Escobar Flashcards
(12 cards)
What is Escobar’s main argument?
Escobar argues that “development” is a Western discourse, not a neutral process. It constructs the Third World as “underdeveloped” to justify intervention, control, and the reproduction of global inequality, drawing heavily on Foucauldian ideas of power and knowledge.
Why does this matter?
It challenges dominant development narratives and shows how global poverty is produced and maintained through discursive and institutional practices, not just economic failure.
What role does discourse play in development?
Discourse defines what counts as a problem (e.g., hunger, illiteracy), who is authorised to solve it (Western experts), and what solutions are legitimate (technocratic, market-based)—thus legitimising external control.
What happened after WWII in development discourse?
The West invented the category of “underdevelopment”, starting with Truman’s Point Four Program, to frame poverty as a condition that needed Western aid and expertise to fix.
What is a key case study illustrating this discursive framing?
📌 World Bank’s 1949 Colombia Mission: Produced a blueprint-like “development plan” based on quantifiable targets, ignoring local knowledge and reducing complexity to metrics like GDP.
How does the Green Revolution show discourse in action?
Framed as a technical solution to hunger, it introduced Western seeds and chemicals.
📌 In India: It increased yields but displaced small farmers, increased debt and dependency, and eroded biodiversity—a techno-fix that entrenched Western agribusiness.
What role did Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) play?
SAPs imposed privatisation, austerity, and export orientation through IMF/World Bank loans.
📌 In Ghana: SAPs dismantled public health and education, worsening inequality, while branding market logic as “normal” and inevitable.
What is Participatory Action Research (PAR), and why does Escobar value it?
PAR is a grassroots method where communities co-produce knowledge and act on it, rejecting expert dominance.
📌 In Nicaragua: Peasants reclaimed land by documenting historical dispossession, blending activism with research.
What Foucauldian concept does PAR represent?
The “insurrection of subjugated knowledges”—challenging dominant narratives by centering local, marginalised voices and disrupting development’s “regime of truth.”
What critiques does Escobar face?
Overemphasis on discourse? Critics say he underplays material exploitation like sweatshops and extractivism.
Escobar’s reply: Discourse enables and legitimises material exploitation (e.g., “free trade” masking coercion).
What about Global South agency?
Scholars like Amartya Sen argue that developing countries adapt development tools.
Escobar responds that even “localized” efforts often reinforce Western epistemic frameworks (e.g., microcredit pushing neoliberal individualism).
What is the broader takeaway?
Development is a discursive and institutional apparatus that exercises power by defining, diagnosing, and managing the Global South, often excluding alternative knowledges and pathways to progress.
