{"id":1915,"date":"2024-08-06T09:25:43","date_gmt":"2024-08-06T07:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/?p=1915"},"modified":"2026-06-26T12:21:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:21:52","slug":"the-future-of-development-studies-unity-in-diversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/?p=1915","title":{"rendered":"The Future of Development Studies: Unity in Diversity?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Caroline Cornier<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of progress falls under what anthropologist Anna Tsing<\/a> designates as \u2018unity\u2019, a \u2018unified coordination of time\u2019, a singular beat. The recent workshop \u201cUnity in Diversity – The Future of Development Studies<\/a>\u201d raised questions whether the discipline should move on to study the world\u2019s consonant \u2018global challenges\u2019 or rather continue focusing on the specific rhythms and trajectories of \u2018late developers\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Two major lines of divide<\/strong>         <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The discussions made clear that today\u2019s Development Studies is mainly divided along two major lines:

1. The epistemological Knowledge-Materiality Divide<\/span>
2. The geographical North-South Divide<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the insight that knowledge production in Development Studies has often contributed to perpetuating colonial rationalities and related inequalities, it comes as no surprise that decolonial scholars Lata Narayanaswamy<\/a> (University of Leeds) and Eyob Balcha Gebremariam<\/a> (University of Bristol) called for further deconstruction of the \u2018coloniality of [development] knowledge\u2019<\/a>. From this epistemic perspective, moving away from Global South-focused Development Studies and \u201cBig D\u201d discussions of economic transformation towards \u2018global Development Studies\u2019 appears as a significant step in overcoming colonial knowledge production. University of Manchester\u2019s Global Development Institute\u2019s director Sam Hickey<\/a> refers to this shift as a sign of intellectual \u2018growing up\u2019.            

More structuralist-orientated scholars, including Kate Meagher<\/a> (London School of Economics) and Pritish Behuria<\/a> (GDI, University of Manchester), saw a shortcoming in this perspective. In particular, they pointed to its unfamiliarity with historic development theory from the Global South  In seeing historic development theory from the Global South. In these scholars\u2019 view, the latter theory is already decolonial in nature because of its interest in structural economic transformation. To stress her point, Meagher cited Southern schools of thought such as Dependency Theory<\/a>, Transformative Social Policy research<\/a>, the Development State Paradigm<\/a> and, most recently, Political <\/a>Settlement <\/a>Theory<\/a>. In her view, these theories highlight the role of postcolonial economic structures in reproducing economic inequality. According to Meagher, the current decolonial theory carries the risk of obscuring these material structures and, by extension, economic inequality, the raison d\u2019\u00eatre<\/em> of Southern Development Theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talking past each other instead of constructively debating<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The unacknowledged intersecting epistemological and geographical divides in the understanding of \u2018development\u2019 appear to lie at the heart of Development Studies\u2019 current disorientation, causing for \u2018development\u2019 to be either seen as an emancipatory practice or an external imposition. The lack of a clear definition of \u2018development\u2019 and the resulting ambiguity of Development Studies\u2019 goals seems to lead development researchers to talking past each other, instead of constructively debating.         

Though based on a justified concern for epistemological justice, the call for global development perspectives potentially reduces Development Studies to irrelevance. This is particularly visible in Development Economics, as exemplified by a stark disagreement between the former World Bank economist Ravi Kanbur<\/a> (Cornell University) and Pritish Behuria on how many countries have achieved development since the 1960s. Due to neoclassical economists\u2019 increasing belief in the disappearance of low-income countries and the rising availability of household datasets, the discipline has been gradually integrated into mainstream economics and micro-level modelling. As a result of this transformation, Development Economics not only scarcely contributes to the analysis of economic inequality but appears to deny its very existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In continuing to exclusively focus on industrialisation and material sovereignty as incarnation of Southern emancipation and \u2018progress\u2019, structuralist development perspectives neglect the increasing undesirability of emission-intensive production in the face of climate crisis and over-production. Whereas the global nature of climate change should certainly not hinder us in seeing \u00a0the technological South-North dependencies it produces, theories failing to take the vulnerable and finite nature of our planet into account will ultimately struggle to gain wide intellectual and political support. To borrow Tsing\u2019s terms<\/a> once more, acknowledging development\u2019s \u2018polyphonic rhythms\u2019 and its frequently oppositional needs, appears an essential prerequisite for achieving unity in Development Studies\u2019 quest for a fairer and a more sustainable future. Our goal should be to help these needs be shaped and materialised in accordance with our planet\u2019s limitations \u2013 both in the South and the North.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

The workshop was organised by Pritish Behuria (GDI, Manchester) and Andrew Sumner (King\u2019s College London and EADI President) as part of the 50th<\/sup> anniversary celebrations of EADI ahead of the recent DSA Conference.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

<\/em>Caroline Cornier<\/a><\/strong> is a doctoral researcher at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester working on the Political Economy of commodity dependence based on the case of cocoa in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image<\/strong>: taken from Krylov, Ivan Andreevich, and Bernard Pares.\u00a0Krylov\u2019s Fables. Westport, Conn: Hyperion Press, 1977. Print.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Caroline Cornier The idea of progress falls under what anthropologist Anna Tsing designates as \u2018unity\u2019, a \u2018unified coordination of time\u2019, a singular beat. The recent workshop \u201cUnity in Diversity – The Future of Development Studies\u201d raised questions whether the discipline should move on to study the world\u2019s consonant \u2018global challenges\u2019 or rather continue focusing … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Future of Development Studies: Unity in Diversity?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[164,1],"tags":[62],"class_list":["post-1915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-development-studies","category-opinionpieces","tag-development-studies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/papI3v-uT","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/The-future-of-development-studies-cartoon-broad.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1915"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1924,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions\/1924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}