Knowledge, power and development

Résumé du document

United Nations report 1951: rapid economic progress and painful adjustments
Truman: ‘fair deal' - the US and the world have to solve the problems of the underdeveloped areas (misery, food inadequate, poverty, disease…). He develops the idea that humanity has the knowledge to relieve the suffering of these people. Capital, science and technology are the key elements for this ambitious revolution -American dream of peace.

Report UN 1951: restructuration of underdeveloped areas was necessary to achieve this will. It appears to us as an ethnocentric and arrogant will. This dream turned into a nightmare: it produced ‘massive underdevelopment and impoverishment, untold exploitation and oppression' - loss of illusion. The Third Word has been produced by the discourses and the practices of development.

Until the late 1970s, it was the kind of development needed to solve social and economic problems in these countries which was the central question of theorists and politicians (Capitalist development vs ‘another development', ‘participatory development' or ‘socialist development') - discussion about the way of developing but no doubt it was necessary to develop these countries.

Recent studies about this ‘colonization of reality' and the way certain representations become dominant. Foucault explained how ‘a certain order of discourse produces permissible modes of being and thinking while disqualifying and even making others impossible'.

Extraits

[...] The Third Word has been produced by the discourses and the practices of development. Until the late 1970s, it was the kind of development needed to solve social and economic problems in these countries which was the central question of theorists and politicians (Capitalist development vs ‘another development', ‘participatory development' or ‘socialist development') - discussion about the way of developing but no doubt it was necessary to develop these countries. Recent studies about this ‘colonization of reality' and the way certain representations become dominant. [...]

[...] It inevitably contains a geopolitical imagination (First and Third World, North and South, centre and periphery ) - It is bound with the production of differences. because of this hikstorically had to struggle).3 axes developed by the author: The forms of knowledge that refer to this discourse, The system of power that regulates its practice, The forms of subjectivity fostered by this discourse. The book is study of developmentalism as a discursive field'. Deployment of the discourse through practices (e.g. implementation of rural development, health and nutrition programs in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s). [...]

[...] New geographical terrain: the Third World. on poverty' in the Third World, especially led by the US (new dominant power). 2/3 of the world population living in poor conditions: famine, disease, poverty. World as a whole becoming intolerable because the destinies of poor and rich parts of the world were closely linked (“Genuine World prosperity is indivisible”). Systemic pauperization became inevitable with the consolidation of capitalism in Europe, and then with the development discourse in the Third World. Transformation of the poor into the assisted. [...]

[...] Escobar's discourse worked out in practice historically in finding ‘forest loss' in Guinea. Locals contest this ‘expert' discourse, showing how they have actually conserved ‘islands' of trees through their farming and herding practices. J. Fairhead and M. Leach - ‘Webs of power and the construction of environmental policy problems: forest loss in Guinea' - Contrast between the formulation of problems in development policy and the perspectives of villagers whose views have been subjugated, and everyday activities, have been criminalized, within this formulation. [...]

[...] Project staff did not necessarily need to impose their views because Bhil villagers complied with outsiders' point of view. Villager needs and identities shaped by perception of what the project was able to deliver (e.g. technology). Local people become mouthpieces of project agendas. LOCAL KNOWLEDGE OR PLANNING KNOWLEDGE? Local knowledge: “unusual type of knowledge produced through project activities and negotiated across opposing views (of women/men, villagers/staff, social/technical) within villages and the project team”. It is shaped by local dominant interests. [...]