan 126, 205–6, 209;
Hirschmann, A. O. 78 Nehru 30; NGOs 183, 184; popular fictions 128–9;
history 76, 126, 224 postcolonialism 124, 129; relatively little attention given to

2 6 4
INDEX
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

65; resistance movements 205–6, 206, 209, 214, 217; occupation of Palestine 178–9; radical geography 111; US
reverse cultural currents 109; Subaltern Studies Group 124; support 41, 178; war on terrorism 39; ‘the West’ 141
tropical geography 53
indigenous cultures 120 Jackson, R. H. 107
indigenous knowledge 187, 192, 194, 219 Jalée, P. 109
indigenous peoples 47, 124, 125, 168, 205, 214, 215 Jamaica 104, 127–8, 213
Indonesia: Asian crisis 153; Bandung conference 103, 104; James, Preston E. 53
IMF assistance 171; media representations 170 Japan: development aid 35; development discourse 87;
industrialisation 64, 73, 76, 77; import-substitution 82; perceived importance of 99; ‘three worlds’ concept 102; ‘the
postcolonialism 123 West’ 141; World Trade Organisation 147
inequalities 1, 111, 137, 170, 222; capitalism 78; ‘champagne Jarosz, L. 36
glass’ representation 9–10, 10, 192, 221; free trade 153; Java 47
globalisation 151, 161, 166; households 199; income 144; JDC see Jubilee Debt Campaign
livelihood discourses 181; macroeconomic 177; media Jerve, A. M. 178, 190
representation 6; Middle east 39; postcolonialism 121; Johannesburg Summit (2002) 1, 2, 13, 211
Thailand 207; Third World labelling 96 Johnson, B. L. 49
infant mortality 22 Johnson, R. 14
Institute of British Geography (IBG) 58, 64 Jolly, R. 108
Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM) Jones, P. S. 233
131 Jordan 178
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) 158, 159 Jospin, Lionel 150
International Development Association (IDA) 24 Jubilee 2000 campaign 25, 135, 176
International Finance Corporation (IFC) 24 Jubilee Debt Campaign (JDC) 134, 234
International Financial Institutions (IFIs) 27, 39, 160, 163, Jubilee Plus 134
168; economistic view of development 219; good governance Jubilee Research 133
132; market fundamentalism 180; NEPAD 136; notion of Jubilee South 27, 133, 216
failure 225; poverty reduction 228; PRSPs 175–6; reform of Jubilee South Africa 211
220; resistance 214, 215, 216; social capital 148, 161, 162; justice: economic 195, 217; social 61, 225, 235
steady state model 222; unaccountability 150; US political
agenda 166; see also International Monetary Fund; World Kanbur, Ravi 162
Bank; World Trade Organisation Keen, S. 64, 158
International Forum on Globalization (IFG) 166 Kelley, D. G. 129
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) 89 Kelly, P. F. 163
International Labour Office 82, 92 Kennedy, J. F. 31, 41
International Monetary Fund (IMF) 24, 43, 145; Argentina 42, Kenya 64, 114, 130
197; Asian financial crisis 207, 214; conditionality 164, 165; Keynesianism 62
currency regulation 152; EU block 35; failure of poverty Khomeini, Ayatollah 101, 117
alleviation 165; Indonesia 170–1; influence on national Kiely, R. 18, 27
governments 23; issues ignored by 225; market-based loans knowledge 72, 90, 170; Enlightenment 73, 74, 75; globalisation
22; neoliberalism 163; NGO funding 117; paradigm 145; indigenous 187, 192, 194, 219; post-development 84,
maintenance 228; protests against 25, 150, 206, 207, 209, 85; power relationship 169; unequal power relations 135;
214; PRSPs 175, 176; terrorism 37; US domination 128; World Bank ‘development knowledge’ 184–8
Western influence 84; WTO cooperation 156 Kobayashi, A. 232, 233
internationalisation 64 Kohler, Horst 24
internationalism 99, 107 Kosovo 170
Internet 185 Kothari, R. 110, 119, 122, 136–7, 140, 201
Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs) 158, 159, 160 Kureshi, Hanif 127
Iran 4, 38, 109, 141; Afghanistan conflict 38; dependency
theory influence 81; Islamic revolution 101, 117; as ‘rogue’ Lacquer, T. W. 138
state 225; war on terrorism 39; Western defence of Laïdi, Z. 83
dictatorships 80 laissez-faire 62, 81, 82
Iraq 39, 117, 225 language 19, 93, 169, 172, 188, 230; deconstruction 16;
Ireland, Republic of 35, 61, 90 exclusion 175; postcolonialism 125, 129–30, 140; ‘toxic’
ISI see import-substitution industrialisation keywords 116; World Bank 189
Islam 39, 101, 110–11, 141; diversity 227; fundamentalism Lao People’s Democratic Republic 153, 177, 199
116; Third Way 117 Latin America 95, 221; anti-colonialism 110; colonisation 100;
Israel: contested political space 189; internal colonialism 141; dependency theory 81, 82; development aid 35, 37; failure of

2 6 5
INDEX
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Western policies 42; financial crises 165; globalisation 6; Marquez, Gabriel Garcia 123
imagined geographies 6; IMF conditionality 164, 165; Marshall, D. D. 90
neoliberalisation 145; popular perceptions of 10; Marshall, George 31
postcolonialism 140; social movements 216; ‘three worlds’ Marshall Plan 31
concept 105, 111; US ‘Alliance for Progress’ 31; World Bank Marx, Karl 62, 76, 78, 131, 155; class 236; dependency theory
24 81; modernity 77
LDCs see ‘less developed countries’ Marxism 56, 62, 64, 66, 72, 77; dependency approaches 82, 83;
League of Nations 48, 187 national liberation movements 141; neocolonialism 122;
Learmonth, A. T. R. 49, 57 political economy 155; post-development 229; social
Lebanon 117, 178 movements 108; see also communism; neo-Marxism
Lee, John 224 masculinity 200, 212, 214
legitimacy: colonial states 30; state 98, 152 Massey, Doreen 57, 122, 151, 230
Lesotho 87 Mauritania 176
‘less developed countries’ (LDCs) 10, 61, 62, 158 Maxwell, S. 132
Lester, A. 29 Mazrui, Ali 130
Leys, C. 82 Mbeki, Thabo 136, 223
liberalisation 23, 225; capital 152, 163; CIA report 219; Mbembe, A. 126, 233
Middle East 179; Mozambique 159; trade 155, 156, 157, MDGs see millennium development goals
158, 177; see also free trade; neoliberalism; privatisation meaning 16
liberation movements 53, 141, 202 media 170–1; ‘dumbing down’ 171; globalisation 6;
Liberia 114, 115 humanitarian crises 36; representation of anti-capitalist
Libya 225–6 protesters 26; representations of the Third World 6, 115, 170,
Liddell, I. 213 171; stereotypical images 86, 189
Lister, M. 35 Meer, Fatima 211
literature 126–8, 129 Melanesia 49
livelihoods discourse 19, 172, 179–82, 183, 189 mental maps 6–7
Livingstone, D. N. 46 Mexico 99, 166; resistance movements 204–5, 214, 217;
Llwyd, L. 45 reverse cultural currents 109; student protests 107;
loans 22 Zapatistas 97, 203, 204–5, 205, 208, 214, 215
the local 128, 137, 151, 154, 163, 217, 229 ‘micro-geography’ approach 55
localisation 154, 163 Middle East 4, 53, 87, 109, 227; CIA report 219; dependency
Logan, M. I. 56 approach 81; development aid 35, 39; Islamic ideology 101;
Loomba, A. 119 Israel/Palestinian conflict 178–9; lack of geographical
Luke, T. W. 97 interest in 58, 64; military geographers 49; oil reserves 41;
Lummis, C. D. 9, 67, 166 politics of development 90; postcolonialism 140, 141;
PSI/PRSP processes 178; rogue states 225–6; US
Mabogunje, Akin 55 involvement 203
McCullagh, Ron 170 MIGA see Multilateral Insurance Guarantee Agency
McDowell, L. 119 migration 122, 123, 137, 144, 166
MacEwan, A. 42, 197 military geographers 49, 52
McEwan, C. 66, 119, 120, 140 millennium development goals (MDGs) 19, 22, 36, 133, 172,
McGee, Terry 56, 61–2, 66 179, 223
McGrew, A. 104, 151 Milne, S. 134
Machel, Samora 131 Ministry of Overseas Development 31
Malaya 53 missionaries 130
Malaysia 1, 31, 53, 153 Mitchell, T. 91
Malloch Brown, Mark 177 modernisation theory 18, 72, 77–81, 83, 105, 229–30; affluence
Mamdani, M. 124 70; critiques of 56, 59, 61–2, 67–8, 81–2, 230; dominance of
Mandela, Nelson 211 228; Eurocentrism 90; hegemony 91; linear stage theories 66;
Manley, Michael 104, 128 map of development discourse 63; New International
Manuel, Trevor 15 Economic Order 162–3; replaced by globalisation paradigm
Mao Tse Tung 68, 107 94; Rostow 78–9; United Nations 84; Zambia 88
Marcuse, P. 145 modernism 72, 75, 76, 83; critical 229, 230; shortcomings of
marginalised groups 2, 67, 194, 227 27
market triumphalism 94 modernity 14, 59, 62, 72, 154; Africa 138, 146, 151; critiques
markets: map of development discourse 62; neoliberalism 9, of 56, 84; Enlightenment 71, 74, 75; Marx 77;
237; World Development Report 153 post-development 90; Western 101; Zambia 88

2 6 6
INDEX
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Mohan, G. 135, 183 neoclassical economics 62, 63, 64, 72, 155
Mohan, J. 183 neocolonialism 30, 42, 55, 107, 110; Blair 133–4; capitalism
Mohanty, C. 200 102; critiques 109; definition 237; Marxism 122; Mazrui
Monterrey consensus 15 130; Middle East 141, 227; partnerships 132; shared history
Moore, Michael 15, 156 of 114; subjectivities 126; Thirdworldism 200; ‘three worlds’
Moore-Gilbert, B. 129, 141–2, 197, 217 concept 99; trusteeship 131
Morgan, W. B. 52 neoliberalisation 145, 162, 189
Morrell, R. 212 neoliberalism 9, 10, 19, 158–60, 169, 222; alternatives to 193;
Morton, A. D. 224, 225 colonisation of social sciences 161, 182; crises of 218;
Movement of the Unemployed (France) 222 definition 237; denaturalisation of 222; developmentalism
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) 229; DFID 180; domination of 130, 170; export markets
203–4, 209, 216, 222 166; globalisation 26, 42, 143, 145, 149, 150, 152–3, 165;
Mozambique 104, 124, 198; foreign investment 158, 159–60; hegemony 91; increase in numbers of poor people 191;
perceived importance of 99; postcolonial cinema 127; international financial institutions 23, 43, 162, 163; map of
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers 176; socialism 81, 82; development discourse 63; Mexico 204; Middle East 179;
women’s march 198 modernisation theory comparison 94; Mozambique 159;
MST see Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra NEPAD 219, 223; partnership concept 132; poverty 171,
Mudimbe, V. 136 175, 191; resistance to 28, 168, 170, 194, 195, 202, 209,
Mugabe, Robert 133, 134 215; Russia 37; Sinatra Doctrine 224; single economic
multiculturalism 120 blueprint 207; Smith influence 73, 94; South Africa 210,
multilateral aid 34, 228 212; sub-disciplinary interaction 65; sustainable development
Multilateral Insurance Guarantee Agency (MIGA) 24, 158, incompatibility 13; ‘Third Way’ 117; USAID 188; World
159 Bank 24, 175, 186, 200, 219; World Trade Organisation 147;
multinational corporations 64; see also transnational see also free trade; liberalisation
corporations NEPAD see New Economic Partnership for African
Munck, R. 27, 71, 83, 84, 90, 123, 169, 196 Development
Murray, C. 180, 181–2 Netherlands 47
Myers, G. 231 New Age romanticism 27
Myrdal, Gunnar 78 New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD)
104, 133, 135–6, 223
NAFTA see North American Free Trade Agreement New Economics Foundation 134
Naipaul, Shiva 109 ‘new geographers’ 56; see also radical geography
Naipaul, V. S. 114, 115, 123 new institutional economics 63
NAM see Non-Aligned Movement New International Economic Order (NIEO) 104, 162
Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) 126, 205–6, 209 New Labour 132, 134, 179–80
Nash, C. 142 New Left Review 57
Nashel, J. 80 newly industrialising countries (NICs) 35, 221
Nasser, G. A. 103, 104 Newman, D. 141
nation building 67, 89 NGOs see non-governmental organisations
nation-state 148 Nguema, Marcias 60
national belonging 19, 99, 123 Ngũgı̃ wa Thiong’o 123, 129–30
National Federation of Farmworkers Organizations (FENOP) Ngwane, Trevor 211, 212, 223
222 Nicaragua 80, 115, 228
national identity 77, 90, 99, 109, 125 NICs see newly industrialising countries
nationalism 53, 77, 115, 198; Africa 53, 55, 83, 108; NID see Naval Intelligence Division
decolonisation 30; India 129; politics 98; postcolonialism NIEO see New International Economic Order
123–4 Nigeria: Buchanan 55, 57; civil war 60; DARG research
nationhood 19, 120 projects 64; military aid 156
Naval Intelligence Division (NID) 48 Nixon, Richard 40
NBA see Narmada Bachao Andolan Nkrumah, Kwame 11, 104, 117, 230
Ndione, E. S. 169 ‘noble savage’ concept 100
Ndungane, Njongonkulu 211 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) 49, 103–4, 129, 234
Negri, A. 108–9, 207 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) 5, 117, 145, 183–4;
Négritude 129 development dissemination 192; empowerment 201–2;
Nehru, Jawaharlal 30, 103, 104, 117, 205, 230 partnerships 134–5; Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers 177;
neo-Marxism 66, 82 protests against WTO 155, 156; research opportunities 233;
neo-populism 62 Uganda 176

2 6 7
INDEX
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

‘the North’ 82, 95, 96, 116 Peet, Richard 22, 27, 29, 60–1, 64, 180; concerns of radical
North America 7, 29, 67, 100 geography 111; critical developmentalism 229; market
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 152, triumphalism 94; modernisation theory 68, 78; post-
168, 216 development 230; South Africa 210; spatial theory 59
North Korea 18, 225 perceptions 6, 10, 108
Nyamnjoh, F. 121, 126 Pergau dam project 31, 132
Nyerere, Julius 104, 136, 229 periphery see core–periphery relations
Péron, Juan 117, 127
Ó Tuathail, G. 152, 163, 202 Perry, S. 128, 199
OA see official aid Peru 33, 228
O’Connor, A. 174 Petras, J. 33, 117, 134
ODA see overseas development assistance pharmacopoeia 42, 171, 237
OECD see Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Philippines 47, 153
Development Philpott, S. 55
official aid (OA) 37 Pieterse, J. N. 72, 121, 122, 132; capitalism 146, 154; Middle
oil 41, 227 East 179; post-development 83, 88, 89; postcolonialism 217;
O’Keefe, P. 64 poverty eradication 172
Olsen, G. R. 35 Pincus, J. 162
Oman 39 place: definition of 5; globalisation 151; postcolonialism 123
Ong, A. 67 Plan Colombia 33–4
OPEC see Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries Pletsch, C. 102, 105, 106, 107, 116
organic model of development 78, 81 Pogge, T. W. 20
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development political ecology 64, 72
(OECD): development aid 34, 35, 41; European development political economy 62, 63, 155
177; global protests 25; International Monetary Fund 24; political geography 57, 96
poverty reduction 173; Shaping the Twenty-first Century politics: cultural 231; democratisation 225; depoliticisation 87;
report 36, 132 foreign aid 22, 32; instabilities 12, 144, 219; Islamic ideology
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) 64, 101; nationalist 98; NGOs 201; of representation 116;
150 resistance movements 202–10, 214–18, 222, 234; ‘the
Orientalism 45, 46, 52, 106, 120 South’ 98; ‘Third Way’ 117, 132, 134; Third World 96; see
‘the other’ 46, 97, 101, 116, 141, 232 also Cold War; geopolitics; governance; state
‘Other Davos’ 208, 222 ‘the poor’ 4, 7, 11, 43, 86, 139
overseas development assistance (ODA) 25, 31, 35, 37 Porter, P. W. 56
Oxfam 43, 147 Portugal 29, 35
positivism 46, 68
Pacific Islands Trust territory 131 post-development 18, 23, 26–8, 72, 83–9, 228–31; anti-
Pakistan: Afghanistan conflict 38; Bandung conference 103; capitalism 25, 150; critiques of 88–9, 91, 229; Eurocentrism
independence 31; military aid 156; military geographers 48, 90, 91; picture of the world 115–16; postcolonialism common
49; US lifting of sanctions 166 concerns 120; postmodernism 91–3; poverty eradication 172;
Palau 131 representation of Third World 102; resistance 217, 218;
Palestine 178–9, 189 spatiality 41
Panitchpakdi, Supatchai 147 post-structuralism 72, 85, 93, 125, 229, 232; definition 237;
Panos Institute 156 postcolonialism 119, 120
Paolini, A. 111, 120, 121; Africanist discourse 46; ‘post-Washington consensus’ 148, 160, 165
globalisation 149, 150, 151, 154 postcolonialism 18–19, 110, 114, 119–42, 232, 233–4;
Papua New Guinea 35, 49 Africa 108; Bandung project 104; critiques of 119–20,
Parekh, B. 154, 179 121, 139, 140–2; definition 237; Enlightenment 74;
Parikrama 226 globalisation 146, 148, 154, 163; good governance 224;
Parnwell, M. 194, 198, 207 India 30; internationalism 107; nationalism 98; poverty
participation 142, 194, 200–1; livelihood discourses 182; 189; radical geography 62, 66, 69; resistance 217, 218, 234;
NGOs 183, 184; World Bank 189 Said 49; solidarity 210; sub-disciplinary interaction 65;
partnership 19, 123, 131, 132–5, 137, 175 Zambia 88
Patel, R. 75, 189, 190, 191 postcoloniality 119, 130
Patkar, Medha 125–6, 206, 206, 209 postmodernism 27, 72, 91–3, 231; anti-capitalist protests 18;
patriarchy 157, 168 discursive production 15; postcolonialism 119, 120, 122
Peake, L. 232, 233 postmodernity 6
Peck, J. 26, 145 Potter, R. B. 27, 64, 65, 68–9, 78, 234

2 6 8
INDEX
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

poverty 1, 4, 10, 111, 171–5, 188–92; acronyms 189; Radcliffe, S. 41, 119
alternative ways of addressing 169; ‘blocked and generalised’ radical geography 46, 49, 57, 60–6, 69–70, 72; Buchanan 61,
221; critiques of modernisation theory 56; developed 66, 68, 69; development as ‘liberation’ 111, 220–1; see also
countries 67; discourse 86; environmental issues 13; free ‘new geographers’
trade 156, 157; global trade 150; globalisation 144, 145, Rahnema, Majid 4, 5, 10, 27, 200–1
166; as handicap 86; Human Development Index 2–3; rationalism 73
IFI-scripted strategies 228; livelihoods discourse 179–82, Ravenhill, J. 36
183; material causes 171; millennium development goals 19, Reagan, Ronald 117
22; misrepresentation of 172; monetary measures of 8–9; realism 72
Monterrey consensus 15; post-development 83–4; radical reason 73, 75, 76
geography 111; resistance movements 209, 215; social Reddy, S. G. 20
capital 182–3; statistics 20, 22; technification of 116; United Redfield, P. 66
States 7, 232; World Bank 7–8, 24, 42, 170, 175–7; see also redistribution of wealth 210–11
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers regional geography 47, 49, 50–2, 56, 58
Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) 175 Reporting the World 170–1
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) 23, 27, 163, representation 116, 123, 237
175–8, 189, 216; lack of transparency 227–8; Mozambique research 233
159; NEPAD 136 resistance 19, 194–9, 202–10, 214–18, 222; capitalism 28,
Poverty Strategies Initiative (PSI) 177–8 150, 209; definition 237; free trade 203; globalisation 26, 42,
power 41, 90, 170, 196–7, 202, 230; aid programmes 194, 195, 234; neoliberalism 28, 168, 170, 194, 195, 202,
31; critical geopolitics 97; development studies 122; 209, 215; post-development 27; postcolonialism 119, 128;
empowerment 201; Enlightenment knowledge 74; South Africa 210–12, 214; terrains of 195; Western
Foucault 15, 197; globalisation 145; inequalities in discourse 87; women 196, 198, 199–200, 206, 209, 217;
knowledge production 135; knowledge relationship 169; World Social Forum 143–4
neoliberalism 26; post-development 84, 85, 86, 87; revolutions 101, 107, 111–12, 117
postcolonialism 142; radical geography 62; resistance 195; Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) 53, 57, 58, 134
spatiality relationship 99; state 98, 99; technologies of Ricardo, David 155
domination 15–16 Riddell, R. 132
Power, M. 180 Rieff, David 109
Prakash, M. S. 91 Rigg, J. 194, 198, 207
Prescott, Victor 57 Rikowski, G. 147
PRGF see Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility Rio Earth Summit (1992) 13
privatisation 23, 42, 168; Argentina 197; Mozambique 159; Rist, T. 26, 84, 86, 157, 199, 217; Bandung conference 103;
South Africa 211; USAID promotion of 79; World Bank 160, crisis of development 173; dependency approaches 81, 83;
163; Zambia 88; see also deregulation; liberalisation development activities 8; exclusion 230; semantic conjuring 188
progress 2, 20, 137, 222, 230; developmentalism 29, 236; Robequain, Charles 47, 48
Enlightenment 28, 71, 72, 73, 75, 237; hegemony 91 Robinson, Jenny 65–6, 109, 139–40, 151
Prothero, Mansell 57–8, 65 Rocha, J. 203
Proudfoot, Malcolm Jarvis 53 Rogerson, Andrew 166
PRSPs see Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers rogue states 225–7
PSI see Poverty Strategies Initiative romanticism 27, 89, 91, 229
public opinion 35, 36, 114 Rose, G. 66
public resources 144 Rosenblatt, L. 36
public sphere 63 Rostow, Walt Whitman 59, 78–9, 80, 81, 82, 83, 232
Pugh, J. C. 54–5 Routledge, P. 194, 195, 196, 202
Rowbotham, M. 22, 23, 26, 150, 153, 163
Qaddafi, Muammar 112, 136 Roy, Arundhati 125–6
Qatar 156 rural areas 180–1, 190
Quebec 222 Russia: Afghanistan 38; development aid 37; financial crisis
165; perceived importance of 99; poverty 67; see also Soviet
Rabinow, P. 233 Union, former
race 11–12, 47, 66, 108, 116, 123; see also ethnicity Rwanda 137, 170
racism 12, 115, 116, 140, 232; Bandung conference 103;
Césaire 129; colonialism 100–1, 130; developed countries Sachs, W. 10, 11
67; Enlightenment reason 76; internal 114; media Said, E. 49, 106, 107, 119, 120, 129; anti-Americanism 38;
representations of Africa 170; neoliberal globalisation 168; imperialism 137; Islam 227; multiple identities 154;
see also apartheid Orientalism 45–6

2 6 9
INDEX
...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Sammy, W. 223 211–12; World Social Forum 143–4, 168, 209, 211, 214–15,
Samoff, J. 186, 187 216, 222; see also grassroots organisations
sanctions 225–6 social reproduction 162
Sangavi, Sanjay 209 social responsibility 13
Santiso, C. 223 social sciences 75, 76, 106, 116, 161, 182
SAPs see Structural Adjustment Programmes social semantics 102, 107
SAPSN see Southern African People’s Solidarity Network socialism 56, 81, 82, 102, 105; ‘Bandung regimes’ 104;
Sartre, Jean-Paul 108 collapse of 99; Eastern Europe 105, 202–3; Islam 111; map
SatireWire 15 of development discourse 62, 63, 63; mythical images of 111;
Saudi Arabia 35, 39, 79, 227 revolutions 46, 107, 111–12; Second World 18; state role
Sauvy, Alfred 102, 106 227; ‘three worlds’ concept 106; trusteeship 131; see also
Schaffer, Manfred 53, 54 communism; Marxism
Schenck, C. 128, 199 Sogge, D. 21, 41, 179, 182; development aid 34, 35, 36;
Schmitz, G. 41 geopolitics 37; NGOs 183
Schuurman, F. J. 2, 27, 83, 137, 148, 149 Solanas, F. 127
science 75 solidarity 26, 194, 204, 209–10, 215; anti-capitalist protests
Scott, D. 49, 104 25; coalitions 19; Dakar manifesto 216; post-development
Scottish Enlightenment 73 27; South Africa 211, 212
Seattle protests 25 Somalia 114, 131
Second World 18, 96, 99, 102, 106 ‘the South’ 6, 10, 11, 18, 95, 96; exploitation 82;
Second World War 31, 48, 77, 80, 101 non-capitalism 149; politics 98; ‘politics of representation’
Sen, Amartya 191 116; see also Third World
Senghor, Léopold Sédar 129 South Africa 1, 187; apartheid 55, 97, 111, 113, 210, 211;
September 11th attacks 1, 12, 192, 225 banana trade 213; Buchanan 55, 57; DARG research projects
sexism 168 64; First World/Third World classification 112, 113; NEPAD
SFGJ see Students for Global Justice 136; ‘new wave’ of geography 64; Non-Aligned Movement
Sharp, J. 83, 112, 113, 119 104; radical geography 111; resistance 210–12, 214, 217;
Sharp, J. E. 26 ‘the West’ 141
Shelley, F. M. 96, 98, 99 South Commission 136
Shenton, R. W. 28, 73, 130–1 South Korea 35, 153, 166, 222
Shiva, Vandana 143, 156–7, 208 Southeast Asia: Buchanan 55–7, 68; colonialism 31, 140;
Shohat, E. 95, 107, 109–10, 114; cinema 127; discourse 115; financial crisis 214; growth 160; military geographers 49;
Eurocentrism 102 private capital flows 35; tropical geography 53; Western
Short, Clare 132, 133, 171, 179, 211, 228 pre-war research 47
Sidaway, J. D. 85, 140 Southern African People’s Solidarity Network (SAPSN) 193
Sierra Leone 172 sovereignty 99, 107, 152, 200
Simon, D. 91, 93, 128, 135 Soviet Union, former (USSR) 57, 104, 105–6; Cold War 80, 97,
Simone, Abdou Maliq 139 105; collapse of 114; development aid 32; Middle East 178;
Sinatra Doctrine 79, 224 poverty 192; see also Russia
Singapore 55–7, 153 space: critical geopolitics 97; disability issues 92
Slater, David 56, 80, 90, 122, 195; dependency approaches 194; Spain 35
globalisation 148; resistance 198 Spate, O. H. K. 49
slavery 29, 122, 123, 138, 234 spatialisations of development 21
Smillie, I. 36 spatiality 4–5, 41, 99, 100, 230, 231, 235
Smith, Adam 73, 94, 155 Spivak, G. 119
Smith, Adrian 235 Spurr, D. 115
Smith, Neil 94 Sri Lanka (Ceylon) 1, 99; Bandung conference 103;
social capital 148, 161, 162, 172, 182–3, 189 colonisation 100; independence 31; military geographers 49;
social change 76 socialism 104; tropical geography 52
social class see class Stam, R. 95, 107, 109–10, 114; cinema 127; discourse 115;
social engineering 89 Eurocentrism 102
social exclusion 190, 191 Stamp, Lawrence Dudley 47, 53, 54, 55
social history 64 state 5, 200, 224; Africa 97–8; capitalist 56; colonial 30;
social justice 61, 225, 235 geopolitics 97–8; intervention 23; legitimacy 152; map of
social movements 19, 89, 108, 145, 227; critical development discourse 62; neoliberalism 166; NGOs
developmentalism 229; partners in research 232–3; relationship 201; post-development perspective 87; role
resistance 194–6, 198, 202–10, 214–18; South Africa 210, 152–3, 227; see also nation-state; rogue states

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statistics 20, 21–2 101; feminism 199–200; ‘Firstworldisation’ 11; foreign aid
Steel, R. W. 48, 58 22; geopolitics 96, 97, 98, 99; globalisation 150–1; imagined
stereotypes 111, 118; Africa 139; media images 86, 189; Third geographies 220; media representations 6, 115, 170, 171;
World 96, 170 modernisation theory 79, 81; nation building 67; nationalism
Stiglitz, Joe 160, 162, 163 77; post-development 85, 86, 87; postcolonialism 123;
stigmatisation 115 revolutionary pressures 53, 57; security-building 224;
Stoddart, David 64 stereotypes 96, 111, 118, 170; student travellers 5, 111;
Stokke, K. 135 ‘three worlds’ conceptualisation 96, 102–8, 109, 110–11;
Stone, E. 93 Western modernity 101; women 111, 112, 125; see also
Stromquist, N. P. 186, 187 developing countries; ‘the South’
Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) 23, 154, 159, 175, Third World Network (TWN) 112–13, 166, 223
180, 188, 191, 216 ‘Thirdworldisation’ 11
structuralism 60, 122 Thirdworldism 18, 82, 98, 109, 110, 137; Islamic countries
structuration theory 72 117; linked resistances 116, 122, 210; neocolonialism 200;
Students for Global Justice (SFGJ) 143 Non-Aligned Movement 103, 104; self-determination 215
Subaltern Studies Group 124 Thomas, A. 2, 6, 11, 77, 201; balance sheet concept 20; post-
‘the subject’ 84 development 27; student perceptions 108
subjectivity 89–90, 186, 237; post-development 84; Thompson, N. 128
postcolonialism 125, 126, 139, 218 Thompson, S. 128
Sudan 39, 57, 225 ‘three worlds’ concept 18, 93, 96, 99, 102–8, 116; critiques of
Suharto, President 153, 170 84, 109, 111; decentring of 117; Islam 110–11; Williams
Sukarno, President 103, 104, 117 221; see also First World; Second World; Third World
Summers, Lawrence 37 Thrift, N. 64
sustainable development 13, 20, 72, 89, 174; DFID 180; Tickell, A. 26, 145
Johannesburg Summit 1, 2; millennium development tiger economies 107, 160
goals 22 Tito, Marshal 117
sweatshops 7 Tobin, James 150
Sylvester, C. 77, 79, 81–2, 120, 121, 136 Togo 48–9
Syria 225 Townsend, J. 179, 183
trade 100, 133; banana trade 213; globalisation 143, 144, 150,
Taaffe, Edward J. 53, 60 155–7; New International Economic Order 162–3; see also
Taiwan 35, 153 free trade; World Trade Organisation
Talbot, C. 133 transition economies 67
Taliban 37 transnational corporations (TNCs) 5, 158, 209; banana trade
Tanzania 61, 81, 82, 104 213; brands 13; foreign direct investment 159; globalisation
technical assistance 21 145, 146, 148, 165; Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers 23;
technologies of domination 15–16, 98 resistance against 215, 216; state sovereignty 152; see also
technology 145, 184, 185 multinational corporations
Teivainen, T. 169 transport 59–60
Telatin, M. 23 travel 5
television 171 trickle-down effects 60, 77, 78, 80, 211
territoriality 99 tropical geography 46, 52–3, 58, 66, 69; Buchanan contrast 55,
territory: colonial artificial territorial boundaries 98; critical 56, 57; legacy of 68
geopolitics 96, 97; definition 99; globalisation effect on 6; see ‘the Tropics’ 45, 46–7, 59, 66, 67, 100; radical geography 61,
also deterritorialisation 68; regional geography 49, 52–3
terrorism: politics of representation 116; September 11th Truman, Harry 11, 30, 31, 49, 59, 71, 86, 106
attacks 1, 12, 192, 225; war on 18, 33, 37, 38–9, 223, 226, trusteeship 74, 123, 130–1, 137, 228
227 Tunisia 39, 117
Thailand 128, 140; Asian crisis 153; neoliberal ‘success stories’ Turkey: development aid 35; geographical handbooks 48;
166; resistance movements 206–7, 214, 217; Western non-colonial history 109; Thirdworldism 117; war on
pre-war research 47 terrorism 39
Thatcher, Margaret 117 Tutu, Desmond 211
Thiongo, Ngugi Wa 123, 129–30 TWN see Third World Network
‘Third Way’ 117, 127, 132, 134
Third World 10, 18, 109–116; blame 43; cinema 127; cities 65, Uganda 1, 60, 158; debt reduction 23; perceived importance of
109, 140, 151; colonialism 101; debt 22–3; 99; Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers 176; trade 147
developmentalism 28; elites 98–9; exploitation 82; Fanon UN see United Nations

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UNCTAD see United Nations Conference on Trade and urban areas 80, 139, 151, 190; see also cities
Development urban geography 65–6, 109, 139–40, 151
underdevelopment 11, 30, 52, 58, 68; Africa 64; capitalist urbanisation 59
expansion 62; dependency approaches 60, 82, 83, 117; USAID see United States Agency for International
geopolitics 97; India 124; modernisation theory 77, 79; Development
neocolonialism 237; post-development perspective 86, 87 USSR see Soviet Union, former
UNDP see United Nations Development Programme
UNESCO see United Nations Educational, Scientific and Van Ausdal, S. 87, 89
Cultural Organisation Via Campesina 208–9
UNICEF see United Nations Children’s Fund Vietnam 31, 57, 68; anti-colonial struggles 116; Asian crisis
United Arab Emirates 39 153; dam construction 199; development aid 35; Poverty
United Kingdom 136, 174; see also Great Britain Reduction Strategy Papers 177; radical geography 61;
United Nations (UN) 1, 3, 7, 14, 77, 101, 184; Afghanistan socialism 18, 81, 82; US intervention 115
conflict 38; Charter 131; conference on racism 234; Vietnam War 104, 107, 111
development aid 32–4; ‘Development Decades’ 32; digital Vitalis, R. 106
divide 184; disability issues 92; Food and Agriculture voice 120
Organisation 21; Human Development Index 2; modernisation ‘Voices of the Poor’ 42, 139
84; monetary criteria 8; Monterrey consensus 15; New Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) 36, 171
International Economic Order 162; NGO funding 117; vulnerability context 181
poverty 191, 192; progress definitions 20; research vulture funds 228
opportunities 233; Rio Earth Summit 13; Statistics Division
21; Trusteeship Council 131; US geopolitical concerns 166 Wade, R. 144
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 16, 21, 92, 172–3 WAIPA see World Association of Investment Promotion
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Agencies
(UNCTAD) 112, 158, 159, 160, 190 Wales 61, 90
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP): Wallerstein, I. 10, 59, 146, 218
Afghanistan crisis 38; development definition 2; disability Walling, D. 64
issues 92; global inequalities 9–10; multilateral aid 34; war on terrorism 18, 33, 37, 38–9, 223, 226, 227
poverty 174, 177–8, 189, 191; Programme of Assistance to Washington consensus 158, 212
the Palestinian People 178; sustainable livelihoods 181; Watnick, Morris 77
trusteeship 131 Watter, Ray 68
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Watts, M. J. 62, 64, 88–9, 107, 201
Organisation (UNESCO) 21, 52, 92 Al Wazir, Intisar 178
United States: anti-Americanism 38; anti-communism 31–2, WCED see Brundtland World Commission on Environment and
80, 132; anti-geopolitics 202; areas of influence 116; Bretton Development
Woods institutions 24; CIA 12–14, 39, 59, 149, 219; Cold WDM see World Development Movement
War 97, 106; datasets 21; decolonisation 101; dependency WDR see World Development Report
approach 81; development aid 31, 32, 34, 40, 40, 223, 226; WEF see World Economic Forum
farm subsidies 157; Foreign Assistance Act 31, 41; Weisskopf, W.A. 8, 221
geopolitical concerns 166; global empire 11; IMF domination Wellington, J. H. 55
128; imperialism 39, 111; interventions 115; Israel Werbner, R. 126
relationship 41, 178; living standards 1; Marshall Plan 31; ‘the West’ concept 75, 76, 95–6, 99–101, 102, 141
Middle East 178, 203; modernisation theory 68, 79, 80, 94; Westernisation 87, 101, 129, 154
NAFTA 152; NEPAD 136; Office of Strategic Services 59; Westoxication 101
overseas research 53–4, 59; perceived importance of 99; Plan whiteness 12, 232
Colombia 33–4; poverty 7, 174, 232; radical geography 61; WHO see World Health Organization
reduction of aid 34, 114; rogue states 225–6; security Wilks, A. 185
assistance 40; ‘three worlds’ concept 102; trade barriers 162; Williams, G. 113
transnational corporations 158; urban life 109; Vietnam War Williams, Raymond 95–6, 112, 221–2
104; war against Afghanistan 37–8; World Bank 220; World Wills, J. 218
Trade Organisation 112, 147, 155–6 Wisner, Ben 60, 64
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Wolfensohn, James 1, 8, 24, 75, 160, 185, 187, 211
31, 35, 41, 79, 91; co-optation of NGO agendas 135; women 7, 125–6, 212–14; India 129; marginalisation 156–7;
neoliberalism 188; poverty reduction 173; research millennium development goals 22; poverty 191; resistance
opportunities 233; trusteeship 131 196, 198, 199–200, 206, 209, 217; social capital 161; South
universities 52 Africa 212; ‘Third World women’ myth 111, 112, 125
Unwin, T. 64 Women’s Movement (Quebec) 222

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World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies World Development Report (WDR) 24, 41–2, 153, 175, 180,
(WAIPA) 158, 160 182, 191; issues ignored by 225; knowledge 185, 186, 187;
World Bank 7, 24, 146, 158, 188–91; Afghanistan crisis 38; neoliberalism 200
Bonds Boycott 211, 212; co-optation of NGO agendas 135; World Economic Forum (WEF) 14, 143, 180, 211, 214
conditionality 226; currency regulation 152; debt repayment World Forum for Alternatives 208
23–5, 133; development dissemination 192; ‘development World Health Organization (WHO) 21, 92
knowledge’ 184–8; development rhetoric 162; disability World Social Forum (WSF) 143–4, 168, 209, 211, 214–15,
issues 92; Enlightenment knowledge 74–5; EU block 35; 216, 222
failure of poverty alleviation 165; Focus on the Global South World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg
145; free trade 73; G8 voting power 84; gender issues 227; 2002) 1, 2, 13, 211
globalisation 165–6; HIPCs 154; income data map 9; income World Trade Organisation (WTO) 112, 145–6, 147, 155–6; EU
distribution 144; influence on national governments 23; issues block 35; neoliberalism 163; protests against 25, 146, 150,
ignored by 225; location in Washington 220; market-based 155, 207, 209, 214; rule-making procedures 157
loans 22, 23; misleading poverty statistics 20; modernisation Worseley, P. 102, 117
theory 79; Mozambique 160; multilateral aid 34; Wright, Richard 103
neoliberalism 163, 175, 186, 200, 219; NGO funding 117; WSF see World Social Forum
paradigm maintenance 228; perception of Third World 113; WTO see World Trade Organisation
post-development perspective 87, 88; poverty 7–8, 24, 42,
170, 175–7; primary concern 41–2; privatisation 160; Yapa, Lakshman 67, 71, 85, 86, 169, 188, 221, 231–2
protests against 25, 150, 206, 207, 209; PRSPs 175, 176, Yemen 39, 227
177, 216, 227–8; social capital 161, 182; South Africa 211, Yeoh, B. S. A. 45, 46–7
212; sustainable development 13; terrorism 37; ‘Voices of the
Poor’ 42, 139; website 185, 188; Western influence 84; WTO Zaire 114
cooperation 156; see also World Development Report Zambia 88, 121
world cities 65–6, 109 Zapatistas 97, 203, 204–5, 205, 208, 214, 215
World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) Ziegler, Jean 11
13 Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) 53, 57, 58, 134
World Development Movement (WDM) 15, 135 Zoubir, Y. H. 225

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