Colonised minds? Post-Development Theory and the
Desirability of Development in Africa
Thursday, 15 February 2024 15:56
(Matthews, 2017)
This paper looks at:
• Identification of ways post-development theory (PDT) fails to adequately understand African development
• The struggle of attempting to apply PDT to Africa
• Alternative ways of understanding the persistence of development in Africa
Content
• PDT fails to grapple with the desire for development in Africa
• African context raises challenges for PDT
PDT Read in the Post-Apartheid South African Context
• Early 00s president Thabo Mbeki had proposed that South Africa needed an 'African Renaissance'
○ Believed SA could begin a continent-wide revival through the rediscovery and revitalisation of Africa's
historical achievements
○ An 'African Century' could be forthcoming - envisioning an economically prosperous future
• Views that the Western path had failed and an alternative plan was required in order to adequately achieve
development
PDT and South African 'Service Delivery' Protests
• One of the most noteworthy features of the current SA political landscape
• 'Service delivery protest' is a term used to refer to protests resulting from the dissatisfaction with the state's
delivery of services such as:
○ Public housing
○ Water
○ Electricity
○ Sanitation
○ Education
• Protests typically include the drafting of a memo to be handed over to local authority, marching and toyi -toying,
blocking roads and burning of tyres
○ Some involve destruction of property, looting, police confrontation and police brutality
• There are certain demands that are frequently asked for such as:
○ Adequate housing
○ Building and maintenance of roads
○ Building of clinics
○ Replacement of pit-toilets with flushable toilets
○ Job creation
• Protestors typically want goods associated with development
• Certain people in underdeveloped areas do reject the ideas of modern development
○ But it is important to be attentive to those who are eager for modern conveniences and mobilise in order to
achieve them
• It is also important to recognise that people may want certain aspects of development (such as electricity and
piped water) while rejecting others (such as privatisation)
PDT and southern African Aspirant 'Modern Men'
• Challenges of protesting in SA resonate with the writings of James Ferguson (anthropologist)
○ He later distanced himself from this theory
○ He states he is sympathetic to PDT concerns about ethnocentrism but does not support the "end of
development"
• Failure of development to achieve its goals would result in betrayal of poor people's hopes for equality and
redress
• PDT theorists desire to celebrate how different people are (backgrounds, cultural norms and lifestyles) but must
consider that other's may insist on living in the same way as others in the world (moving from rondawels to
rectangular brick houses)
PDM 314 Page 1
, rectangular brick houses)
• Post-development theorists had ‘not really appreciated the extent to which the development idea has been
charged with hopes for redress and self-affirmation
Decolonisation of the Imagination
• Continued appeal of development as being due to the colonisation of the minds of those who continue to hanker
for development
• Some claim development involves colonisation of minds, hearts and imaginations
• James Petras' "Cultural Terrorism"
○ Preying on the psychological weaknesses and deep anxieties of vulnerable Third World people's making
them abandon their old ways and reorient themselves towards the capitalist market and state
• Rahnema's "Cultural Colonialism"
○ Internalisation by the host that penetrates people's minds
• Those in the South have compromised their right to cultural self-identity through embracing development and
now need to decolonise their minds
• One of most important contributions to PDT to critiquing development was the assumption that development
brings a mind-set and shifts the way one sees the world
• Development is a new variant of western hegemony not an escape from it
Concerns Relating to the Decolonisation of Development
Understanding Colonisation • Some PDT texts present a supposed "passive victims of development"
who had development imposed upon them
• "victims of zombification" refer to those who have embraced Western
schooling
• The development victims "motives of subsistence and their sense of
belonging to the community are replaced with a desire for economic
gain and individual freedom
• Inference of a frugal, community-loving subsistence farmers
whose brains are altered by alien force to become "nasty,
selfish, money-loving ghouls"
• Empirical accounts of development depict more agency from
the victims of development
• Donald Moore argues that development is a set of contested ideas
that are continually changed as a result of agency in communities
Anti-Democratic Implications • Some strands of PDT are characterised by "reactionary populism"
which conceives of culture as static and regards cultural change as
unhealthy
• Those who adopt "foreign ways" are inauthentic and untrustworthy
• Rahnema: even if majority of a community express desire for
development it should not be trusted
Cultural Authenticity in Contemporary Society • Decolonisation of imagination premised upon a static conception of
culture/cultural authenticity does not take in account how those in
modern day do not resemble their ancestors way of living and would
be difficult to revive it
• People's contexts have changed as have their cultural practices
Globalised Standard of Living • Awkwardness that arises when someone in a foreign place (like
Berlin) appeals to those living in South
• The need to "forgo their desire" for the goods and services of
the foreign place
• Those who crave traditionally Western development ideals are victims
of mental colonisation and open themselves up to being called
"hypocrites"
Towards a Way Forward
• Post-development practice is more complex on the ground
○ Difficult to altogether reject the notion of development
○ Integration of certain aspects of mainstream development such as skills development initiatives through
adopting community priorities
PDM 314 Page 2
Desirability of Development in Africa
Thursday, 15 February 2024 15:56
(Matthews, 2017)
This paper looks at:
• Identification of ways post-development theory (PDT) fails to adequately understand African development
• The struggle of attempting to apply PDT to Africa
• Alternative ways of understanding the persistence of development in Africa
Content
• PDT fails to grapple with the desire for development in Africa
• African context raises challenges for PDT
PDT Read in the Post-Apartheid South African Context
• Early 00s president Thabo Mbeki had proposed that South Africa needed an 'African Renaissance'
○ Believed SA could begin a continent-wide revival through the rediscovery and revitalisation of Africa's
historical achievements
○ An 'African Century' could be forthcoming - envisioning an economically prosperous future
• Views that the Western path had failed and an alternative plan was required in order to adequately achieve
development
PDT and South African 'Service Delivery' Protests
• One of the most noteworthy features of the current SA political landscape
• 'Service delivery protest' is a term used to refer to protests resulting from the dissatisfaction with the state's
delivery of services such as:
○ Public housing
○ Water
○ Electricity
○ Sanitation
○ Education
• Protests typically include the drafting of a memo to be handed over to local authority, marching and toyi -toying,
blocking roads and burning of tyres
○ Some involve destruction of property, looting, police confrontation and police brutality
• There are certain demands that are frequently asked for such as:
○ Adequate housing
○ Building and maintenance of roads
○ Building of clinics
○ Replacement of pit-toilets with flushable toilets
○ Job creation
• Protestors typically want goods associated with development
• Certain people in underdeveloped areas do reject the ideas of modern development
○ But it is important to be attentive to those who are eager for modern conveniences and mobilise in order to
achieve them
• It is also important to recognise that people may want certain aspects of development (such as electricity and
piped water) while rejecting others (such as privatisation)
PDT and southern African Aspirant 'Modern Men'
• Challenges of protesting in SA resonate with the writings of James Ferguson (anthropologist)
○ He later distanced himself from this theory
○ He states he is sympathetic to PDT concerns about ethnocentrism but does not support the "end of
development"
• Failure of development to achieve its goals would result in betrayal of poor people's hopes for equality and
redress
• PDT theorists desire to celebrate how different people are (backgrounds, cultural norms and lifestyles) but must
consider that other's may insist on living in the same way as others in the world (moving from rondawels to
rectangular brick houses)
PDM 314 Page 1
, rectangular brick houses)
• Post-development theorists had ‘not really appreciated the extent to which the development idea has been
charged with hopes for redress and self-affirmation
Decolonisation of the Imagination
• Continued appeal of development as being due to the colonisation of the minds of those who continue to hanker
for development
• Some claim development involves colonisation of minds, hearts and imaginations
• James Petras' "Cultural Terrorism"
○ Preying on the psychological weaknesses and deep anxieties of vulnerable Third World people's making
them abandon their old ways and reorient themselves towards the capitalist market and state
• Rahnema's "Cultural Colonialism"
○ Internalisation by the host that penetrates people's minds
• Those in the South have compromised their right to cultural self-identity through embracing development and
now need to decolonise their minds
• One of most important contributions to PDT to critiquing development was the assumption that development
brings a mind-set and shifts the way one sees the world
• Development is a new variant of western hegemony not an escape from it
Concerns Relating to the Decolonisation of Development
Understanding Colonisation • Some PDT texts present a supposed "passive victims of development"
who had development imposed upon them
• "victims of zombification" refer to those who have embraced Western
schooling
• The development victims "motives of subsistence and their sense of
belonging to the community are replaced with a desire for economic
gain and individual freedom
• Inference of a frugal, community-loving subsistence farmers
whose brains are altered by alien force to become "nasty,
selfish, money-loving ghouls"
• Empirical accounts of development depict more agency from
the victims of development
• Donald Moore argues that development is a set of contested ideas
that are continually changed as a result of agency in communities
Anti-Democratic Implications • Some strands of PDT are characterised by "reactionary populism"
which conceives of culture as static and regards cultural change as
unhealthy
• Those who adopt "foreign ways" are inauthentic and untrustworthy
• Rahnema: even if majority of a community express desire for
development it should not be trusted
Cultural Authenticity in Contemporary Society • Decolonisation of imagination premised upon a static conception of
culture/cultural authenticity does not take in account how those in
modern day do not resemble their ancestors way of living and would
be difficult to revive it
• People's contexts have changed as have their cultural practices
Globalised Standard of Living • Awkwardness that arises when someone in a foreign place (like
Berlin) appeals to those living in South
• The need to "forgo their desire" for the goods and services of
the foreign place
• Those who crave traditionally Western development ideals are victims
of mental colonisation and open themselves up to being called
"hypocrites"
Towards a Way Forward
• Post-development practice is more complex on the ground
○ Difficult to altogether reject the notion of development
○ Integration of certain aspects of mainstream development such as skills development initiatives through
adopting community priorities
PDM 314 Page 2
