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.
The theoretical framework of Epistemologies of the South was proposed by Boaventura de Sousa Santos as a way to recognize other different manners to understand the World. This offers a much more ...relevant role to non-Western views about our existence. Under this framework the present article describes the concept of relational ontologies, which implies different theoretical fundamentals for those who no longer want to be complicit with the silencing of popular knowledges and experiences by Eurocentric knowledge. Responding to the monolithic idea of World or Universe, this article presents a transition towards the zapatist inspiration of pluriverse, a world where many words fit. The article describes several examples of indigenous reactions against the mining practices, which were extended into the ontological occupation of the land. This article also argues that the knowledge offered by the Epistemologies of the South is much deeper for the context of social transformation than the one that usually originates in the academy.
A través de la influencia de la filósofa jamaiquina Sylvia Wynter - y otros -, Escobar incursiona en una profunda discusión sobre una transición urgente al pluriverso. Cuestiona el humanismo ...occidental antropocéntrico que formó la mentalidad desarrollista y aboga por la transformación radical del pensamiento: una forma plural de lo humano que rebasa y escapa al humanismo occidental. Ofrece seis estrategias para pasar de la crítica a la transición basadas en la acción colectiva que nos reconecta en base a culturas centenarias con la Tierra, lo sagrado y lo espiritual.
Through the influence of Jamaican philosopher Sylvia Wynter - and others -, Escobar delves into a profound discussion about an urgent transition to the pluriverse. It questions the human-centric ...Western humanism that produced the development mentality and argues for a radical thought transformation: a plural form of the human beyond and outside Western humanism. He offers six strategies for moving from critique to transition, all based on collective actions, reconnecting us to centuries-old cultures, the Earth, the sacred, and the spiritual.
Antropologia e desenvolvimento Escobar, Arturo
Maguaré (Bogota, Colombia),
01/2020, Volume:
34, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Este artigo analisa o trabalho de profissionais em antropologia que se dedicam ao campo autodefinido da “antropologia para o desenvolvimento”, tanto aqueles que trabalham dentro das instituições para ...o fomento do desenvolvimento quanto nos departamentos de antropologia com a preparação dos alunos. Esboça também uma crítica do desenvolvimento e da antropologia para o desenvolvimento, elaborada desde o final da década de 80 por um número crescente de profissionais da área, denominada “antropologia do desenvolvimento”. Finalmente analisa algumas das estratégias possíveis para sair do impasse criado por essas duas posições, a partir do trabalho de antropólogos e antropólogas que experimentam com modos criativos de articular a teoria e a prática antropológica no campo do desenvolvimento.
La mayoría de estos textos se escribieron a la manera del estilo latinoamericano del ensayo. Los ensayos reflejan importantes debates intelectuales-políticos del momento. Eso no significa que se ...ocupen de temas efímeros o triviales. Por el contrario, en coyunturas cruciales, como las de las dos últimas décadas, caracterizadas con frecuencia en términos del giro a la izquierda que tuviera lugar entre 1998 y el 2015, seguido de un marcado retorno a la derecha en años recientes, el formato del ensayo ofrece vías para infundir nueva energía, orientación o contenido a los debates del momento. Esos debates podrían hacer referencia a preocupaciones de largo aliento, como las identidades latinoamericanas; las cuestiones del desarrollo y la modernidad; la inserción del continente en las divisiones globales del trabajo, o esa pregunta siempre recurrente en los debates político-intelectuales, a saber, la relación entre la teoría y la práctica o praxis. Este tipo de ensayo también podría ayudar a arrojar luz sobre conceptos emergentes, como la pluriversalidad, la autonomía, la comunalidad y las transiciones civilizatorias, los principales conceptos de los que se ocupa este volumen. Los ensayos de este tipo son por lo general prosa libre y como tales están exentos de la rigurosa convención académica, aun cuando puedan estar implícita o explícitamente imbuidos de consideraciones académicas, como es el caso de la mayoría de los capítulos que siguen. Al presentar estos escritos a una audiencia académica en el mundo anglófono, pido a los lectores aplicar una cierta medida de pluralismo epistémico.
The present text constitutes the Preface to the second edition Encountering Development (1995). After reviewing both the most important transformations in the world over the past fifteen years, and ...the debates in critical development studies during the same period, the author concludes that the time has come to renew the debates on postdevelopment and alternatives to development, as many social movements are actually doing. Given the deepening ecological and social crises, there emerge in undeniable ways discourses about transitions to another type or society or civilizational model. This transition could move us beyond the modern idea of one Universe-One World under the hegemony of certain conceptions of the individual, rationality, economy, science, and the market- towards a genuine pluriverse of socio-natural worlds. These transitions announce that globalization is not only the last stage of capitalist modernity, but also the beginning of something new. Adapted from the source document.
Latin America at a crossroads Escobar, Arturo
Cultural studies (London, England),
01/2010, Volume:
24, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This paper examines the socio-economic, political, and cultural transformations that have been taking place in South America during the past ten years, particularly in Ecuador, Venezuela, and ...Bolivia. Whereas at the level of the states the transformations do not seem to venture beyond alternative forms of modernization, the discourses and strategies of some social movements suggest radical possibilities towards post-liberal, post-developmentalist, and post-capitalist social forms. To entertain such a possibility requires that the transformations in question be seen in terms of a double conjuncture: the crisis of the neoliberal project of the past three decades; and the crisis of the project of bringing about modernity to the continent since the Conquest. At stake in many cultural-political mobilizations in Latin America, it is further argued, is the political activation of relational ontologies, such as those of indigenous peoples and Afro-descendents, which differ from the dualist ontologies of liberal modernity. Al maestro Orlando Fals Borda, luchador incansable, In Memoriam, por su honestidadintelectual y su compromiso politico con America Latina, con la vida y con el mundo. Reprinted by permission of Routledge, Taylor and Francis Ltd.
El marco teórico de las Epistemologías del Sur fue propuesto por Boaventura de Sousa Santos como una vía para reconocer la diversidad de formas de entender el mundo y dar sentido a la existencia por ...parte de diferentes habitantes del planeta. Trabajando sobre este marco el presente artículo describe el concepto de ontologías relacionales, ilustrando otro tipo de herramientas teóricas para quienes ya no quieren ser cómplices del silenciamiento de los saberes y experiencias populares por parte de la globalización eurocéntrica. Frente a la idea monolítica de «Mundo» o «Universo», este texto plantea la transición hacia la inspiración zapatista de «Mundos donde quepan muchos mundos» o «Pluriverso». El texto se ilustra sobre algunos ejemplos de reacciones indígenas hacia la extracción minera, que no solo implican ocupación física sino también ocupación ontológica de los territorios. El artículo realiza a su vez el planteamiento de que los saberes derivados a través de las Epistemologías del Sur ofrecen mayor profundidad que los saberes hasta ahora surgidos en el ámbito académico en el contexto de la transformación social.
LATIN AMERICA AT A CROSSROADS Escobar, Arturo
Cultural studies (London, England),
20/1/1/, Volume:
24, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This paper examines the socio-economic, political, and cultural transformations that have been taking place in South America during the past ten years, particularly in Ecuador, Venezuela, and ...Bolivia. Whereas at the level of the states the transformations do not seem to venture beyond alternative forms of modernization, the discourses and strategies of some social movements suggest radical possibilities towards post-liberal, post-developmentalist, and post-capitalist social forms. To entertain such a possibility requires that the transformations in question be seen in terms of a double conjuncture: the crisis of the neoliberal project of the past three decades; and the crisis of the project of bringing about modernity to the continent since the Conquest. At stake in many cultural-political mobilizations in Latin America, it is further argued, is the political activation of relational ontologies, such as those of indigenous peoples and Afro-descendents, which differ from the dualist ontologies of liberal modernity.
Al maestro Orlando Fals Borda, luchador incansable, In Memoriam, por su honestidadintelectual y su compromiso político con América Latina, con la vida y con el mundo.
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