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Development versus Enjoyment of Life: A Post-Development Critique of the DevelopmentalistWorldviewAuthor(s): Joabe G. CavalcantiSource: Development in Practice, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Feb., 2007), pp. 85-92Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Oxfam GBStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25548179 .

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Development inPractice, Volume 17,Number 1,February 2007 |\ T^^?niooup

Development versus enjoyment of life:

a post-development critique of the

developmental worldview

Joabe G. Cavalcanti

This article discusses themeaning of development from a post-development perspective, basedon a case study of a goat-keeping project involvinga small communityoffarmers from a rural

town in north-east Brazil The development project was fraught with conflicting views of

development as it sought to impose an interventionist, ethnocentric, and modernist view of

what was best for the community, even stipulating how thefarmers should work together.The modernist interpretation has been criticised on various grounds, but nevertheless continues

to condition how the 'development industry'defines itsvalues and views itsmission.

Key Words: Labour and Livelihoods; Gender and Diversity; Aid; Latin America/Caribbean

Introduction

Despite all the criticism that has been levelled against it, the term 'development' is still used

almost as though itwere entirely unproblematic. Development insists on staying inour voca

bulary, and many people seem to believe that a world without the 'modernisation' conceptof development simply cannot exist. This is because theword expresses the reality of an

ever-evolving world, despite the contradictions and ambivalences inherent in it.The developmentalist school of thought is what lies behind thismentality, and this is

perpetuated both throughdevelopment experts and technicians and via thepolicies of influ

ential main development institutions.Even if those who are on the receiving end of devel

opment projects and policies agree in theory that they need to be developed, in practice

theycome to realise thatdevelopment is notwhat they thought itmeant - that is, the better

ment of their lives. From a case study of a rural development project, this article aims to

discuss the relationship between the theory and practice of development. This can be trans

lated into the following questions: Why does development seem to be resisted by the com

munities who are on its receiving end?Why do development experts still insist on imposingtheirown view of

development,thus

overlookingthe cultural context of those whom their

policies are intended to help? This article seeks to address these two questions, showingthat there is a conflict about the real meaning of development between those who are on

different sides of development practice.

ISSN 0961-4524 Print/ISSN 1364-9213 Online 010085-8 ? 2007 Oxfam GB 85

Routledge Publishing DOT. 10.1080/09614520601092253

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Joabe G. Cavalcanti

The goat-breeding projectI identified a project that involved national and international development banks and thus

showed thedevelopment policies that these institutions support. Iwas able to study this rural

project when it had been implemented and was still being supervised by developmentexperts (referred to as technicians) from the Brazilian local government developmentagency, EMATER. The project took place in the town of Gravata, a municipality of

Pernambuco innorth-eastBrazil.1

The project involved 30 families of small farmers in this rural area. The historyof theprojectis importantforan understanding of theoperational context.Community members were alreadyfamiliarwith thepresence and discourse of the local development technicians, as theyhad been

involved in various initiatives in thearea. As a resultof thiscontact, somemembers of thecom

munity heard about a fund from theWorld Bank mediated by the stategovernment through its

Secretary ofPlanning and Social Development. This fund is tobe used indevelopment projectsto improve the living conditions of ruralproducers.

The community,which was based on subsistence agriculture,with each familyworking on its

own piece of land,was stimulatedby the idea of thisfund to startthinkingabout breeding goatsto complement what theywere already doing. Consequently, throughan association of small

farmers assisted by the statedevelopment technicians, and after various discussions andmeet

ings, the community drew up a project forwhich it received a grant from theWorld Bank.

The World Bank stipulated thatthis sortofproject should be of a collective nature. A piece of

common landwas thereforeused for thebuilding thatwould shelter the goats. The unskilled

work was to be contributed by the beneficiaries - the community- who in turnwould

receive trainingfrom the technicians. The project documentation described theplanas

follows:A group of 30 beneficiaries will take turns in thedaily upkeep of thegoat shelter.Every

beneficiary will receive threegoats and two kids_ The beneficiaries can sell thekids

and themilk, provided each beneficiary retainsfive goats. (SEPLANDES 1999)

The project details show how thedevelopment bank attached conditions to thegrant, specifyinghow themoney would be spent, and giving instructions about thepractices tobe employed bythe community. The project began in 1999,with thedevelopment technicians responsible for

monitoring the results and also for ensuring that the project continued to be carried out in

theway that the development banks had stipulated. The whole project fell apart in 2002,

when thecommunity decided that itwas better offbefore the initiativehad started.The collapseoccurred aftera series of discussions within thecommunitywhich made clear thatmembers had

been pushed to act in a way thatwas not in accordance with theirown way of life.From this

experience I draw out fourmain conclusions.2

1. 'Stupid and lazy ruralpeople': fulfillingtereotypical expectations

The technicians complained thatthecommunitymembers were lazy and stupid fornotwantingto improve their lives. This was clearly a view influenced by a modernisation approach to

development.During my firstmeeting with a representative of the technicians,when theproject was well

underway, I heard thecomplaint that thecommunity did not seem towant this improvement to

theirown lives. According to the technician, even in the initial phase the community was

already showing signs that it did not want to carry on, because the project was makingdemands thatdid not seem tobe well rewarded. The technician saw that therewas an interest

in themoney thatwas tocome from theWorld Bank or fromany otherdevelopment agency, but

86 Development inPractice, Volume 17,Number 1,February 2007



Development versus enjoyment of life

no acceptance of the conditions imposed by these institutions.The technician kept referringto

the local people as lazy and stupid,because theycould not be bothered tochange their lives for

the better.

Itwas inconceivable for the technicians thatthecommunity did notwant to improve its livingstandards. The development agents' view about what constituted thepeople's needs was not

shared by the community. Thus it can be argued that therewas a process whereby needs

were artificially created; that is, the technicians were ready to show the community that it

did have a need, of which the local people were not aware. Clearly, the technicianswere not

intentionally creating artificial needs, but their own worldview determined what others

should see as necessary. Consequently, if the farmerswere notmaximising theirproductionbut only producing for theirown subsistence, then somethingwas terriblywrong, or so the

technicians thought.This is consistent with the view of development inwhich subsistence

fanning is seen as wasteful.

In thiscontext

it isnot

difficulttosee

that the task of development becomes thatof promotinga change in thecommunity's values and behaviour, moving themaway froma traditionalwayof life to acquire a more entrepreneurial and productive attitude (see, for example, Eisenstadt

1966; Huntington 1971; McClelland 1961). Itmeans that for thedevelopment to take place,

according to the technicians' view, itwould be necessary to change from a traditionalwayof life to one that embraced modern values. There is nothing new about that,but it showshow themodernisation approach remains the prevailing theoretical framework that informs

the attitudes of development officials.Without realising it, the technicianswere committing a

form of cultural violence througha clearly interventionistdevelopment approach.

2. The community's disengagement fromthe project can be seen as aformof resistance to the imposition of external values

From themeeting with the technician, I started to thinkthat thecommunity's lack of interestor

motivation, and apparent laziness, should be better analysed. It could well be interpretedas a

formof resistance to the imposition of external values and concepts, which, in spite of beingwell known to them,were in fact alien to the local culture and way of life (Scott 1985).Some members of the community questioned the technicians' real interests, and how much

theywere earning. In theirview, the technicians stood to benefitmost from the project, as

theywere

being paidextra for

theirwork there andso

had a vested interest inkeeping itgoing.The technicians saw the community of subsistence farmers as a poor and needy social group.As often happens when professionals come to an unfamiliar place thinking that theybringdevelopment with them, they saw the community as naive and ignorant. The farmers were

able to resist the developmental disruption, even though they regarded the technicians assome sortof superior ormore enlightened human being. They saw themselves as being less

knowledgeable than the development technicians, but theydid not accept the idea that the

'foreigner'would know better than theydid what was really importantfor their lives.

3. The needs of the community were defined externally and can beseen as artificially reated by the technicians within their top-downrelationshipwith the locals

What I had suspected as an outside observer became obvious onmy first site visit. First, thetechnicians articulated a modernisation approach to development, as was also evident intheir view of what was better for the community. Second, despite their claims that the

Development inPractice, Volume 17,Number 1,February 2007 87



Joabe G. Cavalcanti

project had been democratically discussed, that itaddressed the needs of thisgroup of families,and that the families had been also encouraged to suggest how best tomeet theseneeds, itwas

actually the technicianswho defined thecommunity's needs and themeans of achieving them.

This was donethrough

an

implicitand sometimesmore

explicit comparisonbetween the real

situation of the community and what would be amore desirable situation - as interpretedbythe technicians. Third, the very fact that the technicians saw themselves and were seen bythe farmers as educated experts would be enough to influence the decision-making process.Thus, the farmerswere mainly assenting to the technicians' suggestions and proposals, as

would later be clear in theirunwillingness tomanage a project thatwas not really theirown.

The development experts could not help but see themselves as themediators between what

they saw as a condition of underdevelopment and the possibility of improving the farmers'

lives. It could be said thattheywere fulfilling missionary vocation of sorts,bringing salvation

to those who were perishing under the shackles of underdevelopment. In addition, what the

technicians had to offer,as they saw it,was far better than what that rural community had,and only those who were stupidwould want to refuse it.

4. The imposition of values and artificial needs can be interpretedas

cultural violence that benefits the elite but ismet with resistance fromthe potential losers

The community's response was mixed, because the farmers wanted theproject while at the

same time almost surreptitiously reacting against it. Itwas clear that thecollective organisation,insisted on by theWorld Bank, had been so artificiallycreated that therewas no real feeling of

belonging. Because the collective organisation was created from the top down, within the

context of thepower relations inherent in theway thisproject was handled, and because some

thing intended forthecommon good was actually an external imposition, theproject came tobe

seen as not belonging to anyone. Nominally, it belonged to the community, but there was no

sense that thiscommunity, created formeeting thedemands of theproject,was made up of indi

viduals or individual families. Another expression of cultural violence came from theWorld

Bank's stipulation that theproject should be collective, insisting that thegoats be kept in the

communal area and thatcommunitymembers should share the taskofmaintaining the animals.

This was

verydifficult for a

communitywhich

customarily

came

togetheronly

for certain

occasions, such as festivals, funerals, or the resolution of problems of a more general character.

People were not used to dealing with subsistence issues on a collective basis. Rather, theyworked within the context of theirown family businesses. Each family had itsown piece of

land, and every family unitmanaged the activities fromwhich itmade a living.Once more

this can be interpretedas the artificial creation of needs in order to promote the policies of

thedevelopment banks, with theactive supportof the state - in thiscase, the need for associ

ation or collectivism.

Deconstructing 'development'This case study illustratesa clash between twodifferentworldviews, with theaggravating factor

thatone was tryingto impose itselfon the other. In thiscase, themodernisation view of devel

opmentwas tryingto transform realitywhich did not fit inwith itsconcept or ideas of history,

civilisation, rationality and progress- in otherwords, tryingtomake the reality fit into ideas

which have their strongestroots in theEuropean Enlightenment.

88Development inPractice, Volume 17,Number 1,February 2007




The modernisation school of thoughthas beenmuch criticised for itspartial understanding of

historyand civilisation and itsconsequent ethnocentric and ahistorical stance (Roberts andHite

2000: 10-11). However, it is this school thatprovided theconcept of development thathas since

become rooted in theminds of intellectuals andordinarypeople.

Of course, this interventionist

interpretationof development is not theprerogative of modernisation theory. It is also to be

found in someMarxist schools of thought, in which development means the transformation

of old conditions, or traditional societies, into new conditions, a thrust towards a forward

looking society.When I presented the preliminary findings of this case study at one of the universities in

Pernambuco, some academics initially showed critical acceptance; but they followed this

with statements such as 'We cannot afforda non-interventionist view of development, as the

poor communities need tobe helped tofind theirway todevelopment'.This suggests thateven within academic circles there is still an uncritical acceptance of the

term 'development', which is taken forgranted as something certain and unquestionable, representing an absolute and necessary model of an existing or desirable reality.Other schools of

thought,however, such as postmodernist, feminist, and cultural studies, have deconstructed

the term 'development', showing that it is laden with prejudices and presuppositions. Their

main contribution to thisdebate is theobservation that language as a systemof representationhas served toproduce and reproduce systemsof exploitation and oppression. Furthermore, their

contributions show thepower relations thatoperate within theways that certain concepts are

used and understood.

The meaning of development is better understood against the backdrop of its historical

origins, in contrastwith the practical impacts of development policies and approaches. It is

importantthereforeto reflecton development as an ideologically formed concept. This requiresa discussion thatgoes beyond the technical field towards hermeneutics. Furthermore, such a

discussion must include an analysis of the application or thepractical effects of the conceptof development for the lives of those in the communities that it is designed tohelp.

Gustavo Esteva (1992) argues that the concept of development originated in thebiologicalsciences and was then applied to the social sciences through a positivist view of history.Thus development has come tomean growth and evolution. However, it has been crystallisedin thepeople's minds as a socio-economic reality fromwhich theycannot escape, since theyareeither 'developed', 'underdeveloped', or 'developing'. The problem is that development is still

seen as being synonymouswithmodernisation and, as capitalism is theprevailing world econ

omic system,development has been associated with the capitalist mode of production (Mies1994:108).

The deconstruction ofthe term 'development' isuseful indemonstrating that it isnot neutral,nor is it pure scientific construct toexpress a specific reality: it is a conveyor belt thattransmitsold prejudices. Susan Schech and JaneHaggis point out that 'development cannot be conceivedof without a notion of its opposite, whether it be underdevelopment, or non-development'(Schech and Haggis 2000:15). When it is applied towhole societies, this presupposes an

evolutionary line, and the idea that some nations are above this linewhile others are below it.As the concept of development has itsorigins in the so-called 'developed nations', it is no

wonder thatthese nations have become theparadigm

ofwhatought

tobe the ideal ofprogressand development. It is a desirable objective tobe pursued unquestioningly. The other nations

are then slotted into a hierarchy thatdesignates them as 'developing countries' and 'under

developed' or 'less developed' countries. The destiny ofthe countries that re outside the affluent circle is to catch up with the 'developed countries' in a developmentalist race thathas no

end, and inwhich the rules of the global game are always changed tomeet the interestsofthe ones who are running out front.This global game is reproduced in the local context,




Joabe G. Cavalcanti

where itcan be perceived in the relations between urban versus rural,mass production economyversus subsistence economy, city versus rural interior, ndustrialised versus non-industrialised,and so on. The former is always affirming tselfover the latter.

The developmental cultural clash

Here we understand the importance of taking the realityof culture fully into account. First,we

have aworldview thatishomogenising in cultural terms,be it t a local or global level. Second,

concepts thatdefine one group's way ofbeing and living throughthevalues of a dominant groupare exclusionary, because theymarginalise minority or less powerful groups. As Schech and

Haggis state sowell:

[AJpparent homogeneity and conformity re manufactured throughmechanisms of hege

mony which define non-dominant cultural practices as deviant and marginal. It gives no

sense of theways inwhich 'culture' is resisted and contested in ny social unity. (2000:25)

The post-development school has been criticised for not offering an alternative view of

development or,more importantly,not offering practical solutions to its problems (see, for

example, Nederveen Pieterse 2000; Schuurman 2000). However, the contributionmade by

post-development thinkers is to have deconstructed development, and the theoretical task

they have bequeathed to us is not how to reconstruct development but how to construct

something new in themidst of thedebris.

Development today has become a kind of missionary vocation inwhich the bearers of

knowledge and techniques are understood tobe superior, and thenembrace the cause of chan

ging theway of lifeof populations who think nd live ina differentfashion.When I questionedother development technicians about the cultural violence committed against communities in

the name of development, two of them agreed that they themselves were indeed guilty of

this,but argued that itwas an unintended consequence of theirjob.With regard to this case

study,what happened was a conflict between differentviews of life,of theworld, of culture,and of the very concept ofwhat development shouldmean. It can be argued that these small

farmerswere not interested in improving their lives, if 'improving' meant disruption and

destabilisation of theirway of life. For them, development should not mean more work,more headaches, even if itmeant also more consumer goods and money. They were not

interested inmaking more money and having no time to enjoy it.The crux of thematter is

that the changes required as a means to get more money would mean an even greater loss of

theopportunity to enjoy their lives.

Conclusion

To revertto thequestions raised at thebeginning of thisarticle: traditional communities that re

on thereceiving end ofdevelopment projects have threemain ways of reacting to the imposition

of external values. They may resist to thepoint of totally rejecting any external intervention.

They may accept thedevelopment package in part,while at the same time resisting some of

itscontents, especially

those thatwouldgreatly disrupt

theirway

of life. Orthey

may decide

to embrace thedevelopment ideawholeheartedly and be willing topay theprice of significant

changes in order to see thepromises of development being fulfilled.

In thecase of thegoat-breeding project, itbecame clear thatthecommunity accepted part of

thedevelopment package, which was theprospect of themoney thattheycould earn.However,

once theyrealised thatthis implied changes and disruption to their wnway of life, theygave upon theproject. Development was resisted because the trade-off etween thenecessary changes





and the promised benefitswas not seen as worthwhile. This can be understood in terms of

development versus enjoyment of life. The persistence of the idea thatdevelopment is detri

mental to traditional cultures is due to the lasting influence of development asmodernisation.

Thus,development

becomes the inescapable destiny of humankind, and development theorists

and practitioners become its zealous missionaries, willing to change theworld in order to see

theirvision become a reality.

Notes

1. The methodology used in this case study involved a range of approaches to data collection. Iwas givenaccess to the official project documentation, which specifies all the information and details ofthe initiat

ive,including

the conditions and

responsibilities

that the

project

entailed. Iwas able tomake site visits

and had full access to the area. The opportunity to observe a meeting between the technicians and the

farmers was particularly useful. The technician responsible for the project enabled me to interview a

range of informants. This helped me to gather qualitative data from two technicians from the state

development agency, and from members of the local farming community who were involved in the

project.

2. In Brazil, I had the opportunity to present my case-study findings in a series of three seminars at the

Federal Rural University of Pernambuco. My findings have therefore been developed from the

feedback given by those attending the seminars, including many technicians with experience of

similar projects who are studying development economics and rural administration and communi

cation. The technician responsible for the project also attended one of these seminars and so was

able tomake comments.

References

Eisenstadt, S. N. (1966) Modernization: Protest and Change, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Esteva, Gustavo (1992) 'Development', inWolfgang Sachs (ed.) TheDevelopmentDictionary:A GuidetoKnowledge as Power, London: Zed Books.

Huntington, Samuel. P. (1971) 'The change to change: modernization, development, and polities',

Comparative Politics, 3(3): 283-322.McClelland, David C. (1961) TheAchieving Society,New York,NY: vanNostrand.

Mies, Maria (1994) 'Gender nd global capitalism', inLeslie Sklair (ed.)Capitalism andDevelopment,London: Routledge.

Nederveen Pieterse, Jan (2000) 'After post-development', Third World Quarterly, 21(2): 175-91.

Roberts, J. Timmons and Amy Hite (2000) From Modernization toGlobalization: Social Perspectiveson International Development, Oxford: Blackwell.

Schech, Susan and Jane Haggis (2000) Culture and Development: A Critical Introduction, xford:Blackwell.

Schuurman, Frans J. (2000) 'Paradigms lost, paradigms regained? Development Studies in the twentyfirst century', Third World Quarterly 21(l):7-20.

Scott, James C. (1985) Weapons of theWeak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, New Haven, CT:

Yale University Press.

SEPLANDES (1999)Formuldriopara Solicitacao deFinanciamento,Recife: SecretariadePlanejamentoe Desenvolvimento Social do Estado de Pernambuco.

Sutcliffe, ob (1995) 'TheNorth, theSouth and theenvironment:ecological constraints nd theglobaleconomy', in J. Timmons Roberts and Amy Hite (2000) (eds.) From Modernization to Globalisation:

Social Perspectives on International Development, Oxford: Blackwell.




Joabe G. Cavalcanti

The author

Joabe G. Cavalcanti is a doctoral student in Sociology at theLondon School of Economics,and Assistant Curate at Southwark Cathedral. He was previously leader of thePernambuco

Metropolitan Subway Workers' Union and co-ordinator of theBrazilian National Federationof Subway and Railway Workers. Contact details: 54 Balin House, Long Lane, London SE1

1YH, UK. <[email protected]>


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