Constructon of the Third World A Southern Perspectve on the Politcs of Development
Constructon of the Third World: A Southern Perspectve on
the Politcs of Development
Hamraz Ahmad∗
Abstract
Development started as a policy interventon to help poor states follow in the
footsteps of developed states. Development carries the baggage of enlightenment
ideas of tme, human, nature, and society. This scientfic interpretaton of human
society forms a linear stage understanding of evoluton of every sociability along
European lines. Epistemically and thematcally, modernisaton and globalisaton
aspiratons atached with development have its root in colonial aspiratons of
civilisaton. From linear stage growth model to structural adjustment and then
sustainable development, the development discourse has widely misrepresented
the sociabilites it pledges to transform because it starts with the marginalisaton
of every non-modern perspectve. Post-development is a set of post-modernist,
post-colonial, and post-abyssal critques of development, which is focused at
traditonal and non-modern knowledge to excavate alternatves to development
for the so called third world. The development discourse and the policies it has
brought about has created urban apartheids, globalisaton-localisaton paradox,
worsening climate queston and a massive silencing of indigenous and local
communites and their systems of classificatons. According to post-development
lens, there is a need to form ecologies of knowledge among diverse social
spaces of Pakistan where scientfic episteme is to be engaged with traditonal
epistemologies or the epistemologies of the south.
Keywords: Development, Post-development, Enlightenment, Modernity
* Hamraz Ahmad is an assistant editor at the Centre for Strategic and Contemporary Research. He has
done M.Phil. Internatonal Relatons from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
43
Stratagem
Introducton
Development can be defined as a process that transforms a primitve low-
income society into an industrial high-income society to improve living
standards in the areas with poor life conditons.1 Development started
as a policy interventon focused on the adopton of new technologies,
transitons in modes of producton and achieving high growth rates.
While adhering strongly to the classical and neo-classical paradigms,
development economics views this process as gradual, non-disruptve and
equilibratng that initates a process of growth which transcends all the
natonal boundaries and class segments to incentvise even the poorest of
the poor.2 Encyclopaedia Britannica defines development in the following
fashion:
“Economic development, the process whereby simple, low-income
natonal economies are transformed into modern industrial
economies. Although the term is sometmes used as a synonym
for economic growth, generally it is employed to describe a change
in a country’s economy involving qualitatve as well as quanttatve
improvements. The theory of economic development—how
primitve and poor economies can evolve into sophistcated
and relatvely prosperous ones—is of critcal importance to
underdeveloped countries, and it is usually in this context that the
issues of economic development are discussed.”3
Development became an internatonal policy discourse when the
United States (US) President Harry Truman first used the word in his
inaugural address in 1949, pledging to share the US’ scientfic and technical
prowess with the natons lef behind during the course of history. The
announcement came in the post-world war II scenario where the US was
com/definiton/economic-development.html (Accessed: November 16, 2019)
2 Jeffery Nugent and Pan Yoyopoulos, ‘What Has Orthodox Development Economics Learned from
Recent Experience?’ Worlds Development, 7, (1979): 541-554
3 Anne O. Krueger, and Hla Myint. 2019. "Economic Development". Encyclopaedia Britannica. htps://
44
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
Constructon of the Third World A Southern Perspectve on the Politcs of Development
caught up with the soviet threat and feared the spilling over of socialism
into the parts of Asia, Africa, and Latn America called as the third world.4
The president stated:
“For the first tme in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and
the skill to relieve the suffering of these (under-developed) people.
I believe that we should make available to peace-loving peoples
the benefits of our store of technical knowledge in order to help
them realize their aspiratons for a beter life. What we envisage
is a program of development based on the concepts of democratc
fair dealing. Greater producton is the key to prosperity and peace.
And the key to greater producton is a wider and more vigorous
applicaton of modem scientfic and technical knowledge."5
Consttutng the cornerstone to development thinking, the above-
mentoned contents give the gist of the internatonal development policy
frameworks. A linear theory of tme and an unquestoned faith in progress
are what makes up the mainstream development narratve. The regime
takes its episteme from the enlightenment universals and therefore, holds
a temporal judgement against the non-modern sociabilites deeming
them primitve. The idea was to help the third world out of its primitvity
by modernising it for which, development was the way forward. So, the
development can also be understood as an atempt to make everything
that is other than modern, emulate European history to cure the
unevenness of modernity. This creates considerable discursive cracks in
the narratve as the development regime firstly assumes the same colonial
preconditons that the European powers had, for the current third world
i.e. availability of a periphery to colonise and secondly, it overlooks the
asymmetry in the relatonship between the developed and the under-
developed or developing world. This marks the established superiority of
4 Kevin Ray, Winterhalt, "Truman's New Deal: Point Four and The Genesis of Modern Global
Development". University Of Saskatchewan Undergraduate Research Journal 4 (2) (2019): 1-2. htps://
usurj.journals.usask.ca/artcle/view/318.
whistlestop/50yr_archive/inagural20jan1949.htm
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
45
Stratagem
modern scientfic modes of thinking over the non-modern and traditonal
ones in the sociology of development.
The history narrates that development has so far failed to solve
the problems it diagnosed the primitve societes with i.e. social turmoil,
poverty, unstable governance to name a few. The economy-centric
approach of modernity had the US policy makers believe that economic
development would automatcally bring about social and politcal stability
but forced modernisaton lef the subject societes suspended between
traditon and modernity and never really solved anything. Samuel P.
Huntngton notes that the US foreign policy for three decades afer the
second world war remained exclusively focused on economic assistance
to the third world to solve its governance dilemma but instead, ended
up complicatng its problems even more by sharpening and perpetuatng
the age-old modernity-traditon conflict. The old and the new sources of
authority came into a new and strengthened realm of discord.6
Scholars have been producing policy critques on development right
since the day of its incepton as a new global manifesto for the realisaton
of the libertarian dream, a dream whose workability has been under a
queston mark itself. Development holds post enlightenment European
providence as a precedent for changing societes but the conditons that
helped Europe bring about the industrial revoluton are no longer in their
place. The 19th century manufacturing and export boom in Europe when
replicated in the third world, generates a disproportonate consumpton at
the cost of saving rates hence, reversing the development’s own promise
of high growth rates.7 In additon to the unfavourable conditons, there
has also been a huge practcal discrepancy in the regime of development.
When primary goods export of the third world countries is placed in
comparison with their industrial goods import from the developed world,
6 Samuel P, Huntngton, Politcal Order in Changing Societes, New Heaven London and Yale University
Press. 1968, 25-27
7 Ragnar, Nurkse, “Growth in Underdeveloped Countries: Some Internatonal Aspects of the Problem
of Economic Development.” The American Economic Review 42 (2), (1952) Papers and Proceeding of
the Sixty-fourth Annual Meetng of the American Economic Associaton, 571-583.
46
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
Constructon of the Third World A Southern Perspectve on the Politcs of Development
the export falls incrementally short owing to the asymmetric terms
of trade.8 This further dents the Ricardian belief of development that
internatonal trade brings comparatve advantage for the economy of
every which size.9 A stream of scholars believes that development, despite
being invested with noble intentons and billions of dollars has met with
theoretcal and practcal failures and is stll clueless about its destnaton.10
While on the other hand, there are also scholars who are of the view that
development is the contnuaton of colonial governance as it perpetuates
the hegemony of Western powers at the cost of freedoms and libertes in
the third world.11
Epistemology of Development
As hinted earlier that development inherited the enlightenment
understanding of tme thus, it also adheres to the historical memory of
modernity. The noton of development feeds on the validaton of a strong
linearity, laying an exclusively European blueprint of social change which
every society must follow. The world in mainstream modern historicising
is such as if there was a world where happened Europe, and the rest of the
world has existed in the periphery of Europe.12 A significant reason behind
the stll lingering obscurity of the debate covering the dispute between
the traditonal and the modern is the troubled memory of social change
in Europe. The European social change was not merely an all-out toppling
up of the traditonal but interplay of the traditonal and the modern in
many ways as industrial revolutons and 19th century urbanisaton were
8 Raul, Prebish. “Change and development - Latn America's Great Task: Report Submited to the Inter-
American Development Bank.” New York, Preager (1971)
9 David Ricardo developed the classical theory of comparatve advantage in 1817 to explain why
countries engage in internatonal trade even when one country's workers are more efficient at
producing every single good than workers in other countries. It states that if countries specialise
in producing goods where they have a lower opportunity cost - then there will be an increase in
economic welfare.
10 William, Easterly, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Effort to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much
Ill and So Litle Good, Penguin, New York. 2006, 144-152
11 Claire, Peacock. “Post-colonialism and Development: A Critcal Analysis of The European Consensus
on Development.” Department of Politcal Science, Lund University Press, Sweden
12 Sandra, Halperin, “Internatonal Relatons Theory and The Hegemony of Western Concepton of
Modernity”. Decolonizing Internatonal Relatons (2006), 46-64
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
47
Stratagem
also expedited by the old aristocracy and were not merely the actons of
the new protestant bourgeoisie.13 Development has been totally ignoring
this reality while applying hyper scientcity of modern economics and
Weberian sociology on the so called pre-scientfic societes with a hope
to transform them entrely. Likewise, a keen look at the enfranchisement
paterns of European populaces also invalidates the sometmes latent and
sometmes dominant sense in non-European contexts that Europe has
been civilised for eternity. Many western democracies turn out to have
taken birth not so long ago i.e. in the late and early 19th and 20th centuries
respectvely, if we consider the enfranchisement paterns of women and
coloured, ethnic and racial groups in the west.14 Such erosion of collectve
human memory on a scale this massive has been made possible by the
manufacturing of global racial amnesia which sterilises the colonial
histories of subject natons.15 Globalisaton this way can be looked at as
the concretsaton of this amnesia.
A plunge, the kind this paper is taking, into the discourse of
development reaffirms what Robert Cox stated in his 1981 millennium
artcle: “Knowledge is always for someone and some purpose.”16 Drawing
upon Cox’s assumpton, considerable hegemonic tendencies with in the
epistemology of development can be identfied. The narratves of poverty
reducton and life sustaining goods and services have much in common
with the colonial civilising mission. These parallels become more evident
with the observaton that all social sciences being taught in university
classrooms is the perspectve of white scholarly males of four European
countries i.e. the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany. 17 This
affords the discourse of development a heavy colonial genealogy. This
13 Jaulin, Sauren, “Internatonal Relatons as The Imperial Illusion; or, The Need to Decolonize IR.”
(2013), 23-30
14 Antony, Anghie. “Decolonizing the concept of Good Governance.” Decolonizing Internatonal
Relatons (2006), 109
15 Sankaran, Krishna.
“Race, Amnesia and Educaton of Internatonal Relatons.” Decolonizing
Internatonal Relatons (2006), 89-93
16 Robert W. Cox. “Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond Internatonal Relatons Theory.”
Millennium Journal of Internatonal Studies 10, (1981), 126
17 Ramon, Gorsfoguel. Colonial Subjects: Puerto Ricans in a Global Perspectve. University of California
Press. 2003, 118
48
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
Constructon of the Third World A Southern Perspectve on the Politcs of Development
goes for other realms of modernity as well as it sustains itself by silencing
the alternatve racial, ethnic, and territorial perspectves. This naturalises
the colonial positon of the developmental history of the world. Various
sociologies of silences consttute the sociology of modernity.18 But what is
important to note here is that it is not only the mainstream development
discourse that marginalises non-modern perspectves but also the
critcal accounts of development. While lambastng development for
discrepancies in its policy and practce, the Marxian and dependency
schools also adhere to the idea of linear history and share the dream of
a scientfic industrial society which they deem to be the real custodian of
freedoms and libertes.19 The epistemic straight jacket of enlightenment
remains in its place.
Post-Development
Over the tme, development thinking kept evolving. New approaches
and perspectves kept enriching the paradigm. It was not untl afer the
Second World War, that development became a separate field with its
own insttutons and practtoners. Scholars started theoretcal work in
development studies, which had now become a distnct area of academic
inquiry. Linear stages of growth, structural change model, Neo-classical
counter revoluton model, new aid architecture, internatonal dependency
theories and sustainable development are major theoretcal perspectves
that have impacted internatonal narratves on development. All the
mainstream as well as critcal accounts of development, as stated in
the previous secton, are informed by the meta-narratves of ratonality
and humanism and cannot break free from cognitve straightjacket of
enlightenment and therefore, reproduce the asymmetry in the relatons
between the developed and the under-developed. The failure of
development in fulfilling its promises propelled many late 20th century
18 Boaventura, Santos, The End of The Cognitve Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of The
South. Duke University Press Durham and London. 2018, 10
19 Helene, Pellerin. “Which IR Do You Speak? Languages as Perspectves in The Discipline of IR.”
Insttute of Internatonal Relatons. NGO Vol. 20, No. 1 (2012), 59-82
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
49
Stratagem
development thinkers to think of alternatves to development, instead of
alternatve development. Wolfgang Sachs for instance underscores: “The
idea of development stands like a ruin in the intellectual landscape. Delusion
and disappointment, failures and crimes have been the steady companions
of development and they tell a common story: it did not work.”20 Therefore,
it is imperatve to subject the episteme of development to informed
critcism. 21 Post-development is the realm within the development studies
that applies post-structuralist dissecton on the discourse of development
while other realms of critcism bring structuralist critque of the subject
only.22 Post-development goes for ‘alternatves to development’ and does
not limit itself to ‘alternatve development.’23 The approach distnguishes
itself from dependency school and ecological theories on the basis of
its unbelief in the ratonal-positvist core of modern critcal thought.24 To
post-development thinkers, the problem is not limited to functonal and
operatonal inadequacies of the development regime. They connect their
critque with the critque of modernity.25 Post-development literature is
mostly writen in two socio-lingual streams i.e. English and Francophone.26
This very much clarifies the connecton between the theory and post-
modernism. There is a inclinaton in post-development scholars toward
either ant-developmentalism or alternatve to developmentalism.27 Both
the approaches are overlapping in my understanding of development and
used interchangeably.
20 Wolfgang Sachs. The development dictonary: A guide to knowledge as power. London, England: Zed
Books. 1992
21 Sally J. Mathews. “Post-development Theory”, Oxford Research Encyclopedias, 2010, 56
22 Arturo Escobar. “Imagining a Post-Development Era? Critcal Thought, Development and Social
Movements”, Social Text, No. 31/32, Third World and Post-Colonial Issues, Duke University Press
(1992), 20-56
23 C. Alvares, Science, development and violence: The revolt against modernity, Oxford University
Press, Delhi, 1992
24 K. Manzo. “Modernist discourse and the crisis of development theory”. Studies in Comparatve
Internatonal Development (1991)
25 H. Gülalp. “The Eurocentrism of dependency theory and the queston of authentcity: A view from
Turkey”. Third World Quarterly (1998), 951-961
26 Sally J. Mathews. “Post-development Theory”, Oxford Research Encyclopedias (2010) , 81
27 D. Simon. “Separated by common ground? Bringing (post) development and (post) colonialism
together”. Geographical Journal, 172, (1), (2006), 10-21
50
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
Constructon of the Third World A Southern Perspectve on the Politcs of Development
Afer Development
Development has not only failed to bring about the social change it
promised but also produced new kinds of problems and reinforced the
dependency problem instead of eliminatng it.28 The new forms of crises
that have accompanied the invasion of development in the third world
notably are the perpetual dependency, resource depleton and cultural
alienaton.29 Except for the recent ecological accounts, development
runs on a resolute belief in infinite progress, an idea proven at fault
by the experience of past centuries. Progress and evoluton are two
defining themes of modernity and have totally ruled the western social
consciousness for quite some tme.30 They are inseparable from modern
thought as they are so deeply imbedded in the European sense of history.
Even the critcal approaches as stated at several tmes in this paper cannot
do away with them for instance, Karl Marx dubbed progress the law of
history.31
Wolfgang Sachs deemed it impossible to remain convinced on the
utlity of development.32 Since development is not merely a problem of
ill-planning and flawed executon and neither is it limited to financial
and infrastructural actvites,33 “it is a complex system of categorisatons
and representatons,34 an interpretve grid, a discourse.”35 This grid has
constructed the third world and the under-developed using its positvist
gauges and empirical econometrics.36 This has resulted in a massive
28 G. Rist. The history of development: From Western origins to global faith . London, England: Zed
Books. 1997
29 M. Rahnema & V. Bawtree. “The post-development reader” (1997)
30 G. Rist. The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith, London: Zed Books. 1997
31 Norgaard, Richard B. Development Betrayed: The End of Progress and a Coevolutonary Revisioning
of the Future. London: Routledge, (1994) 280
32 Wolfgang Sachs. The development dictonary: A guide to knowledge as power. London, England: Zed
Books. 1992, 144
33 S. A. Marglin. Towards the decolonizaton of the mind, Dominatng knowledge: Development, culture
and resistance, Oxford, England: Clarendon Press. 1990, 35-36
34 Aram Ziai. Development Discourse and Global History: From Colonialism to the Sustainable
Development Goals. London: Routledge. 2015, 23
35 C. Alvares. Science, development and violence: The revolt against modernity. Delhi, India: Oxford
University Press. 1992, 14
36 Sally J. Mathews. “Post-development Theory”, Oxford Research Encyclopedias (2010)
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
51
Stratagem
misrepresentaton of the citzens of the third world as a Nepali scholar
Shrestha notes:
“As a young boy growing up in Nepal, I had no idea that I
was underdeveloped. Poor and hungry I certainly was. But
underdeveloped? I never thought—nor did anyone else—that being
poor meant being ‘underdeveloped’ and lacking human dignity.”37
This social constructon of the third world legitmates a whole
empire of politcs of poverty, a realm that has dominated the social
dialogue throughout the second half of the twenteth century. When the
World Bank defined poverty based on per capita incomes, it created a
statstcal and empiricist scale of social happiness. Therefore, if poverty
was the problem of the third world, the only soluton was high incomes
which would never be realised without high economic growth rates.38 As
development characterises the third world with respect to what it does
not have and not what it does, the politcs of growth rates became a
defining characteristc of the third world without paying any heed to what
the third world thinks about its problems.39 When a community is branded
as the under-developed, it brazenly eliminates the chances for life other
than being developed. Esteva notes:
“…ceased being what they were, in all their diversity, and were
transmogrified into an inverted mirror of others’ reality: a mirror that
belitles them and sends them off to the end of the queue, a mirror
that defines their identty, which is really that of a heterogeneous
and diverse majority, simply in the terms of a homogenising and
narrow minority” (1992).
In accordance to the parameters that development has set to label
a society developed or under-developed, the hunter gathering societes
37 N. Shrestha. Becoming a development category. In J. Crush (Ed.), Power of development. London,
England: Routledge. 1995, 97-99
38 Farzana Naz. “Arturo Escobar and The Development Discourse: An Overview”. Asian
Affairs (2006)
39 Sachs, ibid, 52
52
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
Constructon of the Third World A Southern Perspectve on the Politcs of Development
would be the most underdeveloped forms of living, but quite on the
contrary they were the real affluent societes.40 This way, every pre-modern
sociability becomes Hobbesian state of nature which needs a Lockean
contractuality.41 This task was to be carried out by the politcs of growth
as development was not imagined as a separate realm to governance.
President Truman put the conditon of ‘Democratc Fair-Dealing’ as cited
in the introducton of this paper.
The Problem of Westernisaton
“It is not the failure of development which has to be feared but its
success.” (Sachs)
Since development is the process of becoming developed and the west
and most specifically the United States of America from the Second
World War onward is what is truly developed, the cultural industry of
development dispossess the third world citzenry from their organic
realites. Post-development thinkers are of the view that a real Lockean,
free, and developed society has never been conceived. This is as Banuri
quotes a character from a French Film ‘Mon Oncle d’Amerique’: “America
does not exist, I have been there.”42 While, the western way of being is an
evolved way of being, but it has problems of its own which are not usually
showcased by the ‘development culture.’43 The ecological catastrophe
that the developed lifestyle has created says volumes about the viability
of development.44 This is in connecton to the modern detachment of
individual as a separate category from the nature that the modernity
and development are this much apathetc toward eco-system, eventually
40 M. Sahlins. The original affluent society. In M. Rahnema & V. Bawtree (Eds.), The post-development
reader. London, England: Zed Books. 1997, 44-57
41 V. Shiva. Decolonizing the North. In M. Mies & V. Shiva, Ecofeminism. London, England: Zed Books.
1993
42 T. Banuri. Modernizaton and its discontents: A cultural perspectve on the theories of development:
Development, culture and resistance, Oxford, England: Clarendon Press. 1990, 133
43 S. A. Marglin. Towards the decolonizaton of the mind”: Development, culture and resistance. Oxford,
England: Clarendon Press. 1990
44 S. Mathews. “What then should we do? Insights and experiences of a Senegalese NGO Exploring
post-development”: Theory and practce, problems and perspectves, London, England: Routledge.
2007, 131-144
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
53
Stratagem
giving way to widespread spiritual and social disillusionment.45 This makes
the west a complex impersonal machine focused on meaningless work.46
The socio-cultural desolaton and eco-degradaton in the west further
problematze the development’s exclusive emphasis on the shortcomings
of the third world.47
Acceptng the cultural diversity with full weightage instead of acceptng
it to transform it into a modern globalised monolith is at large what the
post-development proposes. The universal positons of modernity have
a parochialism of their own when they do not acknowledge alternatve
ways of being in which lived experiences can truly propose ways out of the
cultural, ecological, and politcal abominaton that modernity has pushed
the humanity into.48 It is like a diverse gene pool in biological studies,
which is essental for dynamic mutaton process to happen, that diverse
sociabilites can provide answers to our contemporary problems.49 This
however, by no means implies Social Darwinism, but is used only to make
an analogical point.
Conclusion
The third world has been represented in the development discourse as a
passive victm of disease, hunger and poverty. While discreditng all the
sociabilites other than modern ones the development regime discursively
commits itself to transform the third world from their ‘primitve modes
of living’ to modern modes. This was to happen only if primitve societes
emulate the providence of western societes with a belief of strong
historical linearity in evoluton of peoples and societes. With the speech
of Harry Truman, the US became the foremost of the perpetrators of this
45 S. A. Marglin. “Towards the decolonizaton of the mind”: Development, culture and resistance.
Oxford, England: Clarendon Press. 1990
46 S. Latouche, In the wake of the affluent society: An exploraton of post-development. London,
England: Zed Books. 1993
47 T. G. Verhelst. No life without roots: Culture and development, London, England: Zed Books. 1990, 51
48 Arturo Escobar. Encountering development: The making and the unmaking of the Third World.
Princeton University Press. 1995, 234
49 Marglin, ibid, 22
54
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
Constructon of the Third World A Southern Perspectve on the Politcs of Development
transformaton drive throughout the world. As Truman himself labelled
US’ knowledge ‘inexhaustble’ and constantly growing, the American
scientfic proficiency became the 20th century’s panacea to every malady
in the world. This was the recipe to embark upon the era of greater global
producton, greater global consumpton, scientfic advances, technical
knowledge, freedom, and happiness. Epistemologically speaking, this
makes it even more evident that the development has sprouted right out
of the civilising mission of the colonial era.
Development has its roots in enlightenment project which according
to Leotard is the ensemble of ratonalism and humanism, the meta-
narratves of modernity. These meta-narratves have a way of detaching
human from natural contexts, impartng anthropocentric tendencies to
them. This is how the foundatons of European scientfic prowess were
laid down. The thoughts of Francis Bacon and René Descartes, who are
among the ones who fashioned the contours of modernity were built
upon the very same traditon of thinking that is mentoned above. These
advances made possible the colonialism that reigned the world directly up
untl the second world war and kept governing by other means afer that
in the form of development.
Colonialism in additon to be an act of conquest and plunder, also
provided the colonisers with distnct ways of understanding the world
where scientfic revoluton did not happen and had its own diverse paths
and systems of understandings. This resulted in the marginalisaton of
all the non-modern analytcal systems and gave an imperial gaze to the
knowledge that modernity rests upon. All the alternatve sociabilites
and analytcal systems were branded as primitve and less evolved. The
modern thinking became a straightjacket to understand the world. The
higher condescending judgmental knowledge of modernity created a need
for the so called primitve sociabilites to change, emulatng the European
providence. Therefore, there is an obvious tendency in modern scholars
to assume change and progress as the laws of history giving history a very
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
55
Stratagem
linear form which could be replicated all over the world. Development
focuses on transforming societes into what it considers as modern. This
interventonist transformaton according to development thinking would
help primitve societes take leaps toward modernity and join hands with
the white man on the course of history.
The most intriguing thing in this regard is the way the third world was
constructed out of the former colonies and non-communist and non-liberal
world. Arturo Escobar believed that this was very much how orientalism
produced the orient and modern produced the primitve. The epistemic
imperialism is of such scale that the poor and desolate masses instead of
being just aware of their poverty and desolaton have also to learn that
they are ‘under-developed’ in order to engage with their own selves. The
alternatve perspectves talked about previously are marginalised to an
extent that the consciousness they represented, historical experiences
they had to endure and the human they were made to comprehend have
totally been wiped off the realm of knowledge. The silencing of the non-
modern by the modern is very much the story of development.
The post-development critque of development emphasises the
need to investgate alternatve avenues to rid the populaces of poverty,
desolaton and development crisis. As the paper quotes Wolfgang Sachs
earlier, to post-development scholars, development has badly failed and
alternatves to development are the need of the tme. Those alternatves
can be searched for in traditonal knowledge because the modern
knowledge has so far failed to represent their others in a fruitul fashion.
Knowledge is always historically and culturally situated. This is the basic
tenet for the framework used for this research which essentally atempts
to drag the methods of classificaton and representaton away from the
positvist ways of inquiry. Building on Foucault’s noton of relatonship
between power and knowledge, it is argued that development is a
hegemonically conceived idea to naturalise the US foreign policy goals by
giving them a strong academic and epistemic base which reproduces its
56
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
Constructon of the Third World A Southern Perspectve on the Politcs of Development
disciplinary canons in a manner that whatever is too different, as Tickner
and Blaney claim, is easily invalidated as unscientfic or ideological.
Jackson sees the quanttatve-qualitatve divide as a distncton of method
without methodology, an almost aesthetc consideraton, whose main
functon is to limit knowledge producton. Claims to science, he argues,
play primarily a disciplining functon. The problem is due to the aura of
objectvity atributed to science that unconsciously or deliberately works
to maintain power orientatons.
So how do we truly represent the silent? The answer is that nobody
represents the silent other than the silent or in Gayathri Spivak’s words with
a deliberate altering, let the subaltern speak. How do we truly understand
colonial subjects and their problems? Linda Tuhiwai Smith has a lot to say in
this regard. She is of the view that methods of classifying and representng
the other must also be the methods of the other. Now this does not mean
to totally depart from the corporate, globalised and scientfic present
but to find a point of convergence between these two distant worlds.
This convergence can be imagined using Bouventura De’Souza Santos’
framework of ‘Ecology of Knowledges’. Ecology of knowledge is a realm
where the scientfic and southern knowledge is engaged with an informed
realisaton of limitatons of both. Santos proposes to draw an abyssal
line in order to carry out this complex theoretcal task. An abyssal line is
said to be the place where the utlity of scientfic thinking ends, and the
workability of traditonal thinking starts. The scholar has called this new
realm of ecology of knowledge, the post-abyssal order of cogniton. Every
society must imagine its own abyssal line based on its own distnct history
and experiences with colonialism and imperialism. But this does not mean
that the previously conceived notons of social justce are no more held.
Instead it only emphasises the need of establishing cognitve justce first
as there can be no social justce without cognitve justce in Santos’ words.
To imagine an alternatve to development, it is essental to do away with
the theoretcal straightjackets that reproduce the prevailing paterns of
hegemony and dominaton, both in cognitve and tangible realms. To
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
57
Stratagem
think of an alternatve, we must think in an alternatve way, which makes
it essental to profane the ratonal positvism to an appropriate extent.
In the words of an American writer and actvist; “The master’s tools will
never dismantle the master’s house.”
58
Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2019
