GPP Week 3 - The Invention of Development Flashcards
..
-idea that poverty is invented. how we historically get to the point that Escobar is talking about
Truman Inaugural (1949)
Truman’s advisors wanted an inspiring theme for his
second inaugural address.
Benjamin Hardy suggested the notion of “developing”
the Third World because it would “make the biggest
psychological impact” (Hickel 8) - how about we develop?? right on the heels of world war 2 and the elections.
Compelling narrative as colonialism in Europe is on
the decline and formal “equality” of nations was taking
shape (despite clear inequality) - at the end of world war 2. things happening in india becomes a little more clear. every country should be able to determine their own form of colonialism. formally all the countries are equal and the US loves to champ up their way and state that they were not “colonizers” - but the US has been colonizers by Latin America (neo-colony), and the foundation of the US was in fact colonies. puerto rico, hawaii becoming a state was violent. truman starts with his speech that countries will be equal
Histories of exploitation were ignored in favor of new
(and racist) notions of “progress” and
“backwardness,” developed and undeveloped.
(Hickel 9) - get the same kind of language reproduced again and again. truman says that the new mission is to help their backwardness and lack of progress
Harry Truman (January 20, 1949) - speech incerpt
nobody had a single plan –
Truman Inaugural (1949)
In addition, Truman referred to the lives of the
undeveloped as “primitive and stagnant.”(Hickel 8)
In this speech, the US was presented as the heroes of
humanity (with scientific and technical know how),
who would save the world from hunger and poverty
through “improvement and growth” (Hickel 8). - US was going to be the one to apparently solve poverty. improvement goes back to john hox theory of poverty. if you’re improving the land, you will get private property.
Context of Cold War - at the end of WW2, clear awareness that next war will be between —— , pandora’s box of how do we pull these nations towards us and not the Union, trying to buy countries ..
Justification for a massive intervention in to
(present and recent) colonies and neocolonial
states - escobar does this by talking about you have this army of researchers, scientists etc to study developing world and come up with solutions - power knowledge paradigm, massive extension into these countries and territories. what others will talk about is huge numbers of developing world to learn language of development economics.
continued
Truman Inauguration was the first on TV (largest single
event ever witnessed)
He announced his plans for “development,” though
there were no plans in place. -
For Hickel, this was an extremely effective PR stunt
“not even a single document” (Hickel 8) - pure PR, people will get excited
but created a media frenzy (Hickel 8-9)
It was a PR message that allowed the West to see
itself as gracious and charitable, rather than
exploitative. (Hickel 10)
Invention of Development
After Truman’s speech, all the world became divided
into “developed” and “undeveloped” regions. - told you are less in community of nations. escobar writes about latin america being proud of what they’re doing but told that they are backwards and have traditional values that are not acceptable.
2 billion people became undeveloped on this day.
Their internal sense of identity was swept away and
they became simply “less than” in the eyes of the
West. (PM 45-46) - this begins a power knowledge struggle where people in developing world begin to be defined by others as problems that then require solutions.
They were defined as a “problem” to be “solved” with
Western interventions - ex) in lasutu?? - people have cattle livestock, you can’t get your livestock to market, we’ll find a way and build a infrastructure to better build your business and sell livestock and told can get better foreign exchange but this is insane because in their culture its a saving account, you earn money, you buy livestock and if you have livestock its good but if selling, that means that they are desperate and have possible malnutrition but they were seen as a problem, and saw themselves as smarter, - nobody thinks selling livestock is a problem but in the eyes of the US, it is a problem. ex) in a village and growing diverse crops, plant them and eat them, they see themselves as developed - in their eyes getting food in belly is happiness but US comes and sees exporters as better because of the market. these people didn’t see themselves as problem, selling corn and getting massive debt. knowledge producers defined them as a problem and wanted to produce more yield. they simply look at profit.
this amplifies the distorted definition of being a problem and what development is
Paternalistic language of colonialism continued even
as Truman decried colonialism.
The Development Project
skipped mcmichael
For Escobar, “development” is a fictitious construct - new markets for the US. US would have disinterest in colonializion - US doesn’t want england only buying from england.
o Way of seeing the world developed at a particular
time for a particular reason -
o (US productive capacity doubled in WW II.
“Development” justifies a program for finding
overseas investment opportunities and markets
for US goods Escobar 430)
o Power/knowledge (“made” the Third World
“underdeveloped”) - coins this term as the idea is to say that winners rag history. we think Colombus was cool because people wrote their versions of the events but now history has re-opened up everything. having power gives ability to contstruct knowledge, get to name things, construct categories etc. biologically speaking there is no such thing as race - genetically: lactose versus not lactose. historically, slaves. who constructs the categories? those who have the power to construct categories. in the caribbean british would count census,,, huge social movements against the census bc now its the first step to knowing who you are and where you live and now i can attack you. this is amplifying knowledge is power. - ex of certain countries having ~5 names. all the locals knew it. but what if there was a rule of only getting father’s last name, making it easy to get taxed. forests etc unintelligible because they don’t know where to go. because all the paths look the same. but what if there was a new rule of new villages having street names and getting grids of cities all over the place and mapping becomes a tool of power. so what escobar is saying that the development industry begins to name knowledge bases - ex) world bank considers themselves knowledge of power bc it renders people visible to do something to them,… ferguson thinks its all accidental but escobar is a little more bothered, sees this as a mechanism for power as it’s seeing people as less developed, you don’t export or make this much, therefore you’re underdeveloped and defining these people’s wealth, it opens them up for all sorts of interventions so people try to increase their incomes etc to achieve these goals but the problem is that US doesnt care about culture of the people at all because the single most important thing is profit, typically speaking, culture is a barrier. “backwards values” are the problem.
How to Invent Development
Instituted through a series of institutions
World Bank & IMF
US universities
USAID
Local government elites (and eventually a
cadre of Western educated “experts”) - universities in the west recruiting people from the developing world to educate them on developing economics in efforts of having them go back and teach them
invention of new “sciences”/ disciplines
esp. “development economics” -
Professionalization of
“Development”
- Professionalization of development (385)
Creation of a “politics of truth” about
development/ Third World (385) new way of
“seeing” the Third World - if i go to a country and say these people are poor and state that they don’t have enough food, not technically a lie because it could be truth but if u say that they’re poor because they’re not participating in foreign exchange, not technically truth. their idea of truth and perspectives - any other way of presenting yourself is an obstacle to development, gov’t will maybe force you to get pushed off land and seen as irrational. “you don’t get it” “we need to increase productions and get more cash crops” this is a singular way of seeing the world.
Certain knowledges/ perspectives are given
the status of “truth” (Escobar 385) - if you have a group of people that have the same idea of truth, never going to move in a different direction or get more perspeectives - nobody in the development world is playing a role in the studies of development because they don’t think that they’re at a disadvantage.
Consolidation of “development studies” - the world bank affects the lives of development countries immensely.
the earliest explorers came with a certain a- wanted to be seen as advanced so defined everyone as uncivilized and not developed. point is that if you have that conception, are you showing up with peace offerings? if you think those people are thirsty and dumb, you’re showing up armors. first encounter is always destructive. the knowledge that they came with structured the encounter. you can imagine people a certain way, that’s going to structure the way that you intervene. the world bank writes a report in which they say that this is a nation of peasants writing this back in 1975 and today people would probably agree - isn’t africa full of peasants but they actually aren’t for the past 100 years but they are miners and workers… world bank just made that up but that nation is full of farmers but for ferguson they make it up because they want to do farming interventions, ofc that’s going to fail - constructing people a particular way conditions the interaction which will lead to failure.
Training of Third World students in these
(largely US) spaces
Institutionalization of “Development”
Development as a Practice/”technique of power”
there are alternative ways in which we can organize our world
…
Management (social control) of the Third World
E.g. Proletarianize a peasant class
Privatize (and exploit) land (PM 50)
-from escobar’s pov, there’s a hidden power dimension where taxes are raised and people have to pay for things that they once didn’t pay for. agribusiness has become the model for solving the problem for hunger around the world. we need more food therefore the theory that we need more factories. environmental damage due to this. in the world today people say we need more factory farms but in fact has made it harder to feed people. world has become less food secure.
E.g. Promote agri-business (as opposed to small
famers)
E.g. Knowledge/ power of the people of the Third World
-notion of last names gives those outside of the community power than those in the community. local people are powered due to external forces. no one knows the paths and villages so you impose street nations
Calculability for exploitation
Knowledge for manipulation (e.g. James Scott’s
Seeing Like a State)
E.g. names, roads, etc.
illegible natural vs. legible “scientific” forests
james scott’s
emphasizing developmental functions (look at picture in slides)
world bank is #1 producer — ferguson describes that they’re not so good at it. their understanding of the world is very poor. becomes hegemonic. everyone’s using data and numbers and that becomes the way that we understand the world. we act as if they’re a certain way in certain terms.
The Anthropology of Modernity:
Homo Oeconomicus
Slow process by which “Western Economy”
became hegemonic (438)
-homo oeconomicus; you have, i have constructed world in economic terms. hegemonic discipline. cost benefit. lens of profit and loss. singular lens which leads to violence to other knowledges
Comes to be seen as normal, “common
sense,” “natural”
A system of production
A system of power
A system of signification
The Anthropology of Modernity:
Homo Oeconomicus
In this process, local (subaltern/ marginalized)
knowledges, practices and meanings are crowded
out and altered (385, 438)
Destruction of community & communal support
structures
-most societies are egalitarian. native americans as example and we’re all members of plain sea and we’re on buffalo hunt. “that’s my buffalo, not yours, only mine. rest is losers” - but keeping to yourself is not rational because youre not able to eat the entire buffalo so leaving others that are hungry - but if you don’t share now and you find yourself in a place where you need food, others aren’t willing to help you out. buffalo hunting is a cooperative community activity so if one person takes the whole credit, it becomes harsh within the community. hence it is always better to share and communities emphasize we all get and support one another. but capitalism and modern economics is completely odds of that - they crowd out local values, indigenous cultures - environment is not on agenda for modern development or logics of growth based economic systems. we externalize costs of environment continually. we cut down trees to make paper to sell the paper. basic principle is we breathe out CO2 and we need plants to breathe in oxygen so this is a disaster but no one puts this consideration in loss. no one calculates that we’re going to have to pay one day. to the extent of other cultures, they have prioritized environmental security. we are dismissing knowledge that would be extremely useful. increasingly there are agricultural societies that are destroying variety of seeds and creating seeds - historically we plant seed, grows, and save seed to plant again later but companies are creating seeds that you can’t save so on company standpoint farmers have to buy more seeds because they’re not able to grow seeds on their own but this is a stupid idea because this will lead to immense amounts of hunger.
Destruction of local landholding practices
MORE food insecurity
Destruction of environments
Development as cultural imperialism, but
presented as “science” (438)
-presented as a science and we don’t question it all. part of the project is questioning.
“Development… is a method of rule” (PM50)
-a way to extend power over others
