Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
2.1 MODERNITY,
MODERNIZATION,
POSTMODERNISM
AND POST-
STRUCTURALISM
In this chapter we provide an overview of the changing concepts that
have directed 'development' in the Third World or global South (see
Chapter 1.3). At the outset the chapter considers the multidisciplinary
concept of modernity. Having done so, the account turns to the rise of
postmodernism, postmodernity and post-structuralism as new intellec-
tual, academic frameworks that respectively reject notions of 'modern-
ism' and 'structuralism'. The chapter critiques these approaches and
their utility in the contemporary context. In so doing, modernity in its
current neoliberal guise is found to be an extremely resilient factor in
the development process.
It can be argued that the wholesale acceptance of modernity as a
'development ideology' has made things worse in the Third World, bring-
ing about greater inequality, vulnerability and social disruption. As
Section 1 has demonstrated, the disadvantaged and powerless under-
classes have not experienced much development at all. Conversely, the
already privileged elite proponents in the Anglo-European West and
their neoclassical capitalist allies in the Third World have prospered.
As noted in the Introduction to Section 1, modernity and moderniza-
tion would both become the main conventional economic models
favoured by the development establishment during the first major
capitalist era in the second half of the twentieth century. Similarly, as
Chapter 2.3 explains, between 1945 and 1980 modernity and robust
economic growth were also at the heart of the Keynesian model of
advanced capitalism which prevailed in the developed 'First World' of
