Post-development theory and the question of alternatives: a view from Africa

Abstract

Post-development theorists have declared development obsolete and bankrupt and have called for ‘alternatives to development’. What do they mean by such calls and what should be the African response to such calls? In this paper I will attempt to address three important questions: first, what is meant by post-development theory's call for ‘alternatives to development’? Second, why consider post-development theory from an African perspective? Third, what contributions can a consideration of African difference and diversity make towards debate on ‘alternatives to development’? I conclude by arguing that increased consideration of the African experience would be valuable for all who are seeking alternative ways of dealing with the problems that development purports to address.

Notes

Sally Matthews is in the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa. Email: [email protected].

Among such scholars are Alvares (1992), Escobar (1984, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1995), Ferguson (1990), Illich (1979, 1997), Kothari (1990, 1995), Latouche (1993), Rahnema (1992, 1997), Rist (1990, 1997) Sachs (1992), and Seabrook (1993).

This can be seen in Sachs' (1992) The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power, which is almost exclusively a critique of development. Escobar's (1995) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World only tackles the question of alternatives in the final chapter, and Latouche (1993) only begins to explore the question of alternatives in the penultimate chapter of his book In the Wake of Affluent Society: An Exploration of Post-development.

Like Nustad (2001), I believe post-development theory's critique of development to be useful, despite several limitations. In the interests of space I will not provide a detailed discussion of post-development theory, but will work from the assumption that it is a set of valuable and useful ideas, regardless of its limitations.

In the case of sustainable development, there is most often an attempt to maintain a commitment to economic growth, industrialisation, modernisation and other key aspects of pwwii development, while simultaneously preventing environmental destruction. It should be acknowledged here that there are other ways of interpreting sustainable development, but that the dominant understanding of sustainable development is the one described.

Consider here Ela (1998), Dahl & Megerssa (1995) and N'Dione et al (1995).

Consider for example Bond (2002), Civil Society Indaba (2002), Longwe (2002), Nabudere (2002), Ngwane (2002), Pheko (2002), South African Catholic Bishops Conference (2002) and Vale (2002).

I am not here trying to suggest that there are several inherent differences between Africans and Westerners—that the two groups of people are and always will be essentially different. Rather, I would like to make a much more simple point: Africans living today live in ways that are different to Westerners living today, and there are significant differences between the world-views and value systems that are commonplace in contemporary Africa and those in contemporary Europe and North America. This is not to deny the diversity in both regions, nor to suggest that the two are permanently and essentially different.

Etounga-Maguelle believes that Africa has a ‘foundation of shared values, attitudes, and institutions’ that binds it together, and that it is these values, attitudes and institutions which are to be blamed for the failure of ‘development’ in Africa.

See Harrison (2001) for a summary of Etounga-Manguelle's argument.

I would like to emphasise here that I am not saying that a project with roots in certain assumptions and values can only succeed in the culture in which the project originates, but rather that it can only succeed in a culture which has the relevant assumptions and values (although the two cultures may differ in several significant ways). Thus, the pwwii development project could be said to have succeeded in various cultural settings, but I would like to argue that certain key values and assumptions are common to all cultures in which the pwwii development project succeeded, even while the cultures were also different in certain ways.

Writers like Etounga-Manguelle can be criticised for ignoring the influence of colonialism (which Etounga-Mangeulle says cannot ‘reasonably be blamed’ for Africa's condition), the exploitation of Africa, and the inequities of the global economic system which, along with several other complex factors, must also be considered when determining why the pwwii development project failed in Africa.