How did the industrialized nations of North America and Europe
come to be seen as the appropriate models for post-World War II
societies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America? How did the postwar
discourse on development actually create the so-called Third World?
And what will happen when development ideology collapses? To answer
these questions, Arturo Escobar shows how development policies
became mechanisms of control that were just as pervasive and
effective as their colonial counterparts. The development apparatus
generated categories powerful enough to shape the thinking even of
its occasional critics while poverty and hunger became widespread.
"Development" was not even partially "deconstructed" until the
1980s, when new tools for analyzing the representation of social
reality were applied to specific "Third World" cases. Here Escobar
deploys these new techniques in a provocative analysis of
development discourse and practice in general, concluding with a
discussion of alternative visions for a postdevelopment era.
Escobar emphasizes the role of economists in development
discourse--his case study of Colombia demonstrates that the
economization of food resulted in ambitious plans, and more hunger.
To depict the production of knowledge and power in other
development fields, the author shows how peasants, women, and
nature became objects of knowledge and targets of power under the
"gaze of experts."
In a substantial new introduction, Escobar reviews debates on
globalization and postdevelopment since the book's original
publication in 1995 and argues that the concept of postdevelopment
needs to be redefined to meet today's significantly new conditions.
He then calls for the development of a field of "pluriversal
studies," which he illustrates with examples from recent Latin
American movements.
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