Uma Kothari

Development Theory and Practice

Course Description This course focuses on the concept of development, development theories and aspects of practices in the real world. Equally important is the interplay between theory and practice and the outcome of this relationship. The course provides a comprehensive survey of development thinking from ‘classical’ development ideas to alternative and postdevelopment theories. The course then attempts to critically review contemporary debates about development, including the link between modernity and development, participation, empowerment, gender and the role of the development practitioner.

Global peddlers and local networks: Migrant cosmopolitanisms

This paper is based on the experiences of street traders from South Asia and West Africa who currently live and work in Barcelona. I argue that in the ‘informal’ and marginal spaces inhabited, utilised, and created by these traders, they produce forms of nonelite cosmopolitanism through which livelihoods are sustained, social bonds are strengthened, and fluid, diasporic identities are produced. These are enabled by the development and maintenance of globalised networks and allegiances that are negotiated in highly localised ways and are often based on religion, ethnicity, and nationality. Thus, mobile and abiding cultural characteristics coexist as peddlers’ experiences of travelling and their encounters in place challenge conventional notions of cosmopolitanism and parochialism, and their apparent dualism. The paper introduces the notion of a strategic cosmopolitanism that emerges out of the need for vulnerable individuals and groups to make a living in an environment characterised by insecurity, and concludes by enquiring whether there are temporal dimensions to their cosmopolitanism.

An agenda for thinking about 'race' in development

This paper reveals some of the silences about ‘race’ in development ideologies, institutions and practices. It suggests that these mask the perpetuation of a racialized discourse in development, its complicity with broader historical and contemporary racial projects and the effects of ‘race’ on the processes and consequences of development. The paper provides an agenda for understanding development in terms of ‘race’ and identifies three potential areas for further investigation. The first is the continuing legacy of colonial constructions and the persistence of forms of racial difference and hierarchy in development. The second concerns the power of whiteness and specifically how authority, expertise and knowledge become racially symbolized. The third area for further examination is how ‘race’ is disguised through the use of specialized terminology and criteria in accounting for poverty and social exclusion. The paper concludes by suggesting that debates around multiculturalism and anti-racism could inform a shift away from racialized representations and inequalities prevailing in development.

Dynamics of Unfree Labour in the Contemporary Global Economy

This short introduction to the symposium sets the context for the collection of articles, locating them in debates about labour conditions in the global economy. It outlines the two central questions which animate the symposium. First, what forms do unfree labour take in the contemporary global economy, and what are the implications for the most vulnerable workers in diverse contexts? Second, which processes, conditions and dynamics generate and facilitate unfree labour, and which theoretical and analytical perspectives do we need in order to understand them? It summarises some of responses to these questions which emerge in the collected articles, and highlights their contributions to the task of advancing fresh ways of thinking about unfree labour.

Critiquing 'Race' and Racism in Development Discourse and Practice

© 2006 Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd 10.1191/1464993406ps123ed I ‘Race’ in development Forms of racism and expressions that articulate ideas about ‘race’ are fluid and multiple, contingent and contextual, ranging from overt to covert and unreflexive. Historically and geographically rooted, such expressions have become increasingly variegated, even detached from their originary impulses, and can travel far and wide. It is in this spirit of critical enquiry that the papers in this special issue aim to reveal some of the tenacious strands of racialized forms of knowing and representing in development discourse and practice. This is a realm that has remained curiously untouched by the postcolonial critiques and debates about ‘race’ in other social science disciplines (see Biccum, 2002). Together, the papers attempt to disrupt these ‘disturbing silences, banalisations and erasures’ (Grovogui, 2001: 437) and, focusing on a diverse range of issues from varying perspectives, question the absence of discussions around ‘race’. They suggest how understanding development in terms of ‘race’ can spotlight inadequacies, contradictions and misrepresentations in development ideologies, policies and practices, as well as relations of power. Escobar (1995) argues that discourses of (western) development discursively produce the third world as different and inferior, and accordingly as its object of study and intervention. These articles explore how racialized forms of power and inequality build upon this foundational distinction between the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ and draw attention to the various, unspoken assumptions about ‘race’that underpin some of the key ideological bases of development thought and practice. Additionally, they identify the need for further exploration of the subtle manifestations of racism within international development. Postcolonial, postdevelopment and antidevelopment critics have provincialized the supposed universality of western notions of development and have critiqued the inability of the west to theorize non-western experiences. However, while these accounts have alluded to ‘race’, they have largely focused on challenging eurocentrism (Escobar, 1995; Pieterse and Parekh, 1995). This does not mean that ideas about ‘race’ have been completely absent in accounts about development. Other research and writing, largely within geography, have explored the relationship between gender/feminism, postcolonialism and development (Robinson, 1994; Parpart, 1995; Midgely, 1998; McEwan, 2001), uncovered continuities between colonial histories of development and contemporary representations of the third world (Crush, 1995; Cowen and Shenton, 1996; Editorial

From colonialism to development: Reflections of former colonial officers

Abstract This paper is concerned with the form and extent to which colonial discourses, cultures and practices continue to pervade the workings of the post-independence international development aid industry. It is based on the personal narratives of individuals involved in both colonial administration and subsequently in the field of development as expatriate consultants whose experiences provide a resource for interrogating the varied articulations of the transition from ‘colonialism’ to ‘development cooperation’ and the ongoing relationship between colonial forms of rule and governance and the purpose and practice of development. The paper highlights the performance of expertise and authority articulated through the forms of knowledge that were valorised at different moments and the spaces and relationships developed and mobilised by former colonial officers and contemporary development practitioners. It argues that being from, or of, the West whether as a representative of colonial or donor power ascribes status. However, the paper acknowledge that while this power and authority is sustained through different kinds of expertise, development is not always and in all places neo-colonial. Indeed, there have been significant changes with the opening up of the field over time not least in terms of the much more diverse gendered, racialised and class composition of those involved.

Colonial imaginaries and Postcolonial Transformations: exiles, bases, beaches.

Abstract This article draws on Edward Saids notion of ‘imaginary geographies’ to explore how representations of small island states enabled particular colonial interventions to take place in the Indian Ocean region and to show how these representations are currently being reworked to support development strategies. It examines how particular colonial imaginaries justified and legitimised spatially and temporally extended transactions before focusing on two examples of forced population movements: British colonial policy of forcibly exiling anti-colonial nationalists and political ‘undesirables’ from other parts of the empire to Seychelles; and the use of islands in the region as strategic military bases, requiring the compulsory relocation of populations. While a colonising legacy pervades contemporary representations of these societies, such depictions are not immutable but can be, and are being, appropriated and reworked through various forms of situated agency. Thus an ‘island imaginary’ has become an important cultural and economic resource for small island states, most notably in the development of a tourist industry. The key challenge for vulnerable peripheral states is to create new forms of representations that contest and replace tenacious colonialist depictions to provide greater opportunities for sustained development.

Geographies and Histories of Unfreedom: Indentured Labourers and Contract Workers in Mauritius

Abstract This article contributes to debates on the continuities and divergences of different forms of labour migration over time and the degrees of unfreedom they manifest. It suggests that levels of (un)freedom can usefully be understood by analysing the various forms of control exercised over the movement of labour. More specifically, the article explores how unfreedom can be understood as a particular assemblage of spatial practices that simultaneously compel migration and enforce spatial confinement. With a focus on Mauritius, it is argued here that the coerced or manipulated nature of the transnational movements of indentured and contract migrant labour combined with their subsequent immobility on plantations and in factory compounds shapes the degree of their unfreedom. Additionally, the article extends the historical trajectory of much previous work on unfreedom by exploring the connections between the colonial regime of indentured labour and the contemporary recruitment of contract labour migrants.

New spaces of development partnership: Rethinking international volunteering

The concept of partnership is frequently invoked in international development as discourse and policy prescription to better understand relationships and engagements between donors and beneficiaries. Despite the increasing prominence of the idea of partnerships, in reality mutual, equal and sustainable development partnerships remain limited. This article examines the extent to which recent growth in international development volunteering can provide new spaces where equitable and sustainable partnerships may emerge. This review highlights partnership’s legacy in discourses of participation and explores the changing role and impact of development volunteering. We identify three spaces where new kinds of alliances and relationships can be forged – personal learning, policy and geopolitical.

Trade, consumption and development alliances: the historical legacy of the Empire Marketing Board poster campaign

This article examines the historical legacy of contemporary development alliances through an analysis of the British government’s Empire Marketing Board poster campaign from 1926 to 1933. The primary aim of these posters was to instil in the British public a preference for buying empire-grown goods and the significance of their role as consumers in maintaining the Empire. By conveying messages of a common humanity and invoking a visual language of interdependence between Britain and its colonies, the posters attempted to open up new connections and create new moral communities across distance in ways that are not dissimilar to fair trade campaigns today.