ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2005

In association with Development Policy and Practice and the International Development Centre at the Open University

Milton Keynes, UK
7th-9th September 2005

Connecting people and places: challenges and opportunities for development

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8TH 11.00
CHAIR: MAUREEN MACKINTOSH, ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT CENTRE, OU

QUEUEING, COMPLAINING, AND PHOTOCOPYING: NOTES ON THE (IM)POSSIBILITY OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
Stuart Corbridge, Professor Human Geography, London School of Economics

Development studies is committed both to the principle of difference (the Third World is different, hence the need for a separate field of studies) and to the principle of similarity (it is the job of development policy to make ‘them’ more like ‘us’). This is a crude characterization, but it is not an inaccurate view of how many people see the subject. This paper argues that the schizophrenia at the heart of development studies is a sign of maturity as well as a source of weakness. I first review five Impossibility Theorems – five significant critiques of the possibility or necessity of development studies. These can be associated with Lal, Escobar, Platteau, Ferguson/Harriss, and Chatterjee. Focussing mainly on Chatterjee, and drawing on work conducted in eastern India and elsewhere, I then review the empirical and epistemological bases of these critiques. Along the way, I use the examples of queueing, complaining and photocopying to make some broader points about the development of civil society – and the possibility of development policy – in the so-called Third World.