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Relations of Power, Development
Discourse and Forms of Governmentality
within International Development
Research: A Foucauldian Analysis of the
University of Amsterdam’s International
Development Studies Master’s
Programme.
The University of Amsterdam
Programme: International Development Studies Master’s Programme Course: Research Project IDS – Field Work and Thesis
Name: John Busby
Collegekaartnummer: 10965211
Email: viv_busby@hotmail.com Word count: 29,725
Date of Submission: 16/01/2017 Supervisor: Gerben Moerman Second Reader: Yves van Leynseele
2 Abstract
This thesis is an exploration of relations of power and discourse within the International Development research community, focusing on the University of Amsterdam’s International Development Studies (IDS) Master’s programme. The work of post-structuralist philosopher Michel Foucault is used as a tool to critique the generally accepted assumptions and practices of international development research within the programme. This thesis emerged out of a ‘failed’ attempt to work through
emerging ethical issues during international development research which ultimately led to the project being abandoned. During this research, I caused emotional harm and saw the research as invasive. I became the main beneficiary of the research with the burdens placed upon the local community. The post-development critique of the 1980-90s influenced my thinking about development and in this thesis it is extended and applied to the IDS Master’s programme. My own practices of resistance are used to critique the relations of power at play within the programme which constitute student
researchers and research participants, located primarily in the Global South, as the ‘subjects’ of development. Relations of power, and a development discourse that creates a subjectivity of underdevelopment in communities in which research is conducted, are reproduced through the current practice of research. Relations of power within the programme lead students to continue with research even when they doubt its relevance or consider their practice unethical. While research can be ethically justified the development practice within the programme should be subjected to an updated and modified post-development critique. The use and production of academic knowledge on the course should be problematised and the practice of research which is currently located in the Global South should instead embrace a truly global focus. Alternative educational pathways that are valued within the programme should be devised for those students who believe that they are not in a position to carry out useful or ethical research. Ethics should suffuse the whole research process. The programme should experiment with the research opportunities they offer, where research
opportunities are located, how research questions are devised and operationalised, and the form of knowledge that students produce through research.
3 Contents Page Page Title Page 1 Abstract 2 Contents Page 3 Acknowledgements 5 Chapter 1 6 - Introduction 6 Chapter 2 13
- Education and Power Relations: A Foucauldian Perspective 13
- Power, Biopower and Governmentality 14
- The Subject, Subjectivity and the Self 16
- Governmentality as a focus of analysis in UvA’s IDS Master’s Programme
17 - My Changing Perspective of Development and Research: Writing about
a past self’s perspective 19
Chapter 3 22
- Introduction to UvA’s IDS Master’s Programme 22 - Development discourse in the IDS Master’s programme: Critiques of
development within certain limitations
22 - The Post-Development Critique: Growing Criticism of Development and
the Emergence of the Post-Development Critique
23 - The Roots of Development: Modernisation, the ‘Discovery’ of Poverty
and International Development Discourse
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- The Production of Development Discourse 26
- An Alternative To Development 29
- A Missed Opportunity to take on board the Post-Development Critique
within the IDS Master’s Programme 30
- Further Development Critiques within the Programme 31
Chapter 4 34
- Analysis of UvA’s IDS Master’s Programme 34
- Development Knowledge: Whose knowledge counts, about what, and of where?
36 - Research Opportunities: The Global South as the site of Development 38 - The Legitimisation of Research Practice and the Production of
Academic Development Knowledge
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- The Benefits of Completing Research 45
- Selection of my Research Topic: knowingly building my house on rotten foundations
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Chapter 5 49
- Research Ethics 49
- The Importance of Ethics in Development Research 49
- Ethical Stances, positions and principles 50
- Procedural Ethics: Autonomy and Informed Consent, and Harm 51
- Ethics in Practise 55
- Ethics and Gender: Calls for an Ethics of Care 55
Chapter 6 58
- The Research Experience 58
- Research Overview 58
- Description of Research location 59
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- An Enforced Break in Research: Reflecting on the Ethics of Research Practice
62 - Reproducing a Discourse of Underdevelopment through Research 66 - My Use and Privileging of Academic Knowledge Over Local Knowledge 67 - Relying Upon, and Reinforcing, Oppressive Relations of Power 69 - Placing the Burdens of Research on the Local Community For my Own
Gain
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- Calling a Halt to My Research 73
Chapter 7 74
- Discussion and Further Implications 74
- The Use, Production and Valuing of Development Knowledge within the
IDS Master’s Programme 75
- Updating the Post-Development Critique and Applying it to the Development Discourse, Relations of Power and Forms of Governmentality on the IDS Master’s Programme
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- Empirical Development Research and the IDS Master’s Programme 82
Chapter 8 86
- Conclusion 86
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Acknowledgements
I would like to express my thanks to the teaching staff within the University of Amsterdam’s IDS faculty for their support, enthusiasm, inspiration and
encouragement. Special thanks are extended to Gerben Moerman who went above and beyond what could reasonably be expected of him during his role as my
supervisor. I am also most grateful to my family, friends and fellow students who were always on hand to provide encouragement and support when I was feeling out of my depth during the course of this project.
I would like to express my gratitude to all those people in Iten who agreed to contribute their time and effort to the research I conducted there. Your stories,
insights, ideas and opinions played a massive part in shaping this project. My thanks are also extended to those who chose to resist becoming part of my research and questioned my presence and practice. I wish you all well in the future.
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Chapter 1
Introduction
This thesis is an exploration of relations of power and discourse within the International Development research community, focusing on the University of
Amsterdam’s (UvA) International Development Studies (IDS) Master’s Programme. Within this thesis, the work of post-structuralist philosopher Michel Foucault is used as a tool to critique the generally accepted assumptions and practices of
international development research within the programme, opening the question as to whether these practices can be modified to better diffuse the benefits of research within the communities in which the research takes place while making it harder to (unquestioningly) engage in unethical research practices. My interest in relations of power and discourse within the IDS Master’s programme emerged from my own struggles as a student, enrolled in an IDS Master’s programme to produce authorial development knowledge, in line with the course’s perception of development, which culminated in the termination of my research on the agency goals of women runners in Kenya.
I had enrolled on the programme in order to understand how positive change in the world could be brought about. After completing the programme I hoped to work in the development field. My aims were broadly similar to the goals of many of my fellow students who were drawn to the programme by the opportunity to gain
practical experience in the field of development by completing the research project. I had viewed research as an exciting opportunity to gain a greater insight into a
specific development issue. I was also aware that engaging in research would likely be beneficial to my future career as the skills and experiences I would acquire carrying out research in a ‘developing’ country would be highly valued by many development employers.
During the programme, I was exposed to new tools of analysis and alternative development critiques which expanded my ability to think critically about
development and understand how positive change could occur. However, these critiques also made me question many of the current practices in development,
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including research, and the underlying assumptions that support these practices. I became more critical of the idea of development being located solely in ‘developing’ countries in the Global South. I gave increasing importance to ensuring alternative ways of knowing and thinking about development within different communities were valued and was opposed to academic development knowledge being privileged to such an extent that it devalued or completely superseded local knowledge. I was strongly opposed to reproducing forms of governmentality that led research participants, and those in the research community, to regulate themselves to produce certain forms of practice in line with a development discourse that characterises them and their community as ‘underdeveloped’. Finally, I felt that it was unethical for the benefits of research to be concentrated upon the researcher and the academic community located in the Global North with many of the burdens being placed upon those within communities located in the Global South.
I had been conscious of these issues as I had selected my research topic and research questions for the mandatory research component of the course. My main research question was:
How are women runners negotiating doing sports to achieve their agency goals in the Rift Valley, Kenya?
In order to answer this main research question, four sub research questions were developed:
1. What are the agency goals of women runners in the Rift Valley? 2. How are women runners doing sports in the Rift Valley?
3. How do women runners negotiate the local and global sports systems? 4. How do these negotiations vary between different women runners within the Rift Valley?
These questions related to international development in a number of ways. Within the international community, sports are increasingly recognised as a tool of development (Levermore, 2008). However, within sports sociology sport has also been acknowledged as playing a role in neo-colonial processes (Giulianotti, 2004). Sport based social development can be seen as compatible with neo-liberal
philosophy and facilitating the inclusion of marginalised people and groups within the unequal material relations of capitalism (Ong, 2006) depoliticising past and ongoing
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inequality (Wilson and Heyhurst, 2009). Andrews and Giardina (2008) argue for the importance of cultural studies for understanding sport as a practice negotiated within complex and specific social relations rather than as a politically transcendent activity. Little research on sport has been carried out related to ‘“little d” development or the development of capitalism, as a geographically uneven, profoundly contradictory set of historical processes’ (Hart, 2001, p. 650).
The Rift Valley province, a high-altitude region of Kenya, can be regarded as a location where sport plays a role in the “little d” development of the area. Running has impacted upon the historical process of social change in which society has been, and continues to be, transformed through unintentional and unplanned development processes (Jarvie, 2007). The Rift Valley is characterised as ‘the world’s foremost manufacturer of elite middle- and long-distance running talent’ (Dabbs 2012, p. B17). While a series of studies from different disciplines suggested a range of explanations for the concentration of high performance runners from the Rift Valley province in Kenya little methodological, theoretical and empirical discussion has focussed upon African sportswomen (Nauright, 2014). Women were largely invisible from the literature on sports in Africa despite being the home to some of the most successful sportswomen in the world (Sikes and Jarvie, 2014b). The wide spread adoption of sport as a tool for development coupled with limited academic critique and
investigation indicated a gap in the research agenda of development studies. I therefore set out to research the possible relationships that exist between women’s access to sport, and development. The research interest tied into issues of gender, agency and development. The project sought to build upon Sen’s (1992; 1993; 1995; 1999) concept of development as freedom to investigate if, and how, women in the Rift Valley were able to increase their freedom in multiple domains through doing sports thereby achieving their agency goals.
I had commenced my research aware that ethical issues would arise during the research. I aimed to ensure I was conscious of these moments and respond appropriately. Yet during a break in my research I realised that I had, and was, engaged in ethically questionable development research practice. I used people to further my own goals by subjecting them to research in order to produce authorial development knowledge so I could graduate from the Master’s programme while offering little in return. I reproduced a development discourse that created a
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subjectivity of underdevelopment in the local community, I prioritised academic development knowledge over local alternative knowledge, and relied on the oppressive relations of power that I had set out to critique to secure research subjects. I found myself acting in ways which caused harm to others in order to try and complete the IDS Master’s programme. Realising the predicament, I decided that I needed to terminate my research on ethical grounds but found it incredibly hard to follow through on this decision. After discussing the situation with my colleagues I came to the realisation that many students were aware of significant ethical tensions within their own research. I therefore made the decision to focus upon an exploration and critique of the relations of power within the International Development research community that lead students to engage in ethically problematic practices.
During my time within the IDS Master’s programme I had the privilege to get to know many of the staff and students within the programme and it was apparent that the vast majority, if not all, of the individuals I met were driven to produce positive change in the world. However, positive intentions do not always produce positive outcomes if problematic underlying assumptions are allowed to go unquestioned. Individually many of the IDS faculty staff encouraged me to take a critical approach to development. The ideas, theories and tools that I use within this thesis to critique the relations of power, discourse and practice within the IDS programme were introduced to me within that programme. Despite the issues I encountered with my research, and my wider concerns about development research within the programme, I still believe that development research is necessary and can be ethically viable. In writing this critique I hope to strengthen the positive elements within the IDS Master’s programme while making it harder for future students to repeat some of the problematic practices that I found myself falling into. I hope that future students are challenged to question their own assumptions and practices so that research carried out within the IDS Master’s programme is built upon stronger, more ethical foundations. By embarking upon this critique ‘the main objective of these struggles [to critique] is to attack not so much ‘such and such’ an institution of power, or group, or elite, or class, but rather a technique, a form of power’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 211). I hope that this thesis will elucidate the forms of power operating within the IDS faculty, along with the underlying assumptions that support them, to
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facilitate a process of renewal of development practice within the IDS faculty built on the constant identification and questioning of the modes of thought on which
development practice rests. As Foucault states critique ‘is a matter of pointing out on what kinds of assumptions, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered
modes of thought the practice that we accept rest ... Practicing criticism is a matter of making facile gestures difficult’ (Foucault, 1981, p. 155).
Relations of power within the IDS Master’s programme constitute student researchers and research participants, located primarily in the Global South, as the ‘subjects’ of development. Practices of government within the programme shaped my agency to certain development and academic regulatory and normative ends. Initially, my resistance to these practices of government took place within the ‘rules’ of the programme. I attempted to challenge the idea of what development research should focus on while accepting the legitimacy of the idea of carrying out empirical research as part of the Master’s programme. These initial efforts at resistance petered out and I came up with a research question that largely conformed to the programme’s view of development and development research, but which I hoped would negate what I saw as the most problematic ethical issues of conducting development research in the Global South.
The ‘break’ came when my attempt to carry out research in the field in order to produce authorial knowledge about development ‘failed’. The research intensified my experience of the relations of power that were being produced through me as a development practitioner and the development discourse that I was reproducing though the practice of carrying out development research. The way I was being constituted as a development subject was no longer compatible with my ongoing project of an ‘ethics of the self’. I came to a decision that I was no longer prepared to do the type of research that was being asked of me as I did not believe it to be ethical. When I stopped my research, it involved a rejection of ‘the rules’ of the programme. I rejected the way development was being portrayed within the programme, I rejected the dream I had held since I was eleven of being a
development practitioner and ‘doing good’ in the (developing) world and I rejected the role of being a ‘good’ development student. The second part of the ‘research’ process for this thesis has been one of trying to understand the power relations that I felt and saw working, and continuing to work, through me as a practitioner of
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development, how these relations of power constituted me as a (deviant)
development subject, and the development discourse reproduced within IDS faculty. As I identified the development and academic assumptions and practices that
underpin the programme I questioned and problematised them through a search for subjugated knowledge and deviant cases. Through this process my focus shifted from analysing the consequences of carrying out international development research as a student within the programme to questioning how international development research, as set out within the IDS Master’s programme, is viewed as a legitimate action and the resulting consequences for student researchers and research participants as the ‘subjects’ of development.
Writing this thesis provided me with a way to articulate myself and my practice differently, to open up spaces of doubt. Writing is a key technique of the ‘arts of the self’, a means to explore the ‘aesthetics of existence’ and inquire into the
government of self and others (Foucault, 1997b). Foucault presented self-writing as a deliberate attempt to explain and express oneself to an audience which one is part of (Ball and Olmedo, 2013). The audience I aimed to express myself to is that of the academic field of International Development. My thesis can be understood as an attempt to ‘mark out an ethical space’ (Burchell, 1996, p. 34) within which students, lecturers and staff may be able to learn, teach and research in different ways and explore the possibilities and impossibilities of transgression (Ball and Olmedo, 2013).
Michel Foucault’s ideas on power, the self and the subject, and resistance are used throughout this thesis and are examined in the second chapter. In choosing to write a thesis such as this, in which my own practices of resistance are used to produce a critique of the relations of power at play within UvA’s IDS Master’s programme, and the reproduction of these relations of power and a problematic development discourse through the practice of research, I have placed myself at the centre of my analysis. I am conscious that this leaves me treading a fine line
between producing an exploration of relations of power, in part based upon my practices of resistance, to produce a critique of development research within the programme that is in part representative of other students’ practices, and appearing self-indulgent and obsessed with my own existential angst. I therefore ask for patience from the reader as I end this second chapter with a brief outline of the
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perspective of development and research I had upon entering the programme and discuss how I use my ‘voice’ throughout the thesis.
The tools of analysis and the critiques of development used in this thesis were brought to my attention due to the teaching within the programme. These critiques, their extent, the times they were used and the subjects they were applied to forms the third chapter. Particular attention is given to the post-development critique taught in the programme as it greatly influenced my thinking and understanding of
development and the way I viewed development research. The fourth chapter centres upon a critique of the relations of power within the programme in order to analyse how international development research, as set out within the IDS Master’s programme, is viewed as a legitimate practice only within certain parameters. The following chapter focuses upon the different ethical approaches to carrying out research along with a consideration of some of the more central ethical concerns that researchers working in development should give consideration to. Chapter six examines my experience of carrying out development research, the ethical issues which arose, the potential of development practices to cause harm, and the difficulty I had in recognising and addressing these issues. Chapter seven starts by
considering issues of how academic development knowledge is used, produced and valued within the programme. A shift to a more people-centred development,
focused on wellbeing and the expansion of freedoms that people value, is considered from a Foucauldian perspective. Using this analysis, the post-development critique is updated and applied to the IDS Master’s programme, focusing on the practice of development research. While research could, and possibly should, still have a place within the programme I argue that the way students are taught about development research, the position of research practice within the programme and the geographical locations in which research takes place all need to be problematised and addressed by the IDS faculty to ensure that it is harder to engage in research practices that could be viewed as unethical. The thesis ends with the concluding remarks.
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Chapter 2
Education and Power Relations: A Foucauldian Perspective
According to Foucault, modern education institutes played a central role in the emergence of more sophisticated forms of power that maintained and deepened social control. Rather than viewing education as intrinsically enlightening and
uplifting greater consideration needs to be given to its role as a central technology of discipline and social control (Leask, 2012). Michel Foucault analysed changing patterns in forms of social control and highlighted the increased prevalence of a form of power he termed biopower which became increasingly influential through the rise of modern humanism and the social sciences and led to new forms of governance. Power is produced and reproduced through education institutions and operates within these institutions. In this thesis, a Foucauldian analysis of power relations is used throughout to analyse the forms of governance and control which may be operating within the IDS programme, upon development student subjects, and on research subjects and those within the local research communities, through the practice of development research. This practice is legitimised through the academic and development discourse within the programme, and reproduced in the field by development student subjects. This chapter starts with a brief overview of how Foucault’s ideas on relations of power evolved to include biopower and how a new form of social control, governmentality, emerged facilitating the establishment of disciplinary norms through which subjects are constituted.
In his early work, Foucault posits that teaching staff within higher education can be seen as ‘technicians of behaviour’, or ‘engineers of conduct’ (Foucault, 1979, p. 294) formed by a set of disciplinary norms which then constitute student subjects. Here, power is depicted as one-way and unilinear with relations of power imposed on individual subjects through institutional norms. However, in Foucault’s later works the concepts of biopower and governmentality place the stress on self-production of the subject with technologies of domination and technologies of the self, such as
counter-practice via critical resistance, at play. The subject is governed by others and governor of her/himself (Ball and Olmedo, 2013). It is for this reason that resistance becomes a central aspect in the analysis of power as ‘in power relations
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there is necessarily the possibility of resistance because if there were no possibility of resistance (of violent resistance, flight, deception, strategies capable of reversing the situation), there would be no power relations at all’ (Foucault, 1997a, p. 292). Throughout this thesis relations of power are in part revealed through an analysis of my practices of resistance as a subject. By examining resistance to practices, and specifically the practices of performativity, these practices of resistance can be used ‘as a chemical catalyst so as to bring to light power relations, locate their position, find out their point of application and the methods used’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 211). In such an analysis, the concepts of, ‘subject’ and ‘subjectivity’ are used in specific ways. The second section of this chapter therefore outlines how these concepts can be understood throughout this thesis. The next section considers governmentality within the IDS Master’s programme. The chapter ends with a brief overview of my views on development and research entering the programme.
Power, Biopower and Governmentality
Michel Foucault wrote extensively on power relations with his ideas evolving throughout the course of his life. Foucault (1979) draws a heuristic distinction between sovereign power and biopower. Sovereign power is associated with the reign of the monarchy, although in modern times it can be associated with the
judiciary and the rule of law. Sovereign power can be seen to operate as the primary form of power throughout the colonial period. Colonies were taken in the name of the monarch with the extraction of wealth, labour, goods and services enforced through the threat of violence and disciplinary action on the body culminating in the
‘seiz…[ing] hold of life in order to suppress it’ (Foucault, 1981, p. 136). Sovereign power operates through the ‘seizure: of things, time, bodies and ultimately life itself’ (Foucault, 1981, p. 136).
Biopower operates alongside sovereign power and became increasingly significant through the rise of modern humanism and the social sciences. European development during the early industrial and capital period relied not only on force, but on the mobilisation, and self-mobilisation, of human subjects through ‘official discourses’ and ‘power/knowledge’ (Foucault, 1979). In Foucault’s work, the concept of biopower originally emerged as part of a thesis on the micropolitics of power as
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applied by the disciplinary techniques of institutions, most notably the prison, through techniques of domination (Foucault, 1979). Biopower could be seen as a ‘disciplinary power introduced in the early modern period in order to rationalise the problems afflicting populations’ (Olssen, 2006, p. 215). The thesis is developed in Foucault’s latter writings to include the work we do to ourselves, the techniques of the self (Foucault, 1981). Biopower became conceptualised as a ‘power bent on generating forces, making them grow, and ordering them, rather than one dedicated to impeding them, making them submit, or destroying them’ (Foucault, 1981, p. 136). Biopower facilitates ‘a way of acting upon an acting subject or subjects by virtue of their acting or being capable of action’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 220) thus ‘power is not a substance. Neither is it a mysterious property whose origin must be delved into. Power is only a certain type of relation between individuals’ (Foucault, 1981, p. 253). Power relations ‘are rooted deep in the social nexus’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 222) and are not concerned with direct action on others, so much as the actions upon their actions.
Foucault (2007) defines government as the ‘conduct of conduct’. The first ‘conduct’ comes from the verb ‘to conduct’. Government is about leading, directing, and guiding in a deliberate way. The second ‘conduct’, is the noun, and refers to people’s thinking, actions, and emotions. ‘Conduct of conduct’ can be read as a deliberate direction of people’s articulated set of behaviours (Varman, Saha, & Skålén, 2011). To govern sets the terms for ‘the way in which the conduct of
individuals or of groups might be directed … [it] is to structure the possible field of action of others’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 221). Governmentality, taken from ‘government’ and ‘mentality’, refers to the rationalities and technologies through which subjects conduct others and themselves. Governmentality encompasses the totality of ‘institutions and practices, procedures, methods, techniques through which people are governing others and governing themselves going through the range of social institutions from administration to education’ (Masschelein, 2004, p. 358). Foucault (2007) argues the practical task of governmentality in its liberal form is devising forms of regulation that enable, ensure and facilitate forms of self-regulation in order that it can govern indirectly through them. Governmentality relates to the ‘specificity
of power relations with its concern to shape conduct as part of broader issue involving the political exercise of power’ (Olssen, 2006, p. 215) and shapes both individuals and populations through the collective exercise of power.
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Thus, in Foucault’s later work, relations of power are productive processes that form conduct, with relations of power transforming the individual into a subject. These relations operate through concrete techniques and concrete forms of
knowledge and discourse. Power can be suppressive or oppressive, but ‘it produces objects, truth games and political spaces, which determine what the individual and his/her knowledge mean, how the individual relates to him/her self and to others’ (Masschelein, 2004, p. 358-359).
The Subject, Subjectivity and the Self
Michel Foucault was interested in the modes by which ‘human beings are made subjects’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 208). In this thesis, the concept of the student
development academic as a ‘subject’ refers firstly to the individual as being ‘a subject to someone else by control and dependence’, and secondly, as being tied to ‘[their] own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 331). The subject, at any point in time, is the result of endless processes of construction of identities that are constrained, but never completely, by the historical moment in which they are inscribed (Ball and Olmedo, 2013). The duality in subject formation and power relations is reflected in and reinforced by two types of techniques: the techniques of domination and the techniques of the self (Foucault, 1997b). People are constituted as subjects through different forms of knowledge (including the social sciences), through forms of institutionalised practices (discipline, management, tests) and through various techniques of the self (ethical practices) (Masschelein, 2004).
The subject ‘is not primarily or always identical to itself’ (Foucault, 1997a, p. 290) as there are different forms and types of subject. Seeing oneself as a
constituted subject does not mean one can ‘‘completely’’ understand situations or ‘detect’ full bias or ‘distinguish’ between alternatives on a strictly rational basis. However, it does allow one to glimpse the power inherent in every context in which we work, and interrogate how our views and thoughts are formulated by theoretical positions and practices in which we are embedded (Bazzul, 2012).
The idea of subjectivity can be seen as processes of becoming that focus on what we do rather than on what we are, that is to say, the work of the care of the self (Ball, 2012). Subjectification is ‘the process of becoming a subject within a discursive
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power/knowledge production’ (Lehn-Christiansen, 2011, p. 312). Subjectification is an ongoing process in which subject positions are created, negotiated, accepted and transformed in and through everyday discursive practices (Raaper, 2016). Power relations shaping subjectivities are complex and exist ‘in the whole network of social’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 345). Recognition of the subject occurs through the mechanisms of power and discourse that bring about the creation of the subject.
Discourse is a system of representation that relies on taken-for-granted rules that constrains what can be spoken or thought at a particular point in history
(Raaper, 2016). Discourse relates to the subject as ‘a space of positions and of differentiated functioning for the subjects’ (Foucault, 1972, p. 232). Discourse not only produces particular subjects but renders domination and resistance visible.
Governmentality as a focus of analysis in UvA’s IDS Master’s Programme
Through governmentality power has come to permeate not just society, but
constitute individualised and normalised subjects. Governmentality was developed in the social science disciplines in the mid-to-late nineteenth century and is still
legitimised within these academic disciplines and those disciplines, like education, that emerged later. Foucault critiqued the academic disciplines as emerging from the same social movements and mechanisms of control as that of the prison system and serving many of the same functions ‘the disciplines characterize, classify, specialize; they distribute along a scale, around a norm, hierarchize individuals in relation to one another and, if necessary, disqualify and invalidate’ (Foucault, 1979, p 223).
Educational institutions, especially those associated with the human sciences, produce lived practices of teaching and learning through relations of power that may dominate and subjugate through the constitution of subjects. These subjects can be constituted believing that they are personally autonomous especially when
assumptions and practices go unquestioned (Marshall, 1995).
Development as a field is firmly rooted in the human sciences. Development’s focus has often been upon understanding different aspects of societies in the
‘developing’ world and carrying out development practice in these locations. Those incorporated within development practice will be subjected to development’s ‘official discourses’ and ‘power/knowledge’ (Foucault, 1979) which will contribute to their
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mobilisation, and self-mobilisation, as human subjects. However, development practice does not solely occur in the Global South but takes place within various institutions including UvA’s IDS faculty. Students within the IDS Master’s programme are constituted as development academic subjects by the power relations and
techniques of domination specific to the site of UvA’s IDS faculty, and constituted by themselves as political subjects, with a particular type of relationship to themselves, through practices of resistance and techniques of the self. The power/knowledge and the discourses produced and reproduced within the IDS faculty help constitute, and are constituted by, the academic field of development and the wider
development discourse. Development discourse itself is structured by so-called hegemonic discourses such as neoliberalism.
Within the IDS Master’s programme relations of power operate through a certain form of governmentality that leads to student researchers regulating themselves to produce certain practices. When discussing power relations ‘[the] point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not the same as bad. If everything is dangerous then we always have something to do’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 231–232). Relations of power could lead to a range of both positive and negative outcomes but they provide a basis for understanding how students are governed in an academic setting to perform certain academic and development practices. These practices become seen as legitimate choices and courses of action. It is seen as a legitimate choice to conduct empirical research in ‘developing’ countries, for example, but resistance is also possible. While, multiple resistances are the necessary converse of power’s own transmogrification, critique is necessary if these oppositional energies are rendered meaningful (Leask, 2012) creating space for alternative practices to emerge.
As a development practitioner enrolled in the IDS Master’s programme, I began to question not only what I wanted to do and not do but to think in terms of what I did not want to be and did not want to become. By recognising myself as a development academic subject I brought myself back into the sphere of the political, able to take up positions in relation to discourses and truths as I saw them and to look critically at the practices around me. I struggled to develop a particular
technology of the self according to my own principles, to produce an aesthetics of the self (Foucault, 2010b), through a process which ‘revolve[s] around the question:
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Who are we? They are a refusal of these abstractions, of economic and ideological state violence which ignore who we are individually, and also a refusal of a scientific or administrative inquisition which determines who one is’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 212). Through scrutinising my own practices of resistance and understanding of myself as a subject, along with an analysis of the unquestioned practices and assumptions found within the IDS Master’s programme it becomes possible to reveal the relations of power in which student subjects are embedded.
My Changing Perspective of Development and Research: Writing about a past self’s perspective
Adopting a Foucauldian view of identity as performative means rejecting the idea of having a fixed self-conscious of which one is aware, and instead viewing identity as being (re)produced continuously through daily interactions. My self-knowledge has changed throughout the time in the programme. During the second semester of the programme I engaged in constant and organised work on the self, in order to try and resist dominant discourses and produce a meaningful critique, through the
‘establishment of a certain objectivity, the development of a politics and a
government of the self, and an elaboration of an ethics and practice in regard to oneself’ (Foucault, 1997a, p. 117). While seeing myself as a constituted subject has made me more aware of my own position within relations of power operating at different levels I am aware that it isn’t possible to fully survey one’s own
self-conscious, completely understand situations, detect full bias or distinguish between alternatives on a strictly rational basis. My identity has unquestionably changed throughout my time in the Master’s programme and in writing this thesis I had to confront the issue of writing about what I felt and thought in the past in a ‘truthful’ manner, knowing how events subsequently played out, and the positions I took. I cannot definitively say that I have not adjusted certain aspects of my own
experience, but if so this has been an unwitting process.
I came into the programme with certain views and thoughts regarding development and research. At the age of eleven, driven by a belief that people should not be deprived of the basic necessities for life, I had decided that I wanted to work in development. After traveling through Eastern and Southern Africa for four
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months in 2001 I adopted a slightly more nuanced view of the ‘developing’ world. Having trained and worked as a teacher I returned to Africa in 2011 with a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) in Kenya whose remit was focused on street children. The five months I spent working on various education initiatives changed my opinion of the development sector. Talking to staff members and residents it was clear that many of the NGOs in the area were not meeting local needs instead
choosing to focus on issues they had identified as problems. I often struggled to deal with relations of power between myself as a white, educated, male from the UK and the NGO staff, teachers, students and local residents I worked with. I was conscious of the degree to which I could structure initiatives to address certain agendas that I, or the NGO I worked for, valued based on my ability to access a range of academic knowledge on education and development, sometimes at the expense of local approaches.
In 2014 I made the choice to apply to study IDS at UvA. While still interested in education, I was increasingly aware of social and environmental issues tied to ever greater levels of consumption in the Global North. Far from seeing these
countries as ‘developed’ I felt that radical transformations needed to be implemented in these countries as well as in ‘developing’ countries. Before commencing the IDS Master’s programme, I completed two development modules with the Open
University in the UK. In these modules development was understood as a global process occurring not just in the South but everywhere, development included a full range of actors, and was a process that didn’t just produce ‘good change’ but always produced winners and losers. I approached the Master’s programme at UvA having adopted a critical stance to development, but still harbouring the dream that I had held since I was 11 that development may allow me to be involved in a project which could reduce suffering and inequality in the world and allow people to live fulfilling, happy lives.
Entering the Master’s programme, I had given less thought to the issue of research. I believed the production of knowledge was in general positive with a greater understanding of problems likely to lead to issues being addressed effectively. I had read about unethical research but felt my good intentions would prevent my involvement in unethical research. At undergraduate level I had found conducting research on asylum-seekers and their access to education in the UK a
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difficult process. I had been well aware that I was the largest beneficiary from my research in the form of my degree and felt that the process of research had been challenging and emotionally difficult for many of my participants, but I had largely forgotten this process. The critiques of development I was exposed to in the IDS programme shifted my position on these issues. It took me time to understand the ramifications of these shifting positions and it is now time to look at the specific critiques of development that were put forward in the programme.
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Chapter 3
Introduction to UvA’s IDS Master’s Programme
The IDS Master’s programme is described on the UvA’s Graduate School of Social Sciences: Masters International Development Studies website as a course where ‘you will examine global inequalities, ranging from their causes, characteristics and possible solutions’ and seek ‘ways of understanding them, critiquing them, and possibly overcoming them’ (UvA, 2016a). The programme covers a diverse range of issues including ‘poverty, conflict, security, land rights, gender inequality, education, sustainable development, and climate change, among others, and seeks to draw links between local conditions – in both rural and urban settings – with national and global processes’ (UvA, 2016a). The programme aims to stimulate ‘students to think academically and critically about the challenges development brings’, to provide ‘tools for exploring development through governance approaches at multiple levels of scale, inclusive development approaches, through discourse, and through popular and contested representations of what development is and means to different groups of people around the world’ (UvA, 2016a).
Development discourse in the IDS Master’s programme: Critiques of development within certain limitations
The ‘Core Issues in International Development Studies: Theoretical Approaches and Current Debates’ (Core Issues) module sets out to provide students with the ability to ‘critically assess issues and policies central to development processes in a
‘globalising’ world’ and ‘critically examine the central concepts underlying
development theory’ (Core Issues manual, p. 2). Some of the sessions in this module significantly altered my thinking about development and my approach to development research. The most far reaching critique of development presented in the module was that of post-development thinking. This critique is explored in detail in the following four sections. The first section documents the emergence of the post-development critique. The second section traces the emergence of development from a post-development perspective. The next section concentrates on the mechanisms through which development discourse is produced and maintained, in part, through professionalisation and the production of knowledge by academia that supports
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specific regimes of representation. The fourth section considers the suggestions from post-development scholars on future research directions.
The post-development critique was mainly discussed in terms of its
implications for development as a whole and little consideration was given to what the critique meant for our practice as students enrolled on a development
programme. The limited application of the critique to the programme was a missed opportunity and is the focus of the penultimate section of this chapter. The final section considers the additional ways in which development was critiqued within the programme.
The Post-Development Critique: Growing Criticism of Development and the Emergence of the Post-Development Critique
“The last 40 years can be called the age of development. This epoch is coming to an end. The time is ripe to write its obituary" (Sachs, 1992, p. l).
When Ivan Illich (see Illich & Lang, 1973; Illich, 1977) began to challenge the idea of development as a threat to people’s autonomy in the 1960s it was seen as
irresponsible to question the necessity of development. His stance was dismissed as an act of sheer provocation (Rahnema, 1997). There was almost unanimous support for development, although policy orientated divergences did exist. The modernisation paradigm, as proposed by Rostow (1959), was in the ascendency, with ‘the
industrialized nations of North America and Europe [held up as] the indubitable models for… the so-called Third World, and that these societies must catch up with the industrialized countries, perhaps even become more like them’ (Escobar, 1995a, p. vii). Development was seen as the ‘sacred cow’ (Rahnema, 1997) with 'perhaps no other concept [being] so insidious, no other idea go[ing] so unchallenged' (Escobar, 1992, p. 132)
By the mid-1980s the idea of development was no longer so sacrosanct. The very idea of development was undergoing constant questioning from a group of cultural critics, who became known as the post-development school (Escobar, 2015). Development was seen as an ideological export that tied people in the ‘developing’ world into an inequitable, unjust global system. According to this critique the
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development which was always orientated to the needs and interests of ‘developed’ countries rather than developing countries. Development was an ideological export and a simultaneous act of cultural imperialism. This critique was introduced in the IDS Master’s programme through a reading of ‘Encountering Development’ by Arturo Escobar (1995a) and class discussion.
The critique of development as discourse in the 1980s and 1990s emerged at a time when the past era (the immediate post-World War 2 period) could be clearly delimited (Escobar, 1995b). Third World and Western scholars, building upon influential critiques of different aspects of development from the early 1970s (see Freire, 1972; Illich & Lang, 1973; Goulet, 1971), drew upon the post-modern critique, with its focus on difference and discourse, to question the belief that development in the Third World was synonymous with westernisation/modernisation (Escobar, 1984; Ferguson, 1990; Marglin and Marglin, 1990; Mueller, 1986). Recognising the role of discourse in the construction of power/knowledge systems (Foucault, 1972; 1980) academics argued that development discourse is embedded in ethnocentric and destructive colonial and post-colonial discourses that maintain colonial hierarchies (Parpart, 1995). Third World people were seen to have become defined as the ‘other’ who embodied all of the negative qualities (primitive, backwards) no longer found in ‘modern’ Westernised societies (Said, 1978; Escobar, 1984). This representation provided the basis for development experts belief in the superiority of the values, knowledge and institutions of the North and legitimated the global drive for
modernisation that ‘entails an incomprehensible amount of destruction or, at the least, discrediting and subordination of local techniques, knowledges, practices, and lifestyles’ (Du Bois, 1991, p.21).
The post development critique, with its focus on discourse analysis creates the possibility of “stand[ing] detached from [the development discourse], bracketing its familiarity, in order to analyse the theoretical and practical context with which it has been associated” (Foucault, 1986, p. 3). Using new tools of analysis, in particular Foucault’s work on the dynamics of discourse and power in the
representation of social reality, the post-development scholars set out to show how certain representations became dominant and shaped the way in which reality is imagined and acted upon (Escobar, 1995a). Development was seen to function as a discourse through the articulation of knowledge and power, and became a system of
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relations that created the objects, concepts and strategies that brought into being the ‘Third’ world.
The Roots of Development: Modernisation, the ‘Discovery’ of Poverty and International Development Discourse
From the perspective of most post-development scholars, modern development discourse emerged post-World War 2, at a time when industrialised countries asserted their dominant powers within a new international system and propagated the belief that development was linked to modernisation. Historically modernisation has followed many different patterns of transformation, including non-capitalist routes to industrialisation, but within the development discourse of the ‘First’ world the processes of industrialisation, urbanisation and capitalism were closely entwined (Brown and Hanlin, 2013). The goal of mainstream development was to harness the dynamic effects of industrialisation, technological change and urbanisation on
economic growth to bring about social transformations that moved societies onto ‘a permanent different economic trajectory’ (Mokyr, 1999, p. 3) with industrial capitalism becoming seen as the ‘engine of ‘development” (Thomas, 2000). Key to expanding this vision to all corners of the world was the ‘discovery’ of ‘poverty’:
The word "poverty" is, no doubt, a key word of our times, extensively used and abused by everyone. Huge amounts of money are spent in the name of the poor. Thousands of books and expert advice continue to offer solutions to their problems. Strangely enough, however, nobody, included the proposed
“beneficiaries” of these activities, seems to have a clear, and clearly shared, view of poverty. For one reason, almost all the definitions given to the word are woven around the concept of “lack” or “deficiency.” (Rahnema, 1991, p. 4)
Poverty on a global scale was a discovery of the post-World War 2 period. Sachs (2008) maintains the conception and treatment of poverty was quite different before 1940. In many regions of the world, including Europe for most of its history, vernacular societies accommodated poverty through visions of community, frugality, and sufficiency (Escobar, 1995a). In market societies, the poor became defined by a lack of money, material possessions and access to basic services in comparison to the rich. Poor countries were similarly defined in relation to the standards of wealth
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of the more economically advantaged nations (Escobar, 1995a). The perception of poverty on a global scale “was nothing more than the result of a comparative
statistical operation, the first of which was carried out only in 1940” (Sachs, 2008). It was in this way that poverty became an organising concept and thus the object of a new problematisation. As in the case of any problematisation (Foucault, 1986), that of poverty brought into existence new discourses and practices, in this case,
development, that shape the reality to which they referred.
While Escobar (1992) acknowledges that development is intimately connected to ‘the rise of Western modernity since the end of the 18th century’ (p. 132) his
reading of developments archaeology and genealogy suggests it was only in the post-1945 period that development began to function as an ‘all-powerful mechanism for the production and management of the Third World (Escobar, 1995b, p. 213). Post-World War 2 the previous knowledge system was replaced by a new one based on North American institutions and styles (Fuenzalida, 1983). Development relied solely on the modern western knowledge system. The research practices of the North were reproduced in the south creating a transnational system of research, that while creating some new knowledge capabilities (Escobar, 1995a), led to a loss of autonomy for many communities with the marginalisation and blocking of non-Western knowledge systems (Fuenzalida, 1983). This allowed development to emerge as a unifying vision with the apparatus of Western knowledge production and intervention establishing a new political economy of truth on the global scale (Sachs,1992).
The Production of Development Discourse
Through the articulation of knowledge and power development started to function as a discourse that became a system of relations creating the objects, concepts and strategies that resulted in the emergence of the ‘Third’ world. The development discourse established in the period 1945-55, created a space in which only certain things could be said and done, and excluded the ‘poor’ by treating them as abstract concepts (Escobar, 1995a). Escobar (1995b) argues that it was at this point that through a host of development strategies and programmes the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America began to see themselves as underdeveloped.
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Development can be seen as an apparatus ‘that links forms of knowledge about the Third World with the deployment of forms of power and intervention,
resulting in the mapping and production of Third World societies’ (Escobar, 1995b, p. 213). Development discourse is the process through which the social reality of the Third World comes into being. Modernisation, the basic premise of development in the 1940s and 1950s, insisted that Indigenous populations needed to abandon their archaic superstitions and relations and adopt modern values, as embodied by the cultivated European, in order for the necessary processes of industrialisation and urbanisation to occur, with the social, cultural and political damage to these
communities and populations being the inevitable price to be paid for a good life for all (Rahnema, 1997). A teleology exists in development, as it is assumed that underdeveloped populations will at some point be reformed and modernise. At the same time a separation between those who are bringing about this reformation and those ‘others’ who are defined by their lack, their limited humanity in comparison to those in the modern world, is continuously reproduced (Escobar, 1995b). A spatial component exists within development discourse, through which a series of
imaginative geographies are socially produced. These imaginative geographies, North and South, developed and developing countries, First and Third world, supports the production of differences, subjectivities and social orders (Escobar, 2015). This perpetual recognition and disavowal of difference, that development relies upon, is inherent to discrimination (Bhabha, 1990).
Three axes define development: the forms of knowledge that refer to it and allow it to come into being; the system of power that controls its practice; and the forms of subjectivity nurtured by development discourse, which condition people to see themselves as underdeveloped or developed (Escobar, 1995a). By analysing the inter-relations between these axes and the elements within them, as opposed to simply studying the individual forms found along each axis, it becomes possible to see development as a system of discursive formation which produces an apparatus that relates forms of knowledge and techniques of power (Escobar, 1995a). The relations between socio-economic processes, technological factors, forms of
knowledge, institutions, and other related factors, define the milieu for the creation of objects, concepts, theories and strategies which can become incorporated into the discourse, thereby establishing what can be said and thought (Escobar, 1995b).
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The mechanisms through which development became an active force were shaped by forms of knowledge and power generated by the processes of
professionalisation and institutionalisation. In development, professionalisation can be understood as the process through which the Third World was incorporated into the politics of expert knowledge as practiced by Western science. The creation of development sciences and their associated set of techniques, strategies and
disciplinary practices allowed for the problematisation of more and more aspects of the Third World. Thus, the Third World was brought into the space of development with certain forms of (Western) knowledge becoming privileged through methods of research, the recognition of particular expertise, forms of teaching and the collection and analysis of research data and thus given the status of truth. Modern
development science was projected as a universal, value-free system of knowledge, making it possible to remove different aspects of life in the Third World from the political and cultural realms in which they existed, through the operationalisation of reductionist concepts, and produce claims about the world that are seen as
universal, neutral and objective. The proliferation of development studies
programmes in the universities of the North was mirrored in the South structured in line with modern science (Escobar, 1995a). From these privileged sites of knowledge production experts were able to observe entire social groups, identify their problems, formulate policies and plan their futures thereby establishing a regime of truth and norms about them. At the same time an institutional field was constructed through the creation of institutions, such as the United Nations and the World Bank, that were imbued with the moral, professional and legal authority to identify subjects of
development and define strategies. The institutional field and processes of
professionalisation are tied together through symbiotic relations to form an apparatus that regulates development practice; that is the production of forms of knowledge and the deployment of forms of power. As new problems and client categories were created development practice evolved but the development apparatus continued to reproduce the same relations between the elements it dealt with.
The further theoretical principle identified by the post-development school for probing the mechanisms for the construction of the Third World, and the
consequences of this construction, is the concept of regimes of representation. Regimes of representation are the sites of encounter where identities are
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constructed and through which violence originates and is managed. At the local level regimes of representation are resisted, transformed, or hybridised with local forms. Local versions of development are formulated through a complex process of cultural productivity that could include traditional cultural practices, colonialism and
contemporary interaction with the global economy (Dahl and Rabo, 1992).
Many people in the ‘Third World’ who encountered development discourse began to think of themselves as inferior, as ignorant, they began to doubt their culture and shun their traditions (Ferguon, 1990; Escobar, 1995a). The dream of development led elites in the Third World to commission an ever-increasing number of interventions that bound people within developments power and systems of control. Strategies that further impoverished the most vulnerable, such as structural programs in the 1980s, were pushed through in the name of development along with practices that degraded the environment and threatened many indigenous groups with extinction (Escobar, 1995a).
An Alternative To Development
The critique of the discourse and practice of development by the post-development school was not about finding a ‘better’ way of doing development, or even for ‘another development’. It was an attempt to clear the ground for a more radical imaging of alternative futures (Escobar, 1995b) with a focus on ‘the investigation of alternative representations and practices in concrete local settings, particularly as they exist in contexts of hybridization, collective action, and political mobilisation,’ (Escobar, 1995a). The re-inscription of modernist dualisms is inherent in any claim that there is a counter-hegemonic discourse which is implacably opposed to, and untainted by the language of development (Crush, 1995). Manzo (1995) argues that romantic images of indigenous societies possessing authentic knowledges do not push beyond modern relations of domination and can lead to the same violent scripting of identity as takes place in the name of development. Foucault’s (1981) notion of the ‘tactical polyvalence of discourses’ hints that rather than thinking of a world of dominant/accepted, or dominated/excluded discourses we should instead think of a ‘complex and unstable process whereby discourse can be both an
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resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy,’ (Foucault, 1981, p. 100-101). Alternative discursive strategies and frameworks have constituted a
‘pronounced undertow’ on development discourse with challenges from the centre and periphery structuring, in complex ways, the imagination of development (Watts, 1995). Escobar (1995b) sees hope for a more radical imagining of alternative futures emerging out of alternative discourses to development articulated by new social movements.
A Missed Opportunity to take on board the Post-Development Critique within the IDS Master’s Programme
The post-development critique was mainly discussed in terms of its implications upon the wider field of development rather than upon the implications for students enrolled upon the IDS Master’s programme. During class discussion, the creation of the imagined geographies of the ‘Third’ world, ‘developing’ countries, and the ‘Global South’ and the ‘othering’ process this facilitated was recognised as being
problematic. This spatial element was connected to the operation of a development discourse that led to the creation of subjects of development who viewed themselves as ‘underdeveloped’. The post-development critique emerged when economic
development was still the prevalent development paradigm and class discussion on the post-development critique focused on how development in the 1980s excluded the very people whose needs it was meant to address. The concept of poverty was deconstructed and linked to scarcity and lack. It was argued that the ‘invention’ of poverty legitimised the need for growth through development in order that the ‘needs’ of the ‘underdeveloped’ ‘others’ could be met. The critique seemed to be widely accepted by students. When questioned by Lecturer 1, no student raised any objection to the critique although some did question what the critique meant for development fearing it led to a dead end. Rather than pursuing the critique and applying it to the development practice with the IDS Master’s programme the
problematic elements of the critique for doing development research were put aside. The issue of the programme’s focus upon development issues on the South wasn’t raised. Concerns about how development knowledge was produced within the programme and the incorporation of research participants into the nexus of development through our practice also went unaddressed.
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This critique heavily influenced my thinking on development. I had already been dubious about conducting research in the Global South and this critique strengthened my opposition. However, this critique of development still contained a North-South divide. Resistance to development was seen as emerging in the South, the alternative forms of knowledge, visions, interests and social relations threatened by mainstream development were located in the South. The damaging subjectivities of development were again, located in the South. The impact of development discourse on the forms of knowledge it is possible to articulate and act upon in the Global North was not discussed. By focusing solely on resistance to development in the South it becomes easier to assume that development discourse is going unchallenged in the Global North, that this discourse is not leading to damaging outcomes for societies, groups and individuals located within what is termed the ‘developed’ world.
Examples of resistance studied also relate solely to ‘mainstream’ economic development. The Master’s programme at UvA was critical of much mainstream economic development, while never fully challenging the need for economic growth, but much less critical of alternative forms of development, as exemplified by a greater focus on well-being. By choosing to limit the focus on resistance to development to mainstream economic development it again becomes easier to assume that
alternative forms of development are widely welcomed, that they are not causing harm, that pursuing research in line with these forms of development is unproblematic.
Further Development Critiques within the Programme
While the evolution of the core concepts in the field of development studies were initially presented as an overview, with limited critique, the significant challenge of living within the carrying capacity of the earth in the age of the Anthropocene
(Rockström et al.,2009; Steffen et al., 2015), where many of our daily activities occur via technology within the technosphere was acknowledged. The identification of these global issues and a subsequent focus on the establishment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are global targets, suggests the need to adopt a truly global perspective, with development occurring in all locations, rather than focusing predominantly on the Global South.
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The concept of globalisation from a development perspective was critiqued through the work of Joseph Stiglitz (2006), issues of governance in development were analysed using Torfing et al.’s (2012) work, while the concept of development as freedom was introduced through an examination of the thinking of Amartya Sen (1999). The concept of development as freedom has been widely used in
development over the past 20 years and is very much people focused. By placing the emphasis on the freedoms that individuals value, and have reason to value, the post-development critique, in which people are seen as excluded from post-development, is seen as blunted as within the concept people are both the ends and means of
development. Certain approaches in development, such as the dominant neo-liberal capitalist approach, were explicitly challenged in the programme by alternative
approaches such as inclusive development. The scope of these challenges was often limited with the critique of global capitalism, with its need for continual growth, limited to two sessions in the module. Changing people’s attitude to consumption in the global North and promoting greater financial equality between and within countries was almost always presented as too daunting a task. As Jameson states ‘it seems easier for us today to imagine the thoroughgoing deterioration of the earth and nature than the breakdown of late capitalism’ (1994, p.xii). While it was hoped that students would be able to ‘determine their own position in important development debates, such as the contestations of aid and the role of the private sector and reflect on the role of science and scientists as agents of societal change’ (Core Issues manual, p. 2), the positions one could adopt were often limited as ‘promoting opportunities through economic growth’ (Core Issues manual, p. 2) was seen as a primary strategy for addressing inequality. The remaining two strategies identified were ‘increasing possibilities for empowerment and social inclusion’ and ‘enhancing human security and resilience’.
In the remainder of the ‘Core Issues’ module the majority of lectures failed to question the central concepts of development theory. This trend was highlighted when a lecturer did chose to use theory to explore a concept. During a session on counter hegemonic globalization one of the readings for the class provided a theoretical positioning on resistance, agency and counter-work (Long, 2007). During the class, it was apparent that many of the students felt they did not have a good theoretical grounding which they could build off to explore development issues. This was
