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Anthropology and Development, peripheral regions became dependent upon…

- - - - Capitalism and Colinialism
        (1700-1949)
        
        Notion of development goes back further at the time the 'Age of Competitive Capitalism' (1700-1860) where the consciousness of 'progress' was first propagated (Gardner and Lewis 2010, 10)
        
        the poloarity of "underdeveloped" and "developed" come from this era's common polarities of 'primitive' and 'civilised', 'backward' and advanced', 'superstitiuous' and 'scientific', 'nature' and 'culture'
        
        theories on development arose in the different phases in capitalism
        
        1700-1860
        
        Classical Economy of Smith and Ricardo
        
        Historical Materialism of Marx and Engels
        
        1860-1945
        Neo-classical political economy and classical theories of imperialism
        
        1945-1966
        Theories of Modernisation
        
        1966-1980
        Neo-Marxist Theories of Unequeal Exchange and Dependency
        
        Development theory also takes root from the growth in the scientific knowledge and social theory
        
        Emile Durkheim's
        The Division of Labor (1893)
        
        Marx and Engels' Mode of Production
        
        all societies will pass through-capitalist mode of production
        
        next stage: socialism
        
        Development by words of 'progress' and 'enlightenment' was key to colonial discourses
        
        Natives as 'backwards' and 'childlike' vs colonizers as 'rational agents of progress'
        
        Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1859)
        
        This period is considered as ***“enlightenment”*** era, which characterized by the rise of science and technology and ushering new age rationality and enlightenment of human kind (Jordanova 1980).******
        
        introduction of educational system
        
        The postcolonial era:
        (1949 onwards)
        
        The 'Aid Industry'
        
        Aid as imperialism
        At the start of the post colonial era, 'aid' from a 'developed' country (global North) which were colonial states to 'underdeveloped' countries (global South) was the new development discourse. Aid, in this sense, is believed to be a continuation of colonial relations (Mosley 1987, 21) from a home state to its former colonies.
        
        Critiques such as Hayter 1971, Sobhan 1989, take the Aid Industry as another political tool - a form of 'neo-imperialism' - of the North to have control on policies over recepient countries in the South by way of 'dependency'.
        
        Recent critiques by others such as Easterly, 2006 and Moyo 2009, aid meant a disruption to the free-market and harbors corruption and solely top-down.
        
        Ferguson 1990, however, posited that a better way to understand the aid industry is by distinguishing the intentions of those working in it and the effects of their work.
        
        Development is an essentially political process. (p.14)
      - Modernization Theory
        
        "visualizes development in terms of a progressive movement towards more complex and integrated forms of 'modern' society." (Long N. and Long A. 1992, 18)
        
        Key processes: industrialization (transition from subsistence agriculture to cash-cropping) and urbanization
        
        Emphasis on economic and moral rationality
        
        Evolutionary - countries are envisaged as being at different stages on a linear path which leads ultimately to an industrialized, urban and ordered society
        
        economies are situated at different stages of development, all are
        assumed to be moving in the same direction.
        
        requires technology and high levels of investment to 'leap forward'; preconditions include: development of infrastructure, manufacturing and effective government
        
        Critiques
        
        An optimistic concept
        
        assumes that all countries
        will eventually experience economic growth.
        
        Ethnocentric and empirically incorrect
        
        development would come swiftly; presents development as a relatively easy process
        
        Its strategies rarely, if
        ever, pay heed to local knowledge
        
        "actor Oriented Research" Norman Long
        
        ignores the political implications of growth on
        the micro level
        
        assumes homogeneity within society
        
        believes the benefit of growth are enjoyed by all
        
        fail to understand the real causes of underdevelopment and
        poverty.
        
        neglect historical and political factors
        
        A critique on modernization theories is that it is obviously and gravely ethnocentric in nature and not grounded on actual evidence. This view puts the North's kind of 'development' in superior light while putting the South on the opposite side. Following this blueprint from the North, local life and context of people in the South are often disregarded and treated as a 'constraint'. However, studies of anthropologists such as Mair (1984) and Hill (1986) have shown that understanding local culture is pivotal in the implementation of development projects.
        
        Another critique on this theory is its disregard for the political implications of growth on small-scale communities. Following the assumptions of linear progression and simply putting that all kinds of society are one and the same, effects of growth attained by the top class will 'trickle down' and spread to the bottom class or wider population. However, this is not always the case. Studies shown by sociologists and anthropologists focused on communities involving a diverse group of people have instead have become more marginalized.
        
        most influential during the postcolonial era (1950-1960), modernization theories view 'development' as following an evolutionary process where each form of society are said to be at the different stages and that ultimately are assumed should be headed to the peak of economic growth --- seeing 'development' as 'a prosperity tower.
        
        Modernization theories took form from the frame of political economy theories that date back from the era of industrialization from Smith to Durkheim's depiction of an 'organic society. But it was even more expounded by economist W.W. Rostow who posited that "the forms of growth are already experienced in the North are taken as a model for the rest of the world." (p.20) Which means that underdeveloped countries depicted by countires in the South have similar characteristics: poor, irrational, and rural.
        
        Modernization, is based on the assumption that lives in the North are better compared to the South, is viewed as a positive theory. This means that the South will eventually follow the similar path of economic growth the North has experienced. It also portrays 'development' as a walk in the park. If there are 'obstacles' in development, then remove or outrightly solve these obstacles without taking a closer look to its possible repercussions.
        
        societies were believed to reach a stage of 'self-sustaining' growth, 'mature' stage, 'the age of high mass consumption'
      - Postmodernism Theory
      - Dependency Theory
        
        Draws from Marxist perspective; it argues that development is an essentially equalizing process: while rich nations get richer, the rest inevitably get poorer.
        
        exploitative
        
        peripheral economies were integrated into capitalism but inherently unequal basis
        
        theories of dependency presenting the globe as interrelated system 'world system'.
        
        Structures of dependency are repeated internally (i.e., metropolitan exploiting scarce resource in rural areas)
        
        work is primarily historical
        and tends to focus upon the political structures
        
        dependency understand underdevelopment as embedded within political structure.
        
        possible solution to underdevelopment: radical, structural change
        
        'Top down' change comes from above the state, propelled by capitalism
        
        Models/ Notions
        
        World System (Wallerstein 1974) - Presents the North as the centre, or ‘core’ of capitalism, and the South as its periphery. It is argued that peripheral economies were integrated into capitalism, but on an inherently unequal basis.
        
        'One world' (Worsley 1984)
        
        Critiques
        
        inability to deal with empirical variation and its insistence on
        pushing all human experience into the narrow strictures of a single theory
        
        its explanatory framework
        too simplistic
        
        failed to understand the nature of imperialism and capitalist development
        in the previously colonized South.
        
        it tends to
        
        treat peripheral states and populations as passive, being blind to everything
        
        but their exploitation.