Paper short abstract:

To theorize postdevelopment as an alternative paradigm in development theory

Paper long abstract:

The paper seeks to define and situate postdevelopment (PD) theory within the social sciences

by discussing its relation to other theoretical approaches. It concludes that PD can be seen to

a rather limited extent as a development theory, but rather as a sociology of knowledge of this

discipline and a critique of its foundation. PD shares the critique of capitalism with Marxism

but also has a more negative view of industrial modernity, its relation to nature, economic

growth and productivity. For some, PD is characterized by a spirituality alien to western

modernity, although this does not seem to be necessary to subscribe to the approach. Although

PD’s critique is intimately related to ecofeminist thinking (and ecofeminist authors), many of

its male protagonists seem unaware of this proximity. PD is clearly a postcolonial (or

decolonial) critique of colonial and neocolonial relations of power which can be found also in

knowledge production, in particular in the division between the ‘developed’ Self (Europe and

European settler colonies and other societies emulating them) and the ‘backward’ Other. And

PD, at the least skeptical PD, is based on a post-anarchist perspective of ontological equality,

oriented towards self-determination in the pluriverse and rearguard theories.