On the post-structuralist critique of development: a view from north-west Namibia

Abstract

The Namibian government's long-standing plan to dam the Kunene River has generated heated discussion on a number of development issues, both within and outside the country. This article examines the discourses of the various groupings in the so-called Epupa debate by paying special attention to the ways they represent ‘development’, the project and the affected community; and it explores aspects of agency by focusing on Himba people's attempts to assert opposition to the project. The Epupa case also affords us the opportunity to evaluate aspects of the post-structuralist critique of development. The article suggests that the currently fashionable critique offers a simplistic interpretation of the development process and reveals the need for a more thorough (and insightful) scholarly engagement with development.

¹Assistant Professor of Socio-cultural Anthropology, Department of Social Science, Roosevelt Academy, Utrecht University. Based on research carried out in Windhoek, Namibia, in 1999, this paper is a revised version of a dissertation submitted to the University of Cambridge in partial fulfilment of the MPhil degree in Social Anthropology (Friedman, 1999). The author would like to thank Leo Howe, Keith Hart, Alan Macfarlane, Fatima Müller-Friedman and two anonymous reviewers for their encouragement and/or critical readings of earlier drafts; and the English Speaking Union of San Francisco, Darwin College, Sir Bartle Frere's Memorial Fund, and the Rivers Video Project for generous financial assistance that made the research possible.

The author would like to thank Leo Howe, Keith Hart, Alan Macfarlane, Fatima Müller-Friedman and two anonymous reviewers for their encouragement and/or critical readings of earlier drafts; and the English Speaking Union of San Francisco, Darwin College, Sir Bartle Frere's Memorial Fund, and the Rivers Video Project for generous financial assistance that made the research possible.

Notes

¹Assistant Professor of Socio-cultural Anthropology, Department of Social Science, Roosevelt Academy, Utrecht University. Based on research carried out in Windhoek, Namibia, in 1999, this paper is a revised version of a dissertation submitted to the University of Cambridge in partial fulfilment of the MPhil degree in Social Anthropology (Friedman, 1999). The author would like to thank Leo Howe, Keith Hart, Alan Macfarlane, Fatima Müller-Friedman and two anonymous reviewers for their encouragement and/or critical readings of earlier drafts; and the English Speaking Union of San Francisco, Darwin College, Sir Bartle Frere's Memorial Fund, and the Rivers Video Project for generous financial assistance that made the research possible.

²The proposed scheme will also affect Himba people and others who live on the Angolan side of the Kunene River. This article, however, analyses the Epupa project from a Namibian perspective only.

³By ‘discourse’, the post-structuralists mean not only the interchanges associated with speech and conversation but also, more importantly, that which is represented through language: ‘A discourse (e.g. of development) identifies appropriate and legitimate ways of practising development as well as speaking and thinking about it. A discursive perspective, however, also embraces a totalizing conception of how society constitutes its members (or “subjects”), and of the role of language in that process’ (Grillo, 1997: 12).

⁴In 2001, the debate died down substantially, though the Namibian government expressed its intention to pursue the project at a future date. Disagreements between the Angolan and Namibian governments over site selection and project prioritisation, as well as the Namibian government's focus on other high profile development projects, pushed the Epupa project to the side. More recently, however, reports suggest that the project is regaining momentum within government circles (Menges, 2004).

⁵For an evaluation of Swedish development assistance to Namibia during the period 1990–3, see Odén et al. (1994).

⁶Interviews were held with the Swedish embassy's First Secretary/Economist (1 July 1999) and Counsellor (2 July 1999).

⁷When this manuscript was first written, the author was constrained by his own lack of fieldwork in Kaokoland. This section, therefore, relies on the work of those who have had both a direct and indirect impact on the Epupa debate.

⁸The interviewees here remain anonymous because Namibia is a small country and this is a controversial issue.

⁹Here the author refers to ‘resistance’ as the conscious intention to oppose or counteract. The anthropological concept of resistance as used by such writers as Scott (1985) and Comaroff (1985), however, often denies the need for such awareness among its resisting subjects.