Rethinking Development from a Postcolonial Perspective

Abstract

The article aims to proffer some thoughts on development practice and discourse from the standpoint of postcolonial studies. Based on an understanding of development as an intervention or a series of sustained interventions in certain social realities, with the explicit aim of improving the latter qualitatively, the article will examine development as a set of historically contextualised discourses that inform certain practices that are meant to produce perceptible effects in economic, social and cultural spheres. It is against this backdrop that critical insights derived from postcolonial studies will be drawn on to question the underlying assumptions of these discourses in order to reveal the interests that inhabit their production as a form of knowledge. It is therefore hoped that rethinking from a postcolonial perspective will contribute to enriching the on-going critical engagement with development and its associated practices and discourses.