Post-Development – Page 2 – Debating Development Research

03/12/202402/12/2025

Trading with the ‘Jungle’: The European Union’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences

By Jan Orbie, Antonio Salvador Alcazar III and Tinus Sioen

The notions of ‘developing countries’ and ‘development cooperation’ have been waning in discourses by scholars, policymakers and civil society actors. At least rhetorically, the colonial and patronising nature of these notions has been recognised at the European Union (EU) level. For instance, the Development Commissioner has been rechristened as the ‘Commissioner of International Partnerships’ since 2019. In recent years, the EU has pursued plenty of ‘partnerships’ in areas such as climate, energy, trade and deforestation.

23/04/202429/04/2024

Rethinking Indigeneity

By María Fernanda Córdova Suxo

The Indigenous subject has been positioned as a key player in alternatives to development. These alternatives refer to Indigenous People’s struggles and knowledge as distinct ways of facing current crises – including environmental, food, and capitalist crises. This positioning can be interpreted as a result of different indigenous movements working together across borders, in search of self-determination and the fulfillment of their human rights. However, this indigenous subject, within academia and other spheres from which power emerges, tends to be framed in abstract characteristics and is dissociated from the complexity of its context. Therefore, the evocation of indigeneities does not necessarily correspond to the stance that these groups currently demonstrate.

05/03/202429/04/2024

The Crisis of Development and Development Studies and Possibilities for Transformation

By Sebeka Richard Plaatjie

Development requires human persons to exist. On this basis it is reasonable to suggest that human life or the preservation thereof, is the foremost condition for development to declare and to recognize itself. Basic physiological needs for the survival of human beings such as food, water, clothing, and health care as suggested by Maslow must therefore be met. Beyond preservation of human life, which is also recognized by the United Nations, development merely functions an ideology, as proven aptly by standpoint theory. Standpoint theory postulates that human beings speak, read, and make sense of the world from the geo-political and body-political location of the subject who speaks.

14/11/2023

Rethinking Development Studies

By Kees Biekart, Laura Camfield, Uma Kothari, Henning Melber

Our world is in shambles. And what is widely understood as Development has been a contributing factor. While ‘fixers’ are quick to offer new recipes for Development, re-building or re-constructing societies destroyed, they often offer more of the same. This provokes the question, as to whether life on earth might have been much better off without Development.

24/11/202213/12/2022

Radical Alternatives or Ambivalent Engagements? Development Understandings from the Global South

By Alba Castellsagué and Sally Matthews / New Rhythms of Development blog series

Critiques of development have historically problematised the dominant models of economic growth and the controversial ideas of modernity and progress. Since the sixties, many have attempted to advance more sustainable understandings of development, with proposals emerging from a wide range of approaches: human capabilities, ecological sustainability, gender justice, and decoloniality, among many others.