Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
INTRODUCTION
This second section of
Key Concepts in Development Geography
presents
a critical assessment of the theoretical and applied explanations that
have charted development practices 'for the better or the worse'
throughout the Third World or global South. A critical perspective is
believed to be the most useful approach, because the world's divisions
do not always reflect wealth inequalities that have continued to persist
despite over sixty years of 'development effort'. Equally troubling are
the immense differences in development experiences that have resulted
from the conventional theories and approaches that have been embraced
by the 'development establishment', comprised of global development
forums, major development banks, international financial institutions
and governmental international aid agencies. As the chapters in this
section will argue, these institutions' adherence to conventional, capi-
talist economic models is far too often 'top-down' and externally
imposed or influenced. While radical, more people-centred alternative
approaches are often proposed, they are only occasionally implemented.
Yet we need to better understand the development challenges that
Section 1 highlighted. So it behoves us to listen to the multitude of
'voices from below' that call for justice, gainful employment, social
democracy, and health and education opportunities for the impover-
ished and powerless to be found living in the global South.
The main theories forwarded as conceptual guides to promote eco-
nomic development and societal transformation in Third World coun-
tries are examined in Chapter 2.1. Tracing the temporal record from
the 1940s onward, the earliest development concepts - like modernity
and modernization - proposed that Western capitalist models of urban
growth and regional economic expansion needed to replace the tradi-
tional and backward ways of rural, agrarian societies that had appar-
ently been obstacles to Third World development in the past. Later, in
the 1970s and 1980s, intellectual debates arose over the utility of more
humanistic concepts such as postmodernism and post-structuralism as
replacement explanations of how the world was becoming more diversi-
fied and differentiated. Despite this challenging 'cultural turn' in ideo-
logical thinking, Chapter 2.1 provides theoretical and geo-political
