Re-centring ‘Race’ in Development: Population Policies and Global Capital Accumulation in the Era of the SDGs

Abstract

This article argues that contrary to some recent theorizing of contemporary development interventions, ideologies of race and discursive and material processes of racialization remain central to development and are embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals. This is explored through an examination of current population policies, and in particular the ‘global family planning strategy’ initiated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in partnership with the British government. Population concerns are now routinely invoked in the context of neo-Malthusian discourses which relate migration, climate change, and conflict. This article argues however that contemporary population policies represent more than a discursive smokescreen for the destructive impacts of global capital accumulation—they are in fact deeply enmeshed in strategies for its expansion. As such, they rely upon embodied coercion and violence which is racialized and gendered, even as they invoke narratives of reproductive rights and choices.

Keywords:

• population policies
• SDGs
• racism
• FP2020

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Anne Hendrixson and an anonymous reviewer for their very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 A similar point is made by Bracking and Harrison (2003, p. 7) who point out that

the increasing attention paid to networks (generated by theories of governance and their Foucauldian variants) opens a path to insightful research on global capitalism, but it also runs the peril of downplaying what is obvious to all observers: the persistent, and historically structured concentration of power emanating from the West. (Italics in original)

2 Postcolonial feminist theorists, notably Stoler (1995, 2002) have used Foucault differently, emphasizing how he viewed the production of difference as inherent in processes of regulation.

3 In fact race does structure the discourse in more subtle ways—this has been the focus of some postcolonial critiques of development such as Kothari (2006), White (2002, 2006), and Heron (2007).

4

Developed in 1985 by geographer Gary Fuller during a stint as visiting scholar in the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) Office of Global Issues, formal ‘youth bulge’ theory originally aimed to provide … a tool to predict unrest and uncover potential national security threats … It equates large percentages of young men with an increased possibility of violence, particularly in the South, where, analysts argue, governments may not have the capacity to support them. (Hendrixson, 2004)

Today, it is often juxtaposed with the more optimistic notion of a ‘demographic dividend’ which however can be achieved only if countries with young populations can prevent future population growth leading a greater percentage of people of working age in relation to elderly people and children (Hartmann et al., 2016).

5 PATH (the Programme for Appropriate Technology in Health) is in fact the NGO that has received most funding in health from the Gates Foundation, having received around $1 billion, mainly for medical research and development (Global Justice Now, 2016, p. 21). According to its website, PATH is ‘the leading innovator in global health and a pioneer in leveraging the expertise and resources of corporate partners to drive transformative innovation to scale’. PATH works with more than 60 corporate partners to create ‘market-based solutions’, including pharmaceutical companies Merck and Sanofi and mining company BHP Billiton as well as Microsoft (Global Justice Now, 2016; PATH, 2016a).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kalpana Wilson

Kalpana Wilson teaches in the Department of Geography, Birkbeck, University of London. Her research explores questions of race/gender, labour, neoliberalism, and reproductive rights and justice in development. She is the author of Race, racism and development: Interrogating history, discourse and practice (Zed Books, 2012).