The world we inhabit is characterised by multiple inequalities, inequities and injustices. Complexity and uncertainty are inherent to all forms of development, while mainstream “development” is often constructed through institutional practices and power relations, narrow notions of progress and growth, and linear planning models in ways that act to marginalise and exclude.
In order to challenge these conditions, together with many others, we are interested in a ‘recasting’ of development – and development studies – in ways that are “underpinned by the centrality of universality (development as progressive change for all), plurality, justice, equity and resilience”, as a recent blog put it.
Our commitment to recast development is animated by conversations that draw on insights, experiences and knowledges gained through multiple partnerships and engagements with collaborators around the world. Much inspiration, reflection and learning flows from the constructive debates, dialogues and spirited conversations that ensue.
We have engaged recently in such a conversation, stimulated by an article in the journal Development and Change by Jörg Wiegratz and colleagues. This was a critical reaction to several “pandemic papers” including one published in World Development in 2021, in which we proposed that Covid-19 and earlier epidemics provided fundamental lessons for post-pandemic transformations and for rethinking development more broadly. Our original paper was, as we noted at the time: “motivated by the structural inequalities and domination perpetuated by much mainstream development, the knowledge injustices associated with these and a desire to challenge them”.
Central to the critique of our paper was that our universalist framing of development obscures the structural inequalities between the global North and the global South; and that our analysis underplays the importance of historically-embedded political-economic inequalities. As a contribution to an on-going dialogue, we have in turn offered a response that is newly published in Development and Change. This short blog provides some of our key arguments. We invite readers to read the full, open-access version, as well as the earlier papers that form part of this conversation.
Universality
Firstly, the critique argues strongly against a trend to view problems as: “common to all”, a perspective embodied by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), suggesting that such a view is “a problematic obfuscation of existing power and regional imbalances’ that ‘blurs the reality that the global political economy is heavily uneven and hierarchical and that the global economy remains largely Northern dominated and heavily shaped by imperialism (and related rivalries).” “Common to all” notions, they suggest, are analytically and politically misleading against political-economic and bio-political realities that include vaccine racism and imperialism, and unequal debt relations that persist post-pandemic.
We agree entirely that such dynamics should not be obscured but, reflecting back on experiences from both the Ebola epidemic and the Covid-19 pandemic, we argue that “conditions of inequality, marginalisation, racial and bio-political violence apply both in what have been described as the ‘north’ and the ‘south’. Unequal power relations are pervasive……challenges such as Covid-19 are indeed ‘common’ in the sense that they are relevant and felt by everyone everywhere, but they are not felt in the same ways, and those differences reflect sharp, structural political-economic divisions and histories.”
We also agree with the argument that the misuse of neoclassical economic principles and their expression in neoliberal, capitalist development narrows our understandings of development and the potentials for transformation. With our critics, we draw attention to ideas and practices of change underpinned by ‘indigenous’ ideas and philosophies that have been proposed as the basis of alternative development paths and indeed, most recently, pandemic responses. We in turn stress the importance of exploring the plurality of concepts, priorities and pathways at play in diverse settings around the world, and the alternative solidarities through which they come together – all of which we view as central to a journey towards recasting development.
Inequalities
Secondly, to illustrate what they see as the dangers of universalising approaches, Wiegratz and colleagues argue: “We agree that it is important to extend the analysis to wider political-economic processes, and to explore how scales intersect”.
In our response, we highlight, for example, our recent work on MPox, along with the findings of the Pandemic Preparedness Project, which involved a consortium of researchers from Senegal, Uganda, Sierra Leone and the UK exploring the interrelationships between global, regional, national and local framings of epidemic preparedness and response. This work has shown how global and regional inequities in resource access and the ability to shape formal responses both constrain the agency of local communities and generate conditions for resistance and alternatives to emerge.
Uncertainty
Finally, we engage in our response with ideas around uncertainty, returning to a framing in our earlier paper that future development and change “must embrace uncertainty, complexity and unruliness in politics, as in economy, ecology and society”. Wiegratz and colleagues., however, suggest that our propositions on uncertainty do not seem “to be adequately tied to an appreciation of the political economy of capitalist development whereby much uncertainty is internal to the system, created by powerful actors including in the periphery”. Our response affirms that “alongside tackling the structural political-economic conditions that give rise to uncertainties, particularly for marginalised and vulnerable people, an approach that encompasses flexibility, adaptation, conviviality and care remains important”.
We continue to see a focus on uncertainty as essential, both because of the way structural conditions and wider crises in capitalism throw up new uncertainties that people everywhere must grapple with and because uncertainties create the conditions for new forms of transformation. Ways of responding to intersecting uncertainties will differ, depending on context, and so there are particular opportunities for development agendas to learn from the knowledge and experiences of people in marginalised settings for whom living and dealing with multiple uncertainties is an intrinsic aspect of life.
Recasting development
We conclude our response by highlighting the need to pay serious attention to a diversity of theories and lenses from those at the sharp end of marginalisation, including (but importantly, not only) in the global South. This is grounded in our view that development “is always normative, and about contributing to ‘good change’ in ways that appreciate the multiple ways of defining ‘good’ and it is always about challenging the structures and power relations that constrain positive transformation”. This means integrating diverse knowledges especially from historically-marginalised settings. It means articulating locally-contextualised ways of thinking and being in ways that can become more influential in challenging knowledge asymmetries. And it means opening up spaces for a reimagination of agency and power in the conceptualisation and realisation of development and research. In many ways, there is much agreement with our critics, although perhaps we offer different emphases.
As we look to a highly uncertain future, we again call for “a recast development that has radically transformative, egalitarian and inclusive knowledge and politics at its core, while emphasising further that any such agenda can only be designed and taken forward through critical debates and action that are themselves egalitarian, fostering cognitive justice and inclusive of radical diversity of experience and perspective.” We look forward to continuing this conversation.
Read the conversation so far
Original paper: Leach, M., MacGregor, H., Scoones, I. and Wilkinson, A. (2021) ‘Post-pandemic transformations: How and why COVID-19 requires us to rethink development’, World Development, 138, 105233.
Critique: Wiegratz, J., Behuria, P., Laskaridis, C., Pheko, L.L., Radley, B. and Stevano, S. (2023) ‘Common challenges for all? A critical engagement with the emerging vision for post‐pandemic Development Studies’, Development and Change 54.5, 921-953.
Response: Leach, M., MacGregor, H., Scoones, I. and Taylor, P. (2024) ‘Post-pandemic transformations and the recasting of development: A comment and further reflections’, Development and Change, Online early view, https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12811
