Decentring Development

Understanding Change in Agrarian Societies

T. Jakimow

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781349691074, 9781137466426
• eBook ISBN: 9781137466433
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Economics

The ways we understand processes of agrarian change are pressing issues for policy makers and development practitioners. Interpreting changes in two agrarian societies in India and Indonesia, the author reveals how transformations to self are critical factors shaping change, as well as under-recognized consequences of development initiatives.

Part I

Rethinking Social Change through the Development Actor

1

Centring the ‘Self-in-Process’

The actor, agent and subject have held a central place in development studies, particularly since the development impasse of the early 1990s. Since then, the effort to ‘illuminate the micro-foundations of macro-processes’ (Booth 1993: 62) has also entailed a focus on the actor embedded within a socio-economic context, in order to reveal the ways localised actions feed into broader processes of development (Cowen and Shenton 1998). Scholars have drawn upon practice theory which places practices at the centre of systems of domination, and potential transformation (Ortner 1984) and post-structuralism (particularly the earlier work of Foucault) to bring together localised actions with explanations of macro-processes, as well as to provide powerful indications of development’s unintended effects (Ferguson 1994; de Haan and Zoomers 2005; Long 2001; Rossi 2004a). Considering these important interventions, why do we need yet another reminder to make the self central in research about and for development? What do we gain from a reconsideration of personhood?

The beginning of my response to these questions was formulated as I poured over the interview transcripts from Telangana. There was a sense of nascent change surfacing in people’s life-histories that defied identification, much less explanation, by the theories at my disposal. People’s accounts of themselves were at times conflicted, or else hinted at shifts in self-understanding within the social whole. I lacked the language to adequately interpret the significance of these accounts. I returned to practice theory and found Sherry Ortner, who in her critique of practice theory (2005) revealed the gap in my theoretical understanding. Till then, I had considered the ‘development actor’ as a subject or agent in line with conventional thinking in development studies. The self, and personhood, required a more careful elaboration. I drew upon critical social theory and anthropological accounts of personhood to develop what I considered a more illuminating approach to centring the agent/actor/subject within social (re)production, one that discarded these labels to focus on the ‘self-in-process’.

In this chapter, I argue that central to social and economic changes, either through or in spite of intentional development, are the ongoing processes of self-formation within cultural and structural contexts. In other words, who people are, their positioning of self in relation to the social whole and their life-projects within perceived and real constraints are critical to illuminate broader processes of change. This requires a shift in our orientation to questions of structure and agency, to consider the possibilities and foreclosures for self within a given context. A focus on the self-in-process can thereby reveal forces and potentialities for social transformation that are often overlooked in development studies. As such, understanding processes of self is a critical project for instigating political and social change: a change that begins with enhancing possibilities for alternative imaginings of self.

I begin by examining how the development actor has been conceived in development studies, focusing on the influence of the actor-oriented approach and Foucault’s governmentality. I then elaborate what I mean by the self-in-process, drawing upon social theory to develop several analytical entry points to reveal the possibilities for self that emerge within a particular environment and set of relations. I conclude by presenting what I consider an approach that ‘centres the self-in-process’ to contribute to understandings of intentional and immanent development.

The actor in development studies

The conceptualisation of the ‘poor’ as comprehensible and predictable (crucial characteristics for development planners who did not want to deal with complex realities) was challenged following the ‘lost decade of development’.¹ The erstwhile ‘passive recipients of assistance’ (Booth 1993) became critical agents of participatory development. Planners increasingly recognised that ‘passive welfare recipients’ have their own plans and desires, in addition to possessing ‘far greater capabilities to appraise, analyse, plan and act than professionals have expected’ (Chambers 1994: 1). The turn towards empowerment signalled a further move from considering the ‘poor’ as agents directing development processes to being actors transformed through the development process itself. What this transformation entailed, however, is controversial, and at its worst, empowerment was limited to increasing the capacity of the poor and marginalised to participate in the market (Cornwall and Brock 2005). Further, the dominance of a ‘calculus ontology’ (Hall and Taylor 1996) within influential development institutions such as the World Bank and IMF, led to a conceptualisation of actors’ behaviour as ‘driven, not by impersonal historical forces’ nor particular cultural specificities, ‘but by a strategic calculus’ (Hall and Taylor 1996: 944).

The conceptualisation of ‘actors’ at the heart of conventional participatory approaches and empowering agendas has also been a focus of critique. Scholars have drawn attention to the way power relations and repressive regimes also operate at the local level, and therefore not all segments of a ‘community’ have the same interests and needs nor equivalent bargaining power (Cleaver 2001; Mohan and Stokke 2000; Williams 2011[2004]). The ‘actor’ is not a ‘generic’ member of a ‘community’, nor is a community composed of the aggregate interests of individuals. The Western ontological assumptions underpinning the rational actor also attracted critique. The foregrounding of individuals as agents that could pursue interests on equal grounds downplayed the conscious and unconscious constraints in doing so (Cleaver 2001; Leach et al. 1999; Mehta et al. 1999). Development actors do not behave in ways that fit abstract modelling, with subsequent actions often confounding planners (Cleaver 2007).

These criticisms have been influential in reconsidering the development actor in two ways. The first considers the actor as a social being, embedded within a cultural context that drives preferences, actions and well-being. The second emphasises that this actor is embedded within overlapping relations of power that operate at the macro- and micro-level, conscious and unconscious level. Clearly, these two aspects are interconnected, and it is the bringing together of culture and power that has advanced understandings of the way people both respond to, and are critical forces in development processes (Ortner 2006). I attempt to build on from these approaches by outlining their theoretical foundations and central limitations.

An actor-oriented approach to development

Norman Long’s (1990; 2001) actor-oriented approach at the time offered an innovative and in some ways radical re-conceptualisation of development actors. For Long, actors are central to the processes of social formation, reproduction and social change and, as such, are the focal point of his analysis. His approach is influenced by practice theory (Ortner 1984),² whose central tenets are (a) individuals become social beings within a historical and cultural context; (b) society constrains and makes possible action; and (c) society is reproduced and transformed through human action (Ortner 1984). The actor at the heart of Long’s approach is therefore a cultural being, one whose conceptual tools and dispositions are shaped through cultural processes and an intersubjective reality. People have knowledge about the society in which they live, but it is tempered by a discursive and practical consciousness: the unacknowledged conditions that frame people’s actions (Giddens 1979: 73). One’s embodied histories within a particular socio-cultural context shape one’s habitus (in Bourdieu’s (1977; 1990) terms), a set of structuring dispositions that do not lead to a predetermined course of action, but closes off those unthinkable or inappropriate.

It is the acting out of socially embedded practices and their intended and unintended consequences that produce anew the social system (Giddens 1979). Actors are shaped by underlying social principles and, in the process of enacting social routines, ‘continually re-endorse those principles in the world of public observation and discourse’ (Ortner 1984: 154). Practice theory, especially as outlined by Bourdieu (1977; 1990), therefore emphasises social reproduction over social transformation, as people’s unrecognised histories frame their action in accordance with a misrecognised reality—thereby reaffirming this reality. Giddens (1979) provides more scope for change in his theory of structuration, arguing that actors are not cultural dopes, but rather engage in reflexive self-regulation. This leads to the constant negotiation of structure as it is being produced anew (including its reproduction in unaltered terms). Consequently all actors, even the most lowly, have ‘some degree of penetration of the social forms which oppress them’ (Giddens 1979: 72).

While Ortner (1984) rightfully identifies that the emphasis in variants of practice theory is to explain the reproduction of hegemony and domination, it is the potential for transformation that Long (2001) focuses on in his actor-oriented approach. He achieves this transformative potential through two interrelated moves. First, he emphasises reflexive strategising in his understanding of agency, which is ‘based upon the capacity of actors to process their and others’ experiences and to act upon them’ (Long 2001: 49). Long prefers the term ‘lifeworld’ rather than the more constraining habitus, describing it as ‘practical action shaped by a background of intentionality and values, and is therefore essentially actor-defined’ (2001: 54). Lifeworlds, which are both the product of intersubjective meaning making and reflexive interpretation, are the frame through which people interpret and ‘be’ in the world, thereby shaping actions and strategies (2001: 51).

The second move is to emphasise the contestations and negotiations that occur over meanings and taken-for-granted realities. Long uses the terms fields, domains and arenas to understand how social space is constituted and transformed in ways that constrain and enable action. In contrast to Bourdieu’s notion of field, he considers that

such factors should not be seen as determinants that entail self-evident limits beyond which action is judged to be inconceivable, but rather as boundary markers that become targets for negotiation, reconsideration, sabotage and/or change, i.e. as barriers to be removed or transformed.

(Long 2001: 63)

Long thereby emphasises the non-determined aspect of action as well as the contestations that occur over socially defined limits. These contestations occur in arenas populated by agents who act strategically within a limiting discursive and cultural context. This context is subject to change due to the intersection of lifeworlds or social fields in interfaces. The interface represents a clash of cultural paradigms, in which (new) knowledge emerges out of ‘conflict, incompatibility and negotiation’ (2001: 69).

These two moves—the emphasis on reflexive capabilities of actors and the renegotiation of meanings and taken-for-granted realities—are critical to Long’s analysis of the possibilities for social transformation. He examines such possibilities in relation to immanent development, highlighting instances when ‘the project of cultural reproduction failed’ (Sahlins 1981: 50). His primary contribution has, however, been to examine intentional development as an interface. He highlights not only the potential of intentional development to change the ways actors ‘grapple cognitively, emotionally and organisationally with the problematic situations they face’ (Long 2001: 51), but also the influence that ‘developees’ have to shape development interventions. Long’s approach has thereby served as a useful counterpoint to the portrayal of development as a disempowering top-down exercise (see below), by pointing to the agency of the targets of development to negotiate and contest dominant meanings within the intervention (Arce and Fisher 2003; Hilhorst 2003; Kabeer 2005; Pottier 2003).

Long’s (2001) actor-oriented approach has rightfully been influential, demonstrating the relevance of practice theory to conceptualise the development actor and introducing the idea of permeable social interfaces (Cleaver 2012) to understand processes of change. While my own approach aims to build upon his insights, it also seeks to overcome some of its weaknesses. The first of these is the underestimation of the effects of embodied histories and the overestimation of the extent to which taken-for-granted realties can be challenged through exposure to different lifeworlds. The questions Ortner (1984) raises as to the ease with which Sahlins accounted for change in the Sandwich Islands is relevant here, as Long too seems to underestimate the ‘drag’ of prevailing cultural dispositions. The effects of generations of enculturation, the reaffirming of values and norms in the private sphere even as these are contested in public, suggest that change occurs slowly and rapid periods of transformations may be partial, or short-lived (Ortner 1984).

I would suggest that it is the location in which Long seeks change that enables him to find it so regularly. Long places attention on the way preferences and strategies may change in response to shifts in conditions or reflexive strategies, or the contestation and transformation to meanings and discourses that occur at interfaces. While these are important indicators of the potential for change, Long stops short of examining the more durable changes that may occur within the actor themselves. For example, although he considers the multiplicity and contestability of meaning, he stops short of examining how this influences the discursive constitution of actors (as subjects). The interface captures the resolution of ambiguities that arise from the clashing of cultural paradigms in the production of knowledge(s), but he fails to consider how such ambiguities are resolved within the self. In other words, Long locates change in aspects external to the actor, rather than the changes that occur internally.

It is the under-theorisation of the processes of transformation of the actor, the focus on practices rather than ‘being’ and ‘becoming’, that is the primary limitation of Long’s actor-oriented approach. This limitation is according to Ortner typical of practice theory, which tends to ‘slight the question of subjectivity, that is, the view of the subject as existentially complex, a being who feels and thinks and reflects, who makes and seeks meaning’ (2005: 33). This speaks to a paradox of the actor-oriented approach; actors as complex and dynamic beings are not the centre of analysis. In disregarding the question of self-becoming, Long overlooks a critical potential site for radical social transformation. I aim to build upon Long’s approach by offering a dynamic approach to understanding the actor and placing this dynamism at the heart of social change. This focuses on who the actor is, and is in process of becoming, rather than what the actor does or is capable to do. I next turn to what can be considered a counter approach, with a focus not on agency but on subjectivation.

Governmentality and the discursive constitution of subjects

Power is critical to the processes of self-becoming (Butler 1997; Foucault 1979; Lukes 2004), an insight that has been influential in alternative conceptualisations of the development actor. Theories of subjectivation and its resistance have been central to critiques of development³ and attempts to recuperate its radical potential. In particular, the work of Michael Foucault (1974; 1979) and James Scott (1985; 1990) have revealed how identity and self-becoming are embedded in relations of power, as well as the limitations of power’s conditioning of individuals. Early Foucault (that written during the same period as the early works of practice theory) concentrated on the ubiquity of power, ‘suffused through every aspect of the social system, and psychologically deeply invasive’ (Ortner 2006: 6). Scott (1985; 1990) offers a counter perspective, acknowledging power and domination, but arguing that it is ‘much less mentally invasive’ (Ortner 2006: 6). Together, Foucault and Scott offer two contrasting, and in many ways contradictory, approaches to understanding the consequences of intentional development for the development actor. As I argue below, reconciling these two perspectives is critical to a revised theory of the self in development studies.

Foucault’s early work on the discursive constitution of subjects is widely known, and I provide only a sketch here. It is useful to start with Althusser’s (1970) earlier doctrine of interpellation, which, Butler (1997) argues, made possible Foucault’s theory of assujetissement (or subjectivation). Althusser argued that capitalist relations operate through ideology’s recruitment of individuals. It does so through ‘hailing’ an individual, exemplified through the call of a policeman ‘Hey, you there!’ (Althusser 1970: 130). In the act of turning around 180 degrees, the individual becomes the subject, the one who has been hailed. In the self acknowledgement of yes, it is me, also comes recognition of the one who is hailing. The individual is constituted as a subject in relation to the other. An example from development is the act of inviting a poor woman to take part in a social welfare programme. The development agent (be it a government official or local NGO worker) hails the woman as a subject in need of reform, while also reiterating the hierarchical relation between them (see also Pigg 1992).

Foucault makes two advances on Althusser’s theory of interpellation (Purvis and Hunt 1993: 489–490). First, as discursive statements rather than a unified ideology are the constitutive elements in subjectivation, he enables an understanding of power as dispersed through various state and social institutions, present within social practices. Second, he considers the social and historical conditions in which discursive formations arise and, by extension, the constitution of particular types of subjects. Foucault offers a ‘historicization of the category of subject’, in which the ‘subject is produced “as an effect” through and within discourse, and within specific discursive formations’ (Hall 2000: 23). In other words, the subjectivation of the woman comes not at the time of identification by the development agent, but rather she is constituted prior to this by the discourses of backwardness and development that are dispersed through the state, NGOs, the media, family and so on. Prior to the ‘hailing’, she is already a subject in need of reform.

Post-development theorists in particular have drawn upon Foucauldian understandings of the discursive constitution of subjects to critique the project of intentional development. Escobar argues that during the modern era, ‘[d]evelopment had achieved the status of a certainty in the social imaginary’ (1995: 5). The dominant development discourse is productive in the Foucauldian sense, producing the ‘Third World’ as a site of deficiency and (imperial) intervention, and critical to the making of development subjects as people self-identified as ‘underdeveloped’ (Escobar 1992). Ferguson (1994) similarly argues that all forms of development interventions need to be considered in respect to the underlying discursive regime that ‘orders the “conceptual apparatus” of official thinking and planning about “development” ’ (1994: 275). The regime of expertise and historical discursive formation of development disciplined the ‘poor’ through practices and performances and fashioned the subjectivities of individuals identified as ‘targets’ of development intervention (Ferguson 1994).

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Series Editors’ Preface
• Introduction
• Part I: Rethinking Social Change through the Development Actor
• Part II: Understanding Agrarian Societies in Research for Development
• Part III: Recognising the Unintended Consequences of Development
• Conclusion: Decentring Development in Research for Development
• Notes
• References
• Index