Project Design
Background
“Let
it be admitted at the outset that European brains, capital, and energy have
not been, and never will be, expended in developing the resources of Africa
from motives of pure philanthropy.”
What could appear as the starting phrase of a modern critique of European
development policy in African states is in fact part of the pro-imperialistic
argumentation of one of the key-texts of British colonialism in West Africa
in the second decade of the 20th century. Frederick Lugard, Governor-General
of colonial Nigeria and British representative on the League of Nations’
Permanent Mandate Commission (1922-1936), is but one of numerous protagonists
of European colonial politics and administration in Africa who from the 1920ies
onward introduced the notion of development into European discourse on Africa.
Almost 100 years later the concept of development remains at the forefront
of the global political agenda, as show the Millennium Development Goals proclaimed
by the UN General Assembly 2000. Though strategies and theories have changed
substantially since the 1950s, the basic view of development as something
beneficial has been upheld not only by the global elites, but also by civil
society activists and organisations both in the Global South and North. At
the same time, a second line of argument has gained ground since the early
1990s, especially within the social sciences, contesting development as being
Eurocentric, alienating, and detrimental to human needs.
The manifold continuities, uncertainties, and controversies surrounding the
notion of development today have motivated us to go back in time and delve
into its archives – both in the factual and the discursive senses. We explore
the last four decades of British and French colonial rule in Africa, specifically
in Senegal and Tanganyika/Tanzania, in order to establish how and when the
key elements of development took shape and gained ground.
Our Approach
At the first level, the project investigates the concept(s) of
development within colonial discourse, tries to fathom its (their)
relative importance over time and explores the relationship between
colonial discourse and the emerging development discourse. At the
second level, the project will closely look at the internal structure
of the development paradigm itself, at its various discursive strands,
and its overall trajectory from the early 1920s to the late 1950s.
Issues of analysis
- Status of Development To appraise the relative importance of development
within colonial discourse, we examine its relationship to other discursive
elements that underpinned and legitimised colonial rule, for example pacification
and establishing law and order.
- Meaning of Development What are the semantic patterns that governed
the usage of the term (and its French equivalent, développement)? In which
contexts was the word used, and in which contexts did it compete with similar
terms like evolution, growth, progress, civilisation, mise en valeur, and
modernisation?
- Protagonists of Development Europeans conceived of themselves as the
dynamic element in colonial development. At the same time we should not
presume that Africans – not even in the European imagination – were
strictly confined to a passive role, even less so in the closing stages
of the colonial period. Each concept brings specific actors into the fold,
such as private companies, churches, local initiatives or the various branches
of colonial administration on the part of the ‘developers’, as well
as individuals or more or less well-defined social groups on the part of
the ‘receiving end’. What roles are assigned to the various groups in
the colonial arena: who is the ‘developer’, who is to be developed,
and are there people regarded as external to development policies? In which
way were colonial women and men as well as colonized women and men implicated
differently into the (European) conceptualization of development?
- Goals of Development Development is mainly defined by the goals it
tries to reach. Any development concept needs to answer the questions what
and who is to be developed and which direction(s) these interventions should
take. Was colonial development about raising the productive capacity of
a given territory or about creating better living conditions for its inhabitants
– just to name the two most common assumptions? Should economic, technological,
social and/or cultural change imitate the imperial centre, with a capitalist
industrial society being the ultimate goal, – or should African colonies
follow a different path? Answering these questions, we try to assess what
scope the developmentalist aspirations had, whether they tended to be all-encompassing
social utopias or rather limited attempts at ecological, economic and social
engineering, targeted at specific regions (urban/rural) or social groups
(workers, cash-crop producers, etc.).
- Means of Development Up to the present, not only the goals but also
the means of development have remained highly contested. Though the terms
may have changed over time, the proposed methods of how to achieve development
for the most part have not. These still range from boosting capital investment
to strengthening human capital and promoting social welfare. Among the central
issues at stake was the question whether to rely on the ‘invisible hand’
of the market or on planning strategies. Another issue worth investigating
is the role ascribed to science and technology. Again on the individual
level, it is important to look at the ways how Europeans tried to make Africans
conform to their developmentalist ideals. Did they prefer coercion and control
or did they opt for positive incentives?
1 Lugard, Frederick (1926): The Dual Mandate
in British Tropical Africa. Edinburgh, London: Blackwood (3rd edition)
p. 617.
Proposal
