Development representations Flashcards
Has Africa always been viewed as undeveloped?
No, Europeans saw Africa as a prosperous and equally developed in the 17th and 18th centuries
Only during the rise of colonialism did Africa become represented as backward
Rodney 2012
Where should aid go to?
Mosse 2011 argues that there are no boundaries, yet still focusses on the South
Where can regimes of representation emerge?
- PRACTICAL GEOPOLITICS - Rees Mogg Speech (Tuathail and Agnew 1992)
- POPULAR GEOPOLITICS - China in Wolf Warrior etc (Liu and Rofel 2018)
- ACADEMIA (Arnold 2000 topicality; Said 1978 for humanities)
- SOCIAL MEDIA (Lewis et al 2014)
- EDUCATION (Eriksen 2018)
Why is a world systems approach limited?
- North is dependent on South
- But North inequalities are ubiquitous
Grosfoguel 2002
What does the developmentalist discourse (and practice!) seek to do?
“Developmentalist discourse offers a colonial recipe on how to become come like the West”
Grosfoguel 2002
Why is a “God-eye view” significant for development representations?
- Makes everything abstract universalism
- Means that the representor is overlooked, drawing attention to the represented
Grosfoguel 2006
Why is practical geopolitics powerful in terms of representations?
- Embodies wider societal views and discourses
- Reproduces representations and legitimises + objectifies them
Tuathail and Agnew 1992
Is Development (or rather “natural development”) self-critical?
No, Berman (1982) highlights that one of the main tragedies of Development is “what it does not see: what human realities it refuses to look at, what potentialities it cannot bear to face.”
What are “Power Cultural” and “Power Moral”?
- Ways in which “us” and “them” are constructed
- Used by Foucault 1972
- Power Cultural through colonialist representations of needy
- Power Moral about justifying Development
Said 1978
How does Escobar view poverty?
Poverty is “nothing more than the result of a comparative statistical operation”
Escobar 1994
What is the problem with Escobar’s (1994) view of poverty?
It does not account for how NGOs solve poverty often through famine relief which does not involve economic growth (Escobar’s main criticism)
How does Hall 1989 view regimes of representation?
- “Every regime of representation is a regime of power formed, as Foucault reminds us, by the fatal couplet , ‘power/knowledge’”
- Present identity as static, when it is continually socially constructed and culturally produced
Hall 1989
How can Hall (1989) focus on identity in representations be applied to regimes of representation in general?
- Represent things as static
- When in actuality the circumstances change over time
Was Development once justified more, but now inequality is more ubiquitous??
Hall 1989
