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Essay Title:
What practical implications flow from post-development and participatory
development critiques of mainstream approaches? Discuss and Evaluate
For decades, economic and state-led development continuously failed to deliver satisfactory
outcomes, resulting in a widespread disillusionment in the whole framework of
Development. The 1990s saw a surge of writings advocating for significant reform of
development processes and a clear rethinking of how development was to be understood.
The post-development school of thought, led by academics such as Arturo Escobar and
Wolfgang Sachs, encouraged a complete rejection of development as it existed, and
advocated for a return to local, traditional ways of living for populations in the Third World
(Escobar 1995, Sachs 1992). Other critiques of the mainstream approach cautioned against a
complete rejection of the development framework and instead looked into how to make
development theory and practice more relevant to indigenous peoples through significant
reform. These theories, emanating from anthropology, advocated for a more agent focused
development that would enable populations to participate in and even give direction to
their own development.
This essay aims to explain these different approaches and evaluate their relevance in the
context of practical solutions to the current development crisis. It will claim that it is
important to understand the different positions within post-development and participatory
development discourses when looking at viable policy implications. Indeed, by combining
the useful aspects of each position, a more adequate and legitimate future for development
could be conceived.
The core idea behind post-development thinking lies in its critique of the concept of
development as a western construction to manipulate and subjugate Third World countries,
thus being more of a problem than a solution.
Escobar argues that the notion of
development as it is understood today emerged after Truman’s 1949 speech which praised
industrialisation, urbanisation and technical progress; in a word: modernisation (1995: 4).
Newly independent countries were said to be suffering from backwardness, poverty and
underdevelopment, and needed the support of the industrialised world to achieve
prosperity and a modern way of life (Truman 1949 in Escobar 1995). This type of discourse
re-invented the identities of populations in the ex-colonies to justify the need for large scale
intervention from western development experts. This argument draws on a Foucauldian
understanding of power as the production of systems of truths, in order to set norms, such
as who is developed and who is not. Normalisation occurs whereby entire populations
redefine themselves according to the norms set by those in power, and are therefore
assimilated to the power systems (Briggs: 2002). Escobar claims that the poor, for instance,
were defined “in relation to the standard of wealth of the more economically advantaged
nations” (1995: 23), where wealth was understood in financial terms. Other forms of
richness (such as social, cultural, communal etc.) were ignored and the only understanding
of development was one modelled on western concepts of economic modernisation and
scientific progress.
Post-development authors explain that technology and rationality are seen as important
components of this path to development, and that the beliefs (superstitions) and traditions
of indigenous populations are conceptualised as regressive, and thus must be abandoned.
Rahnema argues that superimposed notions of rationality, objective truths and modern
science are destroying local cultures and systems of knowledge, and thus eliminating all
forms of alternative thinking for development (1997). Illich also denounces development for
being culturally defined by the West and of turning the Third World into markets for the
consumption of technological advances and ever-expanding production from the
industrialised nations (1977: 96). Post-development is therefore an overall rejection of the
whole paradigm of development, which is seen as a western-led enterprise to model and
control Third World populations, and to legitimise intervention aimed at altering the ways of
life of indigenous populations of the so-called underdeveloped countries. This challenge to
mainstream ideas about development can be considered a valuable contribution to the
debate, and post-development thinking is an important intellectual project in this sense.
Instead of a global, western-led development project, post-development writers advocate a
return to “local thinking”, as local movements and initiatives will understand and respect
their people’s norms (Esteva and Prakash 1997). For post-development theorists, it is
important to bring traditional ways of life back to the forefront of development, and use
local knowledge for the design and organisation of societies. In The Post-Development
Reader, a series of authors praise the values and norms of traditional communities, such as
Ladakhi villages (Norberg-Hodge, 1997), which have been neglected in the global project of
development. Appadurai looks at traditional farming in rural India and concludes that poor
farmers are being forced to commercialise their agricultural farming which destroys not only
the sustainability of their land but their communal ties and societal values as well (1990).
Indeed, post-development sees the Western approach to nature as destructive, as capital
accumulation appears to go hand in hand with the conquering and utilising of nature
(Marglin, 1990:22). However, many traditional cultures are said to have a more respectful
and ethical approach to nature. For instance, the caring of land and the view that man and
nature should live in harmony can lead to a more sustainable form of agriculture. Postdevelopment thus encourages the respect of local knowledge which can result in
sustainable solutions, as well as avoid the destruction of traditional values and ancient
cultures. Societies can change, they argue, however they must be given the opportunities to
evolve on their own terms (Marglin, 1990: 16).
Most post-development writers advocate grassroots initiatives and praise the work of
organisations such as the Chipko movement, which use traditional Indian methods to resist
deforestation (Rahnema, 2010: 140). Sheth argues that grassroots movements are able to
challenge the power structures on political terms and engage with communities to counter
the top-down, technocratic development promoted by the West (Sheth, 1997: 330). Postdevelopment pushes for a reversal of existing power relations to give the people back their
independence and find alternative paths to fulfilment.
Although post-development theory offers a much needed critique of the development
framework, and has pushed activists and academics to think in a radically different way,
there are nevertheless some important limitations to its practical implications. First, postdevelopment draws too simple a picture of Developmentalism and its accusations of the
West and modernity do not take into account the complexity and variety of opinions within
those discourses. Corbridge argues that over time, development has evolved and changed in
various ways and thus all development projects cannot be unanimously rejected under the
same critique (1998: 145). Brigg also claims that post-development unfairly portrays “the
West” as a united conspiratory force, which ignores the disparities between different
development actors and their goals (2002: 424). NGOs, for instance, play a very different
role than international organisations and are usually more responsive to the needs of local
communities and their culture (Grillo, 1997: 24). Indeed the situation is more complex than
modern versus traditional, or global versus local.
Second, post-development writings tend to romanticise indigenous ways of life. In the same
way that post-development unilaterally rejects the development project; it also embraces
traditional life, ignoring potential dangers that may emerge from this unquestioning
celebration of the local. Nanda, for instance, claims that post-development discourse feeds
into the interests of the rural elite rather than the true landless peasants, and can disregard
the populations they claim to defend (1999). Ignoring power structures within communities
might perpetuate the exclusion of certain groups such as women or landless populations
(Nanda, 1999). Therefore, the reality of “the village” is more complex than postdevelopmentalists tend to depict it. Local knowledge seems to be portrayed as ancient,
unchanging, and unquestionable. Grillo argues that assuming that ignorance only comes
from the “west” is restrictive, and we must take into consideration the limitations of
indigenous knowledge, and the way it has evolved (1997: 25).
This leads on to another important issue: post-development is problematic when it comes
to implementing ideas in practice. How can a slum-dweller in Nairobi plausibly go back to an
ancient way of life with which they have no connection? To some degree, the process of
urbanisation is irreversible, making a complete return to a traditional way of life
inconceivable. Corbridge also points out that many populations enjoy some aspects of
science and technology, such as electricity (1998: 144). Furthermore, an absolute refusal to
engage with global actors and structures weakens the position of post-development
advocates, as the local and global in today’s world are closely interlinked (Corbridge, 1998:
145). Grassroot movements do not act independently from the global structures they
challenge. Therefore, a more realistic countering of top-down, globally led development
would be to engage with and recognise its impact on the local.
It seems that post-development is inherently incompatible with the realities of today’s
globalised world. However, post-development is far from a homogeneous school of thought,
and some authors do recognise the need to engage with aspects of modernity and the
development project in order to create a new system of thinking. Ziai differentiates
between the ‘neo-populist’ branch of post-development, and the ‘sceptical’ variant pushing
for radical democracy (2004). He argues that the former advocates a complete rejection of
modernity and a return to traditional ways of life in a radical way, which could lead to
dangerous extreme nationalism, such as is the case with certain branches of extreme Islamic
movements (2004: 1055). The criticisms of post-development outlined above can be easily
used against this rigid understanding of the world, where the local culture is inherently good
and static, as opposed to the entirely evil Western world. However, the second branch of
post-development outlined by Ziai, labelled “radical democracy”, sees culture as actively
constructed and is thus more sceptical of local traditions (2004: 1054). It accepts that some
Western concepts can be included in a search for a better future, while pushing for a
reversal the monopoly of knowledge, to defend “indigenous ways of knowing” (Banuri,
1990: 97). This position claims that today’s democratic structures are inadequate (and often
elitist) and significant transformation is needed in order to give power back to the people
(Esteva & Prakash: 1998).
This understanding of post-development can be translated more comfortably into active
social movements and actions on the ground. Raman (2007) illustrates this with the
example of the Plachimada movement’s resistance against the significant environmental
damage and water shortages caused by the Coca-Cola factory in the Indian state of Kerala.
Raman argues that this grassroot initiative draws upon a post-development approach to
tackling power structures (2007). For instance, it challenged the constructed truths issued
by the US giant Coca-Cola, by exposing them legally, and putting forward a new discourse
from the local populations offering a contrasting set of facts (Raman, 2007: 174). This postdevelopment idea pushes for a deconstruction of objective knowledge and allowing for a
multitude of voices to be heard. The Plachimada resistance also tackled the Coca-Cola
factory as a symbol of US hegemony and cultural westernisation, an action flowing from
post-development discourse (2007: 173).
In sum, post-development cannot be taken as a homogenous way of thinking. Although
some authors can be criticised for their reductionist understanding of power and their
absolute condemnation of western culture, others offer a more nuanced view which offer
valuable contributions in challenging mainstream development. The idea of a bottom-up
approach, where locals take the lead in defining the problems of their societies and
designing the solutions, has also been put forward by participatory development.
Mainstream development up until the 1990s, as well as its critiques (emanating from
Dependency Theory for instance), held a predominantly structural position and gave little
room for agency in the development project. Anthropologist and sociologists started to
push for an actor-orientated approach to development, and the need for bottom-up
methods in practice. The concept of agency in development practice would give the
individual actor back to ability to deal with and influence development practice (Long, 1992:
22), instead of conceptualising people in the Global South as passive recipients of policies
from above. Chambers, in Rural Development: Putting the Last First, challenges the notion
of top-down, technocratic, expert-led development and suggests that those development
practitioners have a lot to learn from rural populations (Chamber, 1983). Chambers
formulated a foundation for Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) advocating certain
techniques to learn from local populations and work with them in order to formulate
development policies and design projects (1983). These ideas have been transferred, in part,
into the development mainstream and participation is today encouraged to some degree by
the World Bank and to a larger extent, within the NGO discourse. Indeed, methods such as
interviews, group dynamics and local farming techniques have been adopted in programmes
run by Oxfam (2010), Save the Children (2010) and many more.
Mainstream participatory development has been disputed on several grounds1, which
questions the validity of this so-called new approach to development. In Participation, The
New Tyranny?, Cooke & Kothari claim to go beyond the internal critique of methods of
participation to denounce the approach on conceptual and political grounds (2001: 6).
‘Populist’ participation is accused of simplifying the notion of community and reducing it to
1
Only some of the limitations of participation techniques will be summarised here. For further details please
see Cooke & Kothari (2001).
a single entity, homogenous and composed of individuals who all share similar interests,
without taking into consideration potential disparities and exclusionary structures within
‘the village’ (Williams, 2004: 561). Participation also stands accused of reducing an
important theoretical problem of top-down power relations and structural approach to
development to a simple technical issue. It seems that by offering a methodological
solution, through PRA and other techniques, to include communities in the formulation and
design of policies, participatory development ignores the more important political struggle
that is needed to challenge the power relations dominating the development project.
Furthermore, Williams argues that the responsibility for development projects shifts from
the macro-level to the populations, moving the larger development structures away from
scrutiny (2004: 565). Thus, participatory development as it has been translated in
mainstream practice falls short of the radical reform that it promised.
In recent years, authors such as Hickey & Mohan (2004), or Williams (2004) have argued for
a rethinking of participation and development practice as a whole, and have pushed for a
more political understanding of participatory development. Hickey and Mohan claim that
“The proper objective of participation is to ensure the ‘transformation’ of existing
development practice and, more radically, the social relations, institutional practices and
capacity gaps which cause social exclusion” (2004: 13). The critiques of participation
emanating from Kothari and Cooke that challenge the reductionist notion of power can be
remedied to some extent if participation is to be understood as a political project
empowering people to challenge various power structures at the local, regional, national
and global level.
The notion of citizenship here is understood in a broader, radical
perspective which emphases the expression of agency and the rights of members of a
society to access and control socio-economic resources (Mohan and Hickey, 2004: 66). They
argue that a broader understanding of citizenship will benefit marginalised groups as it gives
them the opportunity to claim citizenship “from below (…) rather than waiting for it to be
conferred from above” (2004: 67). Williams sees participation as an opportunity for the
poor to challenge power structures and make the state accountable (2004: 571). He gives
the example of participatory planning in Kerala, which was initially a state-sponsored project
and resulted in the politicisation of issues that affected rural populations and was used as a
means to challenge state officials and institutions (2004: 570).
Therefore, it seems that participation should be understood more broadly than simple
involvement in projects put forward by development agencies, to include a more organic
takeover from local populations themselves. Cornwall talks of “invited spaces” and “created
spaces” and argues that true transformative participation will include both the opportunity
for locals to participate in the invited spaces offered by development bodies, as well as the
possibility to create and shape their own spaces to make their voices heard (Cornwall,
2004). If participatory development assumes a more radical, politically driven agenda of
empowerment and adopts a broader notion of citizenship, it may move towards a more
significant project of reform within the field of development.
This notion of alternative political participation links to the idea of radical democracy in
post-development thinking, in that both positions advocate a reversal of power structures in
the development business, condemning a top-down, technocratic agenda. Authors from
these schools of thought advocate a deconstruction of how development is understood.
They push for a more indigenous path to change through political struggle and grassroot
initiatives to challenge global structures and make the state accountable to its people.
Although one must always remain sceptical of how power works on a global as well as on a
local scale, it seems this approach gives hope for reform towards a more adequate and fair
development.
When looking at post-development theory and alternatives to development, it is always
important to remember that homogeneity is rare, and that different authors will advocate a
variety of solutions, ranging from changing the way we think about development, to
enabling political struggle from the grassroots. These theories have given a basis for a
number of movements that have emerged in the Third World to resist the dominance of
multinational corporations, to challenge top-down development processes, or even to bring
states into account. Post-development has also been an important intellectual project to
rethink the understanding of development itself, a vital question to address when significant
reform is needed. All in all, the contributions of the post-development and radical
participation schools cannot be ignored or cast aside, as they present a significantly
alternative approach to the development framework. The question remains whether or not
the dominant development actors that determine the agenda will accept to take these
critiques seriously and reconsider their approach.
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