Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
the deployment of terms of power and intervention, resulting in the
mapping and production of Third World societies' (Escobar, 1995: 212).
Thus, Escobar argues, development has 'created abnormalities' such as
poverty, underdevelopment, backwardness, landlessness and has pro-
ceeded to address them through what is regarded as being a normaliza-
tion programme that denies the value of local cultures. Here the
anti-developmentalist in general, and Escobar in particular, places
great emphasis not only on grassroots participation but more specifi-
cally on new social movements as the media of change.
Usefully the anti-development movement has brought about a
re-emphasis on the importance of the local in the development process,
as well as the important skills and values that exist at this level. It also
reminds us of what can be achieved at the local level in the face of the
'global steamroller', although few such successes are free of modernist
goals or external influences.
key points
The Rough Guide to a Better World stresses that development is
something that has to be pursued by the world as a whole, in both
material and wider terms.
The origins of what we understand as international development lie
in the Enlightenment period, which occurred in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries and stressed a belief in science, rationality,
and ordered progress. It was thus a very European view of progress.
The modern idea of development came about from the late 1940s and
the so-called era of modernity.
Early views of development emphasized economic growth and pros-
perity. From the 1960s onward, wider definitions involving social
well-being and freedom were increasingly stressed.
There have always been critics of the development mission, and they
are today voiced in the form of 'anti-development'.
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further reading
The Rough Guide/DFID Rough Guide to a Better World provides an inte-
resting and generally very accessible starting point for the interested
reader (Wroe and Doney, 2005) and is downloadable from the DFID
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