Development
put into context
“From the unburied corpse of development, every kind of pest has started
to spread” (Esteva, 2010:1).
Esteva, Gustavo. 2010. “Development”. In The Development Dictionary a guide to knowledge as power (2nd edition), edited by Wolfgang Sachs. London & New York:
Zed Books, pp. 1 – 23
Post-development school
The development dictionary (Sachs 1992)
Crucial to what has become known as the Post-development school
Radical critique of development
Eurocentric construct
Failed project
Gustavo Esteva
Critic of the division underdeveloped/developed
The invention of the “underdeveloped”
By using for the first time in such context the word ‘underdeveloped’, Truman changed the
meaning of development and created the emblem, a euphemism, used ever since to
allude either discreetly or inadvertently to the era of American hegemony (Esteva 2010:2).
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harry-truman-inaugural-address-1949/
… the “others” needed to
“catch-up”...
Broken promises…
1980s - “... the underdeveloped will never catch-up”.
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The “lost decade of development”
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The “basic needs approach”
1990s - “redevelopment”
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For Esteva, under the banner of the war on poverty, “redeveloping the South involves
launching the last and definitive assault against organized resistance to development and
the economy” (p. 13).
“For people on the margins, disengaging from the economic logic of the market or
the plan has become the very condition for survival” (Esteva 2010:17).
Esteva, Gustavo. 2010. “Development”. In The Development Dictionary a guide to knowledge as power (2nd edition), edited by Wolfgang Sachs. London & New York:
Zed Books, pp. 1 – 23
In spite of the economy, common men on the margins have been able to keep
alive another logic, another set of rules (Escobar, 2010:19).