Geog 330

Lecture 4
Alternative and populist
approaches to
development
Key thinker: Mahatma
Ghandi
 Alternative and Populist Approaches
Began in the 1970s
Locally orientated, idea of development from below.
Used in rural peasant based societies. People orientated
and community based.
Shelter, education, and health care.
Ngos play a big part in community development and
empowering the poor.
Criticisms of the NGOs:
o they are moving away from the communities and becoming a
bridge to the state
o They are disempowering the community members by by
bypassing the more outspoken member of the community
HDI - creating an environment in which people can develop their
full potential in order that they should be able to lead productive or
creative lives, in accordance with their needs and interests
 Anti-development and
post development
Based on the failures of modernisation
Argued that the West developed discourse around
development leads to an uneven power
relationship
Western development helped to create poverty,
underdevelopment, backwardness, landlessness
and so on
Western society then rushed to solve these
problems via programmes that fail to respect or
recognize local culture and customs
Anti-development - Key
thinker: Arturo Escobar
 Anti-development
(continued)
Anti-development places emphasis on
new/indigenous social movements based on local
knowledge (eg. The Zapatistas Movement in
southern Mexico.
Criticism to antidevelopment Escobar failed to
recognize the 4 Asian Tigers and Japan in his
analysis
Development has brought about better health
care and education for the majority of the
developing world
Anti-development is seen by some as an elitist
argument that is guilty of its own reductionism
Case Study: Urban Social
Movements in Australia
Critiques of Development:
The Postmodernist Stance
Moves away from large scale theory to specific
issues at a local level that relate to improving
peoples basic needs (Womens craft co-operatives
and self-help shelter development)
Some argue a liberation of thought, embracing
local otherness and support for small scale
development
Mcgee (1997) argues that this collection of
empirical studies at the local level are invaluable to
the development process
Others argue it is the cultural logic of late capitalism
Reviewing Development