Post-development approaches : criticisms and responses

This chapter aims to introduce post-development approaches to scholars, policymakers, and students interested in the development literature by discussing the criticisms of and responses to post-development approaches. Since the 1980s, post-development approaches have emerged as a response to the failure of traditional development economics to address the development problems of underdeveloped countries, offering original methodologies and analyses to overcome the impasse and uncertainty of development economics. These approaches address debates in modernist development literature from a postmodern perspective and offer important critiques of traditional development literature, claiming that it is constructed in a modernist vein. The integration of postmodern perspectives into development issues has contributed to focusing on the local with an emphasis on difference and putting local demands and local problems on the agenda rather than universal and uniform development policies that try to engineer underdeveloped countries. Post-developmentalists emphasise that the current form of the development project is inadequate to meet the needs of developing societies, and that it's therefore imperative to explore alternatives to failure. Post-development approaches have brought important criticisms to the development literature, created discomfort in different circles, and the views of post-development approaches have been criticised by various circles with different arguments. This chapter does not engage in the debate on the viability of post-development approaches. Instead, it emphasises that the issues raised by post-development approaches can serve as a starting point for moving beyond the current impasse in development.