Defending biocultural diversity - Development Studies in postmodern times.

These are interesting times in development studies. The demise of the socialist alternative in its real existing form and the rise of postmodern theorizing in the social sciences have opened up the field for new perspectives. The most exciting of these perspectives evolve around what is termed alternative development and post-development. Traditionally development studies in its modernization and dependency versions has been mainly concerned with the question of economic growth. And of course, current mainstream development theory and practice in its neoliberal form still is primarily concerned with economic growth. However, the ground is shifting and alternative and post-development writers now direct the focus towards questions of culture and environmental concerns. Some of these writers put forward powerful critiques of the deeply troublesome consequences of development and economic growth from ecological, anthropological and feminist perspectives. Development in itself, so it seems, has become a deeply problematic enterprise.

To assess the relevance of these new and sometimes radical perspectives on development they must be understand within a larger context of an increasing problematisation of modernity. Many of the beliefs that constitute the core of modernity like for example the belief in universal values, scientific reason or steady socio-economic progress have increasingly become problematical. On a theoretical level this problematisation of modernity is most forcefully formulated by postmodern theories as the demise of grand narratives (Lyotard 1984).

The purpose of this essay is twofold. Firstly, to analyse the impact of the above mentioned problematisation of modernity on its closely related concept of development. Secondly, to assess the usefulness of alternative and post-development theories as a way forward for development studies. The structure of the essay is as follows. To start with a short description of the increasingly problematic nature of modernity will be given. This is necessary, as some of the more radical writers within post-development can not be understood without a reference to the concept of modernity as a whole. Next the shift in development studies from the problem of development to development as the problem will be described. This shift is mainly expressed in the form of post-development theory of which a short presentation and critique will be given. Finally, a conclusion concerning the value and the future challenges for post-development will be drawn.


The problematic nature of modernity

Berman (1983) in his seminal work on modernity locates the origins of this chapter in human history in the sixteenth century. He describes modernity as a contradictory phenomenon in which “all that is solid melts into the air”, a phrase that Berman borrows from the Communist Manifesto written by Marx and Engels. Modernity promises “growth, transformation of ourselves and the world”, but simultaneously “threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are” (ibid, p.15). At the heart of modernity we can thus locate a relentless drive towards construction and destruction. In the following I will suggest that there are strong reasons to believe that it is the destructive elements of modernity that are increasingly taking precedence over the constructive ones. The increasing awareness of the problematic nature of modernity manifests itself in several areas. Subsequently I shall provide a brief sketch of some of the most important critiques that seriously challenge the believe in the progressive nature of modernity.

Max Weber was probably one of the first writers to spell out some of the destructive consequences of modernity. In his first influential publication The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, written in 1904, he sees the tendency of an increasing rationalization of modern life which ultimately traps the human being in an iron cage. This critical stance towards rationality and modernity is then further developed in his opus magnum Economy and Society, published in 1922, where he describes the development of modernity and industrial society as an increasing process of disenchantment of the world.

In philosophy the disenchantment with modernity and rationality already began in the late 19th century with Nietzsche as one of the first critics of modernity. In 20th century philosophy the critique of modernity reached a first forceful height with the theories developed by the Frankfurt School. Under the effect of Fascism and the Holocaust Horkheimer and Adorno (2002) analysed the negative consequences of modernity as an effect of what they called instrumental rationality. In the 1970s another important critique of modernity was then formulated by Foucault. Through a thorough examination of the disciplinary function of modern institutions and the relationship between power and knowledge Foucault paved the way for postmodern thought in philosophy. One of the key features of this way of thinking is the total criticizability of everything (See Foucault 2003). The immense criticizability of every aspect of modernity is now an established fact in philosophy. The extent, however, to which modernity itself has to be rejected and replaced by postmodernity is still strongly disputed. For Habermas (1981) the project of modernity can still be saved, whereas Lyotard (1984) thinks the project of modernity has reached its end and liquidated itself. What is however not disputed, regardless of whether one favours Lyotard’s or Habermas’ interpretation of modernity, is the demise in the explanatory power of any sort of totalizing theory – with orthodox Marxism being the classical example for such a grand narrative.

Besides the long history of philosophical critique of modernity and the recent post-modern turn which rejects many core concepts of modernity I would like to point out a second field, from which a serious threat to the legitimacy of the modern project arises. This field is constituted by the increasing realization of the destructive impact of modernity on the environment and the increasing rate of loss in biodiversity as well as the world’s cultural diversity. This is a challenge that goes to the heart of the question of human survival. The late 20th century was full of environmental catastrophes that caught the attention of the media and that pinpoint to the extent of the challenge (Chernobyl, Bhopal, Exxon-Valdez, the destruction of the rainforests, climate change, etc.). Although the destructive force of modernity in the cultural realm is less likely to make big newspaper headlines it is nevertheless equally alarming. If we take the amount of languages spoken as an indicator for cultural diversity than the estimated loss in cultural diversity over the next hundred years is of an unprecedented magnitude in human history. In a report published by WWF International and Terralingua Oviedo and Maffi (2000) quote an estimate that of the currently spoken 6000 native languages as much as 90% will be extinct within the next hundred years. And of course with the extinction of these languages their cultural universe as well is doomed to disappear. Taken together the current rapid loss in biocultural diversity would justify classifying our epoch as what I would call the age of loss.


From the problem of development to development as the problem

The postmodern scepticism of grand narratives and the rising concerns with biocultural diversity have not gone by without affecting the study of development. A sort of Entzauberung or disenchantment has occurred within development studies over the last two decades. Albeit one that is different from what Max Weber used to denote with this term. The status of development as a universally desirable goal has become increasingly questionable. For some writers development itself has turned into the problem.

First signs of disillusionment with the explanatory power of existing perspectives on development emerged with the impasse debate in development studies. Booth (1985) argued that development studies had reached an impasse. This impasse in development sociology, so Booth, was mainly resulting form Marxism’s meta-theoretical framework which aims at demonstrating the necessity of socio-economic phenomena. A critique closely linked to the postmodern scepticism towards grand narratives. Although opposed positions can be found (see Brass 1995) the identification and interpretation of the impasse as formulated by Booth seems now widely accepted within development studies (see for example Kiely 1995 or Schuurman 1993). Nearly a decade after his 1985 article on the impasse in development studies, Booth (1994) identifies a new research direction which he sees as a way out of the impasse. This new direction within development research, which Booth calls “post-impasse” research, is one that is mainly focused on diversity. Notwithstanding this focus on diversity there is currently no single coherent research model within development studies. However, what seems clear is that both modernisation theory and dependency theory have not survived “the onslaught of the 1990s post-modernism” (Gardner and Lewis 1996, p.12).

Broadly speaking then the demise of the grand narratives in the form of modernisation and dependency theory has opened up the room for new and interesting research directions. The most exciting ones, so I contend, are alternative development and post-development. What distinguishes them from the grand narratives is their emphasis on diversity and the rejection of totalizing perspectives. The boundaries between what is considered as alternative development and what is considered post-development theories are sometimes fluid. However, alternative development is most often associated with participatory development (see Chambers 1997). Participatory development in turn has to a large extent become integrated into mainstream approaches to development (World Bank 2006), what makes its status as alternative approach somehow dubious. Post-development on the other side hast resisted this integration. In fact its very rejection of development makes it particularly unattractive for becoming part of the mainstream development discourse.

Nevertheless, post-development understood as reflection and radical critique of the problematic nature of modernity can provide important impulses for development studies. Post-development theories come in many different forms and shapes. I shall focus the subsequent discussion of post-development on the texts and theories as put forward by Rahnema and Bawtree (1997) in their Post-development Reader. The underlying theme in most post-development writings is a decisive shift away from the problem of development as mainly concerned with economic growth towards an understanding of the problematic influence of development itself. Although they vary in the degree to which they reject economic growth and technological progress[1] they all show a common preoccupation with preserving biocultural diversity.

It comes as no surprise that within the field of post-development theory the cultural critique of development should have been most forcefully formulated by anthropologists. Many of them (see for example Norberg-Hodge 1997) study and document the process of disenchantment that is brought about by development and the devastating effects it has on vernacular communities in the developing world. This critical anthropological perspective is a distinguishing feature of post-development. Modernization theory for example was concerned with endogenous constraints to development and saw vernacular and indigenous cultural identities as an obstacle to development. Dependency theory on the other hand was mainly concerned with exogenous structural constraints to development and had little concerns for cultural issues.

Escobar (1995) formulates a heavy criticism of development from a Foucauldian perspective. He sees most of development theory and practice as a powerful tool for normalizing the world, with dire consequences for vernacular and indigenous cultures. Development in its mainstream version as practiced by the World Bank, so Escobar, is conceived as a mainly technical intervention where cultural elements are regarded as residual variables. For Escobar then (1995, p. 44) it comes as no surprise that development should have become a destructive force for Third World cultures.

The ecological critique of development is not an exclusive domain of post-development writers, and indeed has a longer history than most of post-development theory. Already in the early 1970s it became clear that the ecological impact of growth oriented development would be devastating. Most noteworthy in this respect is the publication in 1972 of the Limits of Growth by the Club of Rome. The critical insights of this report soon became integrated into mainstream perspectives of development in the form of sustainable development as for example in the Brundtland Report published in 1987. The ecological critique of development can thus hardly be attributed solely to post-development writers. However, what distinguishes many of the post-development writer’s ecological critique from more mainstream versions like sustainable development is their more radical approach and their emphasis on a simple, non-consumerist lifestyle. Whereas advocates of sustainable development often put their emphasis on an efficiency revolution in order to reduce the use of natural resources, post-development writers focus more on a sufficiency revolution.[2] Mahatma Ghandi’s ideas on simplicity (Ghandi 1997) seem to be particularly influential within post-development theory. Sachs (1997), one of the most pronounced post-development writers, calls for an efficiency and sufficiency revolution in order to prevent the looming ecological disaster.


Some critiques of post-development

Post-development has attracted a lot of criticism. And indeed its sometimes provocative posture and wholesale rejection of development makes it an easy and attractive target for criticism. I shall put forward three examples to illustrate this point. Rahnema (1997) for example compares Development with AIDS and calls it a socio-cultural variety of the virus, AIDS II so to say. Escobar (1995) describes poverty in the third world as if it was only a discursive invention by the World Bank aiming at subjugating the third world. Sachs (1992, p.1) in his development dictionary boldly states “(T)he idea of development stands like a ruin in the intellectual landscape.” The use of so dramatic images and language does not benefit the cause of post-development and can rightly be criticized. However, they might be resulting out of a sense of urgency and need to wake up the people, that most of the academic literature on development is missing.

Post-development is sometimes accused of paying too much attention to diversity and neglecting aspects of social inequality. Schuurman (2000) argues that inequality rather then diversity should be the main focus for development studies. Equally Nanda (1999) observes that post-development has supplemented the problem of inequality with that of inauthenticity or diversity. And more gravely, Nanda suggests that this lacking concern for inequality can lead to perverse outcomes. Nanda presents examples from the Indian Farmer’s movement where a post-development rhetoric rather than serving the poor helps to maintain existing power structures. This is a strong critique; however it would be awkward to imply that the theoretical and practical concern for diversity implies any kind of endorsement of social inequality on behalf of post-development.
It is sometimes alleged that post-development theory with all its post-modern emphasis on epistemological and cultural relativism does not provide solutions for current pressing development concerns. Kincaid and Portes (1994, p.8) for example state that “postmodernism as a model for development studies offers a form of intellectual escapism in which the painful realities of contemporary economic and social crisis are concealed behind the analysis of texts and cultural forms.” And indeed this critique may be true for some proponents of post-development. However, as illustrated by the variety of approaches put forward in the Post-Development Reader (Rahnema and Bawtree 1997) post-development is much more than just endless post-modern inspired discourse analyses.

Lastly it can be asked do the people in the third world want post-development. Do they want to be left alone and not disturbed by the “blessings” of western style modernity and technology? Corbridge (1998) for example in a critique of post-development states that he hasn’t yet met a man or a woman in rural India who would not welcome a fan and the electricity that powers this fan. And surely post-development would be wrong if it advocated a lifestyle that negated third world people this sort of comfort provided by modern technology. However, the general emphasis on the grass-roots level and bottom up processes of change should suffice to convince that the aim of post-development is not one of imposing a backward lifestyle on third world people which they themselves would reject.


Conclusion

The postmodern critique of modernity has seriously undermined the legitimacy of the universal development prescriptions of the past. Whereas the focal point for many of the more traditional approaches to development seemed to have been progress and growth, the focal point for new approaches like alternative and post-development is diversity. This focus on diversity also implies a changing role of agency in development. Most of the hitherto development theory has emphasized the role of the state as the agent of development. Post-development, with its praise for civil society and the grassroots level has undoubtedly positioned itself against any sort of developmentalist state model.

Post-development understood as a radical defence of biocultural diversity against the destructive forces of modernity has its place in development study. It provides important new directions for a radical critique of capitalism and neoliberalism. Whereas Marxism focuses its critique mainly on the economically exploitative dimensions of capitalism, post-development writers focus their critique on the environmentally and culturally destructive elements of capitalism. This angle of critique as show above proves to be a most forceful one. And, so it seems to me, it is one that can link the daily experience of third world people and western people in a way that the Marxist critique of exploitation can not.

Post-development at its best is thus a radical defence of biocultural diversity. At its worst it is a post-modern aberration in endless discourse analysis of World Bank texts. The best of post-development literature encourages us to look at development from the perspective of its losers. It does not call on the third world to develop and become like us. Rather, it calls for more simple and more respectful ways of living as well in the North as in the South. The unwillingness, however, of many authors to put forward a concrete political project to radically defend biocultural diversity is a serious limitation to the practical value of post-development. Many post-development writers seem to content themselves with praising resistance at the grassroots level. Local resistance, however, if it is not channelled into some form of international action will not be enough to reverse the prevailing destructive trends. If post-development wants to be relevant in the long term, it will need to engage in theorising collective forms of action on an international level. Doing this, without falling back into old totalizing categories, will be the great challenge for post-development in the future.



References
Berman, M. (1983), All That Is Solid Melts Into Air. The Experience of Modernity, London: Verso.
Booth, D. (1985), “Marxism and Development Sociology: Interpreting the Impasse”, World Development, Vol. 13, No.7, pp.761-787.
Booth, D. (ed.) (1994), Rethinking Social Development, Harlow: Longman.
Brass, T. (1995), “Old Conservatism in ‘New’ Clothes”, Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 22, No.3, pp. 516-540.
Chambers, R. (1997), Whose Reality Counts? Putting the First Last. London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
Corbridge, S. (1998), ‘’Beneath the Pavement Only Soil’: The Poverty of Post-Development’, Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 34, No. 6, pp138-148.
Escobar, A. (1995), Encountering Development. Princeton: University Press.
Foucault, M. (2003), Society must be defended: lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-76, London: Allen Lane.
Gandhi, M. (1997), “The Quest for Simplicity: ‘My Idea of Swaraj’,” in Rahnema, M. and Bawtree, V. (eds.), The Post-Development Reader, London: Zed Books.
Gardner, K. and Lewis, D. (1996), Anthropology, Development and the Post-Modern Challenge, London: Pluto Press.
Habermas, J (1981), The Theory of Communicative Action, London: Beacon Press.
Hawken, P., Lovins, A. B. and Lovins, L. H. (2000), Natural capitalism: the next industrial revolution, London: Earthscan.
Horkheimer, M. and Adorno, T. W. (2002), Dialectic of enlightenment: philosophical fragments, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Illich, I. (1997), “Development as Planned Poverty”, in Rahnema, M. and Bawtree, V. (eds.), The Post-Development Reader, London: Zed Books.
Kiely, R. (1995), Sociology and Development: The Impasse and Beyond. London: UCL Press.
Kincaid, A.D. and Portes, A. (1994), “Sociology and Development in the 1990’s: Critical Challenges and Empirical Trends”, in Kincaid, A.D. and Portes, A. (eds.), Comparative National Development, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Lyotard, J. F. (1984), The Postmodern Condition, Manchester: Manchester University Press
Marglin, F.A. and Marglin, S.A. (eds.) (1990), Dominating Knowledge: Development, Culture and Resistance, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Nanda, M. (1999), “Who Needs Post-Development? Discourses of Difference, Green Revolution and Agrarian Populism in India,” Journal of Developing Societies, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 5-31.
Norberg-Hodge, H. (1997), “Learning from Ladakh,” in Rahnema, M. and Bawtree, V. (eds.), The Post-Development Reader, London: Zed Books.
Oviedo, G. and Maffi, L. (2000), “Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the World and Ecoregion Conservation,” [http://www.terralingua.org/EGinG200rep.pdf] Accessed 1 December 2006.
Rahnema, M. (1997), “Development and the People’s Immune System: The Story of Another Variety of AIDS,” in Rahnema, M. and Bawtree, V. (eds.), The Post-Development Reader, London: Zed Books.
Rahnema, M. and Bawtree, V. (eds.) (1997), The Post-Development Reader, London: Zed Books.
Sachs, W. (1997), “The Need for the Home Perspective,” in Rahnema, M. and Bawtree, V. (eds.), The Post-Development Reader, London: Zed Books.
Sachs, W. (ed.) (1992), The development dictionary: a guide to knowledge as power, London: Zed Books
Schuurman, F. (2000), “Paradigms lost, paradigms regained? Development studies in the twenty-first century,” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 21, No.1, pp 7-20.
Schuurman, F.J. (ed.) (1993), Beyond the Impasse: New Directions in Development Theory, London: Zed Books.
Von Weizsäcker, E.U., Lovins, A. B. and Lovins, L. H. (1995), Factor four: doubling wealth, halving resource use: the new report to the Club of Rome, London: Earthscan.
World Bank (2006), “Participation and Civic Engagement,” [http://www.terralingua.org/EGinG200rep.pdf] Accessed 11 December 2006.
[1] See for example Marglin and Marglin (1990, p.1) who state that their criticism is directed against modernization and development not against growth or progress in health and education. For a position rejecting growth and technological progress see for example Illich (1997).
[2] The efficiency approach towards sustainable development is best exemplified in concepts like Factor 4 (von Weizsäcker, Lovins and Lovins 1995) or Natural capitalism (Hawken, Lovins and Lovins 2000).