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Week 1 Introduction - Copy

The document outlines various theoretical perspectives on development, focusing on five key problems: poverty, inequality, exploitation, social exclusion, and environmental degradation. It discusses four doctrines of development—progress, capitalism, freedom, and post-development—along with transformative trends and countercurrents. Key questions are raised regarding the understanding, evaluation, and ethical considerations of development theories and their impacts.

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2 views24 pages

Week 1 Introduction - Copy

The document outlines various theoretical perspectives on development, focusing on five key problems: poverty, inequality, exploitation, social exclusion, and environmental degradation. It discusses four doctrines of development—progress, capitalism, freedom, and post-development—along with transformative trends and countercurrents. Key questions are raised regarding the understanding, evaluation, and ethical considerations of development theories and their impacts.

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arnavarvind26
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THEORETICAL

PERSPECTIVES ON
DEVELOPMENT
Week One: Introduction: Theoretical Perspectives
on Poverty, Inequality and Development
TODAY’S CLASS
 Five development problems
 Four theoretical doctrines
 Seven countercurrents
 Six transformative trends
 Six key questions
FIVE PROBLEMS

Poverty Inequality Exploitation

Environment
Social
al
Exclusion
Degradation
PROBLEM #1:
POVERTY
REDUCTION
PROBLEM #2: GLOBAL
INEQUALITY
PROBLEM #3:
EXPLOITATION
PROBLEM #4: SOCIAL
EXCLUSION
PROBLEM#5: ENVIRONMENTAL
DEGRADATION
FOUR DOCTRINES

Progress Capitalism

Post-
Freedom developmen
t
DEVELOPMENT AS
PROGRESS
(MODERNIZATION)
 Scientific reason

 Innovation

 Agrarian transition

 Industrialization

 Specialization (of labour and trade)

 Capital accumulation (economic growth)

 Civilization

 Emancipation through national


liberation (GDP/GNP)
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
HOW (AND WHY) DO
WE DIFFERENTIATE
THE WORLD
AROUND US?
DEVELOPMENT
AS CAPITALISM
 Agrarian transition

 Industrialization

 Separation of labour from capital

 Surplus extraction (exploitation)

 Capital accumulation

 Class differentiation

 Contradiction

 Emancipation through
capitalist revolution
DEVELOPME
NT AS
FREEDOM
 The freedom to choose

 Capability expansion

 Education

 Healthy living

 Participation

 Democratization

 Emancipation through
(personal) self-
realization (HDI)
POST-
DEVELOPMENT

 Post-colonialism

 Cultural assimilation

 Anti-racism

 Anti-globalization

 Cultural self-determination

 Deconstruction

 Disengagement

 Emancipation through cultural


recognition
“THE PRIVILEGE OF
SEEING WITHOUT
BEING SEEN”

What does “seeing without being


seen” imply for the study of
international development?
ROBTEL NEAJAI
PAILEY
 Assistant Professor in International
Social and Public Policy at the
London School of Economics and
Political Science
 Previously taught at the University of
Oxford
 Born in Monrovia, Liberia

 Holds a PhD in Development


Studies from SOAS at the
University of London
 Published widely on race,
decolonization, and development,
in academic and public fora,
including two children’s books on
the fight against corruption in
Liberia
COUNTERCURRENTS OF
DEVELOPMENT: SOME
LIVING EXAMPLES OF
ALTERNATIVE
DEVELOPMENT

 De-growth

 “Small is beautiful”

 Gross national happiness

 ”Buen vivir”

 The Cochabamba Agreement

 Pachamama

 Rights of Nature
DE-GROWTH
 “Southern countries should be free to organize their
resources and labor around meeting human needs
rather than around servicing Northern growth”
 “Degrowth … is not just a critique of excess throughput
in the global North; it is a critique of the mechanisms of
colonial appropriation, enclosure and cheapening that
underpin capitalist growth itself”
 … high-income nations could scale down aggregate
throughput (i.e., “the extraction of raw materials from
nature and the return of disordered waste,” Herman
Daly, 1977) while at the same time improving people’s
lives by organizing the economy around human needs
rather than around capital accumulation—that is, by
distributing income and wealth more fairly, while
decommodifying and expanding public goods
JASON HICKEL
 Professor of Anthropology at the
Autonomous University of
Barcelona
 Previously taught at the University
of Oslo and the London School of
Economics
 Holds a PhD in anthropology from
the University of Virginia
 Born and raised in Swaziland
(now Eswatini)
 Served on the UK Labour Party’s
task force on international
development
 Serves in an advisory role for the
UN Human Development Report
TRANSFORMATIVE TRENDS
 Liberalization
 The rise and fall of state-led development?

 Globalization
 Global value chains (and the rise of China)

 International migration (and remittances)


 Capital accumulation (including financialization,
speculation, urbanization)
 Growing inequality

 Environmental degradation
 Social mobilization (identity politics)
Theor Realit
y y
Liberalization

Globalization

Migration Environmental
degradation
Social
mobilization Capital
accumulation

SIX TRANSFORMATIVE
TRENDS
THE DEVELOPMENT ERA
(1945-PRESENT)

Keynesian era Neo-liberal era The contemporary


(1945-73) (1980s-2007?) era (?)
• The credit crunch,
• State led development • Liberalization,
financial crisis
• Central planning deregulation,
• Re-introduction of govt
• Import substitution retrenchment
• Washington Consensus stimulus and rise of
• Economic nationalism the “BRICs”
• Periodic crisis and low • The return of economic
economic growth nationalism?
RICHARD PEET
AND ELAINE
HARTWICK
 Richard Peet
 Emeritus professor of human
geography at Clark University in
Worcester MA, USA
 Born in Southport, England
 Holds a PhD in Geography from
the University of California,
Berkeley
 Elaine Hartwick
 Professor of Geography at
Framingham State University in
Mass.
 Born in Hartford, Connecticut
 Passed away in 2022
KEY QUESTIONS
 How do different theories understand and assess
development problems and challenges?
 How do they evaluate different development impacts and
outcomes
 What kinds of evidence do they use to arrive at their
observations and conclusions?
 How do they collect and analyze their data?
 How credible are their observations and accounts?
 How ethical are their observations and accounts?

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