By Alba Castellsagué and Sally Matthews
Are communities in the Global South rejecting the idea of development in favour of radical alternatives rooted in Indigenous concepts and practices? Some commentators, such as the contributors to the book Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary, argue that they are. Our new edited book, Post-Development from the Global South: Radical Alternatives or Ambivalent Engagements, presents a more complicated picture. Based on case studies from across the Global South, we reveal the ambivalent picture that emerges when marginalised communities engage with the concept of development, and with alternatives to it. Bringing together case studies from Africa, South America, Asia and the Middle East, the book is rooted in careful engagement with specific communities grappling with development and its alternatives.
Global South perspectives on development and its alternatives
The book organizes the various case studies into three parts. The first group of chapters focuses on local conceptions of development in South Africa, Nepal, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe. The authors explore the diversity of ways in which people understand development. At the same time, they focus on the common notion of ambivalence about development found in such diverse parts of the world.
The second part of the book is about the concept of buen vivir. This is one of the most frequently used ‘indigenous notion’ by post-development thinkers when proposing alternatives to classical models of development. Studies from Bolivia and Peru explore the many contradictions that emerge from local experiences of citizenship, modernity, and entrepreneurship when supposedly alternative buen vivir policies are put into practice.
The final section of the book brings together experiences of alternatives to development put into practice in urban Iran, rural South Africa, and an island in the Philippines. The authors reflect on the complexities that emerge from communities’ attempts to improve their lives. Each chapter focuses on a specific issue related to development: economic practices, social movements, and degrowth debates.
What do such different places share?
The chapters collected in this book show that the idea of ‘development’ is very familiar to people in the Global South. The cases from around the world reveal commonalities despite geographical, socio-economic and historical differences.
One commonality is that the term development can have different meanings in different times and spaces. In the Philippines, for example, a distinction is made between kalamboan (development) and ginhawa (well-being). Similarly, the Nepalese distinguish between ‘hardware’ and ‘software’ bikas, which refer to different aspects of development.
Another finding is that development tends to be ambivalently assessed. The various cases show that the concept is rarely embraced uncritically or rejected radically. Instead, it can be seen as both positive and negative at the same time. People in the Global South tend to want the material and infrastructural improvements that development brings, or at least promises to bring. At the same time, however, some people are critical of failed programmes and some of their practices. In South Africa, for example, the Dzomo la Mupo social movement opposes extractivism to preserve sacred sites, and in Zimbabwe, the people of Kanyemba sometimes yearn for a return to traditional ways of life.
A third common thread throughout the book is the importance of the political dimension of development and post-development. In the Philippines, Nepal, Zimbabwe and South Africa, the responsibility for development seems to lie with politicians and governments. In places such as Bolivia, the notion of buen vivir has been embraced by the government and has allegedly guided the country’s policies. However, various chapters point out the shortcomings of such policies and how far they seem to be from the perceptions of different indigenous communities. These chapters show how Indigenous concepts, such as buen vivir, are changed when they are appropriated by those in power.
A distinct approach to development alternatives
Post-Development from the Global South: Radical Alternatives or Ambivalent Engagements? contributes to the growing interest in alternative epistemologies and ‘Indigenous concepts’ as potential alternatives to mainstream development discourses and practices. Specifically, the book has two distinctive features.
First, it is based on empirical studies. Much of the writing on alternatives to development has been theoretical. This is a recurring critique of post-development theory, which, without much empirical detail, has tended to flatten and generalize people’s experiences and to present alternatives to development, such as ubuntu or buen vivir, as self-consistent and uncontroversial concepts. The chapters are based on robust ethnographic research, providing context and complexity, and attending to the nuances and ambivalences that people from the Global South have towards development.
Secondly, the book is a compilation of cases from different geographical regions. Research on alternatives to development has focused mainly on Latin America and the notion of buen vivir. Instead, this book brings together different perspectives from the Global South and gives prominence to other, less explored parts of the world, such as Iran, Nepal or the Philippines.
Among post-development and decolonial thinkers, there has been considerable enthusiasm for the idea of alternatives to development, particularly those rooted in Indigenous concepts and practices. This book engages with this enthusiasm and invites advocates of such alternatives to nuance and complicate their position. We look forward to further debate on this important topic.
Note:
The book discussed above began as a panel at the EADI 2023 conference. We introduced the panel in this blog and contributors to the panel (and the book) have also shared their findings as EADI blogs – see this blog about Bolivian perspectives on modernity by Guido Alejo and María Fernanda Córdova Suxo, this blog on rethinking Indigeneity by María Fernanda Córdova Suxo and this blog on decoding Indigenous perspectives on development by Léna Prouchet.
Alba Castellsagué is an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in the Pedagogy Department at the University of Girona (UdG). She has teaching and research experience in the fields of education and international development, gender equality and migration studies.
Sally Matthews is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political and International Studies at Rhodes University, South Africa. Her areas of research interest include post-development theory, the politics of knowledge production on Africa, the role of NGOs in Africa, and higher education transformation and decolonisation.
Image: taken in Kanyemba, Zimbabwe, by Neil Maheve.