Colonialism and post colonialism Flashcards
Samuel (1994)
Raphael Samuel has examined the ideas of modernity in Britain in the 1950s to argue that ‘[t]he ruling ideology of the day was forward-looking and progressive, the ruling aesthetic one of light and space. Newness was regarded as a good in itself, a guarantee of things that were practical and worked’ (1994:51)
Hubbard and Lilley, 2004
The motorways, housing estates and civic and shopping centres so characteristic of the urban planning of the 1950s and 1960s can also be seen as an attempt to make spaces that were new, clean and easy to use. In both cases modernisation involves geographical change - transforming places, spaces and landscapes - as part of historical change
Giddens, 1990
Important processes can be identified - the application of scientific principles to human and natural worlds; the development of industrial economies; and the formation of states that govern many aspects of life through their bureaucracies
Rostow (1960)
Rostow argued ‘traditional society’ prevented regular growth through its non scientific attitude to nature, lack of social mobility etc.
This changes in the ‘preconditions’ period by removing the technological, social and political constraints on economic growth.
These geographical changes in agriculture, industry, transportation and urbanisation, combined with a positive attitude to ‘modernisation’ would prompt ‘take-off’ - ‘the great watershed in the life of modern societies… when the old blocks and resistances to steady growth are finally overcome’ (1960:7).
This economic growth would utterly transform the society into a complex modern industrial economy during the ‘drive to maturity’.
Eventually it would reach a final stage of ‘high mass consumption’ where production and consumption were based on consumer durables: a land of automobiles and suburban homes equipped with refrigerators and TVs
Taylor (1989) criticism of Rostow
Can never be a matter of simply following a western model - these countries are not separate entities range along a developmental path, they are connected together so development of one has consequences for others
modernisation as ‘creative destruction’
Understanding modernisation as ‘creative destruction’ suggests that the changes involved are dramatic and unsettling ones, and that making a new future always means destroying many of the geographies and ways of life of the past and present.
Berman (82)
He sums it up using a phrase from the Manifesto: in the modern world ‘all that is solid melts into air’. This suggests the sense of constant change and uncertainty that Marx and Engels argued is necessary for capitalism to be successful. This arises from the continual need to develop the ‘productive forces’ - labour power, raw material, machinery, science, communications and transportation - needed to produce commodities and make a profit.
