grassroots approaches and alternative politics in the third world escobar 1992
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411
REFLECTIONS ON
‘DEVELOPMENT’
Grassroots approaches and
alternative politics in the
Third World
Arturo Escobar
This article analyses a radical critique of the discourse of ‘development’
as a hegemonic form of representation of the Third World that has been
advanced recently by a number of Third World scholars. Although
originating in various geographical areas, the authors of this group
nevertheless share certain assumptions and concerns. Prominent among
these are the interest in local knowledge and culture as the basis forredefining representations; a critical stance with respect to established
scientific knowledge; and the defence and promotion of localized,
pluralistic grassroots movements. The call of these authors for the
dismantling of ‘develooment’ is discussed in the context of broader
questions posed
ments generally.
by thi emergence of 1980s’ and 1990s’ social move-
For 40 years now, much of Asia, Africa and Latin America has been known
as the ‘Third World’ or ‘underdeveloped’, while the price for joining the
ranks of the First, ‘developed’ world-and, ultimately, acceding to History
-has precisely been to follow the prescriptions laid down for them by
those already developed. These prescriptions took the form of Develop-
ment,’ a powerful and encompassing discourse which has ruled most social
designs and actions of those countries since the early post-World War II
period. This discourse has shaped in significant ways the modes of existence
Arturo Escobar is in the Department of Anthropology, Smith College, Northampton, MA 01063,
USA.
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412 Reflections on ‘Developm ent’
of Third World soc ieties, mediating in a profound sense the knowledge they
seek about themselves and their peoples, mapping their soc ial landscape,
sculpting their economies, transforming their cultures.
After 40 years, many argue, the dream is over. Development, as it waspromised in the midst of post-World War II euphoria, has not happened.
Moreover, the Third World is more underdeveloped now than when it was
initially discovered to be so. But still Development is a powerful and
hegemonic form of representation, and the Third World is still referred to as
underdeveloped, as if the most fundamental result of the discourse had
been the consolidation of its referent once and for all. Are Asia, Africa and
Latin America doomed to be thought of as underdeveloped for the decades
to come? Does not the very continued currency of the label in most of
today’s scholarly and policy circles-in the First World as much as the
Third-imply that the whole enterprise of Development is still in place and
that, despite its apparent failure, these countries have to resign themselves
to their third-class status and their dependence on the goodwill of the First
World, its multinationals and development agencies, its capital and tech-
nology, its truth?
If one were to look at Asia, Africa and Latin America today through the
eyes of North American and European history and constructs, the answer to
this question would have to be in the positive. Moreover, it would have to
be a resounding yes, so eep would be the crisis that would be detected
through those eyes, so desolate the landscape surveyed, so desperate the
problems perceived. More Development would surely be needed even to
avert, certainly to reverse, the worsening of life conditions. Yet the neces-
sity for negating this view is today greater than ever before. Rather than
continuing to accept as normal the vision of the Third World as in need of
Development, there is an acute need to assert the difference of cultures,
the relativity of history, and the plurality of perceptions. For the Third
World, this means to shake off the meanings imposed on them by the
Development discourse, to open up in a more explicit manner the possib-
ility for a different regime of truth and perception within which a new
practice of concern and ac tion would be possible.
This possibility is already emerging out of the very dynamics of soc ial
change in the Third World and elsewhere. Grassroots movements and soc ial
movements generally are appearing, and powerful critiques of Development
are also being articulated for the first time in connection with the forces.
This article reviews these trends and suggests a few items for further
discussion and research. Part I gives a succinct account of the nature of
Development as discourse. In the second part, the work of a small but
prominent group of scholars who are working out the most radical critique
of Development is presented and assessed. These authors emphasize in
their critique the role that grassroots movements are beginning to play in
the reorientation and actual dismantling of Development. The movements
they review are part of a broader set of soc ial movements which are
growing in number and importance in the Third World, and which are
contributing to redefine the nature of politics and soc ial change. In the final
section, the nature and scope of today’s soc ial movements are ana lysed,
espec ially in relation to the redefinition of Development that they might befostering and from which at the same time they grow.
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Reflections on ‘Developm ent’ 413
Development: a dream gone sour
‘It took twenty years for two billion people to define themselves as
underdeveloped’, Ivan lllich is quoted as saying.* Problematic as this
statement may be who were those who defined themselves as under-
developed?), it captures well the essence of Development as discourse. One
may say that Development was merely the ideologica l expression of the
expansion of post-World War II capitalism; or, alternatively, it can be
argued that Development was the result of refined forms of knowledge and
greater potentialities of science and technology that could be put to the
service of the non-industrialized world. But none of these conventiona l
explanations ac counts for the concrete form that Development took, and for
the pervasive way in which it became the one and only way to think and ac t.
In short, they would be at pa ins to explain how Development became an
inescapable and totalizing domain which in turn made possible certain
states of domination.
It would be impossible to recount here the emergence of the discourse
of Development and analyse the conditions of its deployment through a
myriad of strategies and programmes. This has already been presented
elsewhere.3 To examine Development as discourse means to understand
why so many countries started to see themselves as underdeveloped in the
early post-World War II period, how to develop became for them a
fundamental problem and how, finally, whole fields of knowledge and
endless strategies were devoted to this task; in short, how they bought into
this fairy tale of Development that promised abundance and happiness for
all, and how, in doing so, embarked upon the task of un-underdeveloping
themselves by subjec ting their soc ieties to systematic and minute observa-
tions and interventions that would allow them to discover and eventually
eradicate their problems once and for all. In this way, the study of
Development as discourse is akin to Edward Said’s study of orientalism, the
production of discourses on the Orient. ‘Orientalism’, writes Said,4
can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the
Orient-dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it,
describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a
Western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient . .My contention is that without examining orientalism as a discourse we cannot
possibly understand the enormously systematic discipline by which European culture
was able to manage-and even produce-the Orient politically, sociologically,ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the post-Enlightenment period.
As in the orientalist discourses examined by Said, Development has func-
tioned as a mechanism for the production and management of the Third
World in the post-war period. It has done so through the systematic
elaboration of fields of knowledge and institutions which made possible the
establishment in the Third World of forms of power through which indi-
viduals, government officials, and, sometimes, whole communities recog-
nized themselves as underdeveloped, as unfinished manifestations of a
European ideal. These fields of knowledge covered entire domains related
to Third World economies, soc ieties and cultures-from the countries’
economies and agriculture, to demography, health, education, planning,
natural resources, and so forth. They constituted a system for organizing the
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414 Reflect ions on ‘Developmen t’
production of truth about the Third World. The knowledge so produced
made possible the exercise of power in novel ways. Conversely, once Third
World countries became the target of new mechanisms of power, their
economies, societies, and cultures were offered up as new objects ofknowledge.
The result of the functioning of this dynamic apparatus has been not
less than the mapping of the Third World, the production of the specific
social and economic configurations which we recognize today as under-
development. What characterizes a discourse such as Development is the
fact that the regime of formation of statements is carefully regulated. In fact,
only a relatively limited number of things can be said within a given
discourse. Development was characterized from the outset by certain basic
statements relating a few variables such as capital, technology and re-
sources. Once established through theories and institutionalized in practices
embodied in strategies and programmesf, this set of statements determined
what could be said, thought, imagined: it defined the space of Develop-
ment. Industrialization, family planning, the green revolution, macroeco-
nomic policy etc, all refer to the same space, all repeat in different ways the
same set of statements. But since the discourse creates endless prescrip-
tions, views, institutions, programmes and so forth, it gives the impression
of a great learning process, of constituting a vast terrain for expression and
innovati0n.j
This is clear when one reads World Bank literature, for instance; one
quickly gets bored, faced with piles of documents that repeat the same story
to the point of absurdity, even if there is always talk of complex learning
processes and improved interventions. They all repeat the same story of
capital, technology, growth, use of resources and the like. But the discourse
is so tight that one is left embarrassingly empty-handed when trying to
come up with a different view of things. This is the reason why, until
recently, it seemed impossible to get away from Development and to
conceptualize social reality differently. Moreover, anywhere one looked
what one found was the busy, repetitive, and omnipresent reality of
Development-governments designing and implementing ambitious Devel-
opment plans, institutions carrying out Development programmes in cities
and rural areas, experts studying underdevelopment and producing theories
ad nau seam pilot projects in many regions, foreign experts all over the
place, multinational corporations brought into the country in the name of
Development, and, of course, billions of dollars poured into the Third
World by an endless number of international Development institutions. In
sum, Development colonized reality, it became reality.
Philosophers have made us aware that the period or era in which we
happen to live cannot be described exhaustively, since it is from within its
rules that we speak and think, since it provides the basis for our descrip-
tions and our own history. While it makes our vision possible, it also
induces an irreducible blindness. We may be aware of regions o r fragments
of our era, but only a certain distance from it will enable us to attempt the
description of its totality as an era which has ceased to be ours. We may be
approaching this point in relation to the post-war order of Development; we
may be nearing the point at which we can delimit it as a past era, recaptureit in its otherness, establish a discontinuity with a discursive practice which
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Reflections on ‘Developm ent’ 415
is about to stop ruling our experience and language. We are beginning to
detect a gap between the discursive practice of Development and a new
one, which is slowly and perhaps painfully coming into existence, but which
will establish us as different from the previous bankrupt order. Perhaps forthe first time, we can stand detached from Development and view it from
afar, so to speak, in order to understand it in its own terms, to grasp fully
the theoretical and practical contexts which have defined it, so that we will
no longer be able to say the same truths, speak the same concepts,
prescribe the same strategies. In other words, we can now undertake an
archaeology of Development.
But even if we undertake this archaeological analysis, we are left with
the problem of change. How are we to see discursive change, if we want to
see in the succession of discourses something other than the triumphal
march of reason, something other than the result of an evolutionary project
which dates of old times and the various phases of which have only come
about as increases in rational knowledge, the advancement of science, and
the gaining of historical consciousness, and moreover, if we want to see in
it precisely the possibility of other types of knowledge and reason? In what
ways, finally, can we conceptualize change if we want to take knowledge
and discourse seriously, and not merely as the epiphenomenal manifesta-
tion of a more fundamental reality, economic or otherwise, if we agree with
the fact that it is the transformation of practice and materialities that is at
stake, that is, the conformation of different domains of thinking and acting?
‘A change in the order of discourse’, said Michel Foucault in the conclusion
to The Arch aeology of Knowledge,
does not presuppose ‘new ideas’, a little invention and creativity, a differentmentality, but transformations in a practice, perhaps also in neighboring practices,
and in their common articulation. I have not denied-far from it-the possibility of
changing discourse: I have deprived the sovereignty of the subject of the exclusive
and instantaneous right to it.‘j
The philosophical justification of this kind of research can be stated well in
terms of the possibility to think reality differently, ‘to learn to what extent
the effort to think one’s own history can free thought from what it silently
thinks, and so enable it to think differently’.’ Development has been that
which silently and inevitably) determines thought in relation to the Third
World. Its transformation, of course, does not involve only statements.
Discursive formations are true practices; they are not natural but historical,
and so capable of giving place to new entities. The regime of power that
brings them into existence can give way to other regimes; power is related
to a regime of statements and visibilities but so, too, are freedoms and
transgressions, and these latter can approach a threshold beyond which
something new comes into existence. In relation to Development, this
threshold may involve a type of discourse that moves in directions other
than those of Development sciences in particular and Western science in
general; that is, a discourse that permits the inclusion of new practices,
some of which will perhaps be different from those of Development, some
of which will look pretty much the same. A discourse that alters the
threshold of scientificity associated with Development, in order to include
legitimately other types of knowledge, other kinds of experiences, other
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416 Reflections on ‘Devetopm ent
styles of doing things; a discourse, finally, that takes into account the views
and reality of the ‘beneficiaries’ of Development, until now for the most
part its victims.
A conceptual clarification is perhaps in order. The notion of discourse,as we use it here, does not refer to the ideal, or merely to the production of
ideologies. Positivist thinking has made of language and discourse the
opposite of the real or merely its reflection; this position assumes, on the
one hand, the existence of an objective world independent of any discursive
mediation and, on the other, of discursive structures which are the pure
expression of thought, unrelated to any materiality. Discourse, in our view,
partakes of a fundamental materiality; it involves a series of material
elements and processes which articulates it on a domain of things and
through which the production of truth is organized. Discourse also articu-
lates relations between knowledge and power. It determines ways of doing
things through which the real is given shape by those who conceptualize it
and manage it. Thus we are not saying that there is no reality behind
underdevelopment-there certainly exist socioeconomic and material condi-
tions in the Third World which are extremely difficult for most people, and
the object of concern for many; but rather that what is important to
understand is how those conditions have been constructed as underdevel-
opment, and what have been the consequences of doing so; in other
words, how those conditions were integrated as problems into an institu-
tional field to be solved through foreign aid, industrialization, and the like.
We must examine not only the effects of this politics of truth, but also how
it ignores people’s conditions and oppression, and what other possibilities
might exist.
To get back to the question of change. The transformation of a
discourse entails not only the redefinition of statements-although, in the
long run, this should occur as well-but the formation of nuclei around
which new forms of power and knowledge can converge. This new nuclei
may come about in a serial manner:
The substitution of one discursive formation by another does not take place
necessarily at the level of the general statements or those which are more easily
formalizable. Only a serial method su h as the one currently used by historians
permits the construction of a new series in the vicinity of a singular point and to
search for other series that prolong it in other directions and around other points.
There is always a moment or places where series diverge and become distributed in
a new space _ a new discursive formation with new rules and series does notappear all of a sudden as a result of a new statement or creation; it appears in steps
with some things phasing out while others survive and find their place under the
new conditions.8
We see shortly how these new series are being formed and dispersed,
and how they are beginning to show signs of integration. We also discuss,
in the last part of this article, how nodal points which appear around
specific social relations may have a crucial role in the construction of new
political practices. But first we say a few more words about how discourses
change and undergo transformations.
What best defines a discursive transformation is the breakdown of the
basic organization of the discourse, that is, the modification of the relations
among the basic set of statements that define the discourse, the appearance
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Reflect ions on ‘Developmen t’ 417
of new rules of formation of statements and visibilities; this may or may not
entail new objects, concepts, and theoretical approaches; it may be accom-
panied by a shift in the importance occupied by given objects or concepts;
it may even be marked by the reappearance of an older concept, longthought to have gone into permanent oblivion. The emergence of a new
formation may be the result of a slow process, but it may also happen with
relative rapidity. One should then look for the kinds of transformation that a
new historical situation, such as the one we are living today, may produce
in the system of formation of the existing discourses of truth; and one must
look, more concretely, at how that new historical situation changes what
may be given as an object to discourse, how elements are laid down for a
new system of formation of objects, concepts, and so on, and how, finally,
the relations between the discourse Development) and other formations
-such as political systems, the international economy, the state, and the
social sciences-are altered.It would serve no purpose to speculate in the abstract about how this
process of transformation might take place, beyond giving a few general
guidelines for the analysis. But it is pertinent to scan the present landscape
of Development afternatives and, with these guidelines in mind, detect and
analyse those which seem more hopeful for bringing about a new reality.
We have hinted at the existence of a more or less coherent body of work
that highlights the role of grassroots movements, local knowledge, and
popular power in transforming Development. Indeed, the authors involved
with this trend state that they are not interested in Development alternat-
ives, but rather in alternatives to Development. In the following section we
look briefly at the work of these authors before placing them, in the last
section, in the broader context of new social movements and the new
politics they are bringing into existence.
Alternatives to Development and grassroots movements
New ‘we’s’ in the making
By now, ‘we’ are ready to present a very good case against development. In addition
to our own experience, we can use the extensive documentation and literature
produced by expert establishments around the world, including the United Nations
and other international institutions. These materials, however, do not derive any
coherent and pertinent conclusions from the facts they document and examine. Foryears, the literature arrived at the analytical conclusion that a missing factor or tool,
or the perverse, corrupt, or inefficient use of something, could explain the damage
done by development to people and their environment. These ‘analyses’ have come
to a dead end. They move in a vicious circle, like a dog chasing its tail. The
conclusions of some studies are the premises of others and so on. Every develop-
ment ‘strategy’ or ‘approach’ has been tested, again and again, under widely
different conditions but with the same frustrating results. When ‘we’ talk about the
archaeology of the development myth, assuming that its cycle and promises are over,
‘we’ are just offering a different insight about known facts, in the context of our own
shared experience. We are not using our own eyes and noses, not those of the
experts.9
Who are the ‘we’ that Gustav0 Esteva is talking about? Who is this new ‘we’,
this new group in the making ? In what ways, or for what reasons, is it
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418 Reflections on ‘Developm ent
important that we listen to this ‘we’, and is it true that, as they say, the
present crisis is providing peasants and others all the different ‘we’s’) the
opportunity to dismantle Development? ‘But who are “we”?‘, asks Esteva
himself, speaking about the ‘trouble of being a “we”‘:
Usually our answer is that ‘we’ are around 400 groups of peasants, urban marginais
and de-professionalized intellectuals. ‘We’ know what ‘we’ are not: an organization,
a party, or a social movement if we assume that a social movement requires some
kind of political steering towards common goals) . . . The ‘we’ that I use is a very
diffused one. It is not a majestic ‘we’, like the Pope’s. It is not a rhetorical ‘we’, like a
populist politicians. It is not the formal ‘we‘ of anyone invested with a formal
representation or mandate. It is analogous to the ‘we’ used by members of a cultural
group blacks, women, the Eskimos, the French, neighbors), but the analogy is
imprecise?
If I have quoted at length from Esteva’s recent paper suggestively entitled
‘Regenerating people’s spaces’), it is because it captures the basic spirit of
the works I discuss. I am not talking about the many ‘we’s’ that are in the
process of being established throughout the Third World, but rather about a
smaller ‘we’ which seems to be in the making-the relatively small group of
Third World scholars mostly from India and several countries in Latin
America) who are trying to articulate the nature and direction of the many
new ‘we’s’ in the Third World with which they have been intimately
involved, to which they have belonged, whom they have seen grow perhaps
for many years. This handful of scholars especially D. L. Shet, Rajni Kothari,
Ashis Nandy, Vandana Shiva, Majid Rahnema, Orlando Fals Borda, and
Gustav0 Esteva, plus several Third World scholars working in the USA such
as Pramod Parajuli and, without doubt, many others in various Third World
contexts) are already engaged in a systematic reflection on the new move-
ments which they see as an alternative to Development. Majid Rahnema has
situated well the members of this group:
they belong to this small world of ‘de-professionalized intellectuals’-as Gustav0
Esteva calls them-who have been lately trying hard to understand the seemingly
chaotic messages trickling up from the grassroots, fully conscious of the crucial
importance for all to preserve the great diversity of cultures. Most of them have
been more or less closely engaged in various forms of struggle against colonial
domination. They all belong to this generation who believed at one time, that
development could be an answer to colonial forms of domination. Later, as they got
to share the people’s lot and to perceive many of the destructive effects of
development on their lives, they found out that the new ‘panacea’ had become, in
many ways, more dangerous than the traditional forms of domination . . . Exploring
the deeper causes of this phenomenon, many of them discovered, amongst others,
that the ‘colonial enemy’ was no longer only in areas where we all thought he was.
He had now become ‘the intimate enemy’, to use Ashis Nandy’s expression.‘l
In spite of differences, the members of this group share certain preoccupa-
tions and interests, as they advance their primary concern, namely, to
visualize alternatives to Development: an interest in culture and local
knowledge an anthropological and epistemological question); a critical
stance with respect to established scientific discourses an epistemological
and political question); and the defence and promotion of localized,
pluralistic grassroots movements a socioeconomic and political question). It
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Reflect ions on ‘Development ’ 419
must be pointed out that the position of these authors is increasingly shared
by scholars from various parts of the world, and that the process of
deconstructing Development as a step towards its transformation or dismant-
ling is gaining ground. l2 In the paragraphs that follow I present briefly theunfolding of these questions in the work of this group of authors.13
New awakening of social mo vements in the Third World
The point of departure is a radical position vis-d-vis Development. ‘In
Mexico’, says Esteva, ‘you must be either numb or very rich if you fail to
notice that “development” stinks’.14 Rahnemals refers to Development as a
‘Frankenstein-type dream’, the heir of the project of homo axonomicus,
which has damaged, perhaps irreparably in many cases, the immune system
of many Third World communities, namely, their local cultures and local
subsistence systems, thus producing a Development-related type of AIDS.Similarly, Fals Borda refers to Development as a ‘model of exploitation alien
to our context and without support among our people, introduced without
realizing that this model impoverished our cultural roots and sources,
destroying our historical identity and impairing the creative and productive
possibilities of most people’.16 Everywhere they look, in sum, these authors
see signs of the malaise created by Development, in spite of the fact that
most Third World elites and international agencies still adhere to the model.
Hence the need, these authors argue, of undertaking a radical critique of
Development, an archaeology of this myth, at the same time that different
alternatives are pursued.
What are the major signs of the debacle of Development, and what arethe indications that perhaps something else is slowly arising out of its ruins?
One pathetic sign of the failure of Development is the present economic
crisis itself: little, if anything, has ‘trickled down’, life conditions for most
have deteriorated enormously, and the damage to persons and the environ-
ment has reached such unprecedented levels that it ‘can now be seen,
touched, and smelled’, while whole countries have amassed such staggering
debts that even the future of coming generations is gravely imperilled.
Poverty has become more acute and intractable than ever, and so has the
social and cultural crisis that irremediably have come with it. This crisis has
been aggravated by the urban bias of Development which has created large,
inhospitable cities.A second major characteristic of the present historical moment which is
witnessing the demise of Development is the breakdown of conventional
political mechanisms, particularly the state, traditional political parties, and
democracy itself. Conventional political structures have become increasingly
appended to the market, have become subjected to it to such an extent that
they are now unable to command the economy and intervene successfully
on behalf of the poor. This is true not only of the state, but also of the
dominant political parties. Trust in these conventional mechanisms has
decreased to an all time low. Throughout the Third World, in capitalist as
well as in socialist regimes, states have surrendered their autonomy and
withdrawn from their responsibility, acquiring a depoliticized, technocratic
nature that is actually a facade for their increasingly repressive character;
they have become the representatives of entrenched interests, and adopted
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420 Ref lec t ions on ‘Develop me nt ’
a centralized, militaristic and autocratic character. Thus, it has become
strikingly clear that what is in crisis is the entire model of politics and
political practice, in both its bourgeois and ‘revolutionary’ strands. And in
the vacuum so created, new political forces are coming to light.A final theme related to the demise of Development is the failure of
Western science to provide the kinds of knowledge necessary for building
and maintaining culture and community in the Third World. Not only has
Western science been the major inspiration and legitimation of the failed
dream of Development, but it has ac tually been an instrument of cultural
violence on the Third World. Because of its reductionistic nature, Western
science has been indelibly linked to exploitative economic systems and the
growing ecological crisis; desertification, deforestation, chemical poisoning,
inappropriate health technologies and so forth are only the most salient
manifestations of the inappropriateness of Western science to deal with the
problems of the Third World. Moreover, Western science exerts violence ina number of ways-against the subject of knowledge the divide between
expert and non-expert, between subject and object), against the object of
knowledge particularly nature), against the beneficiaries of knowledge
people become knowledge’s objects and victims), and against knowledge
itself, for Western science suppresses other forms of knowledge, and in so
doing betrays its very nature, namely, the search for truth. Modern science,
on the other hand, claims to be the exclusive path to truth; but this c laim
can be disputed on a number of grounds: it can be proven, following
contemporary history and philosophy of science, that there is not merely
one ‘scientific method’, or that this method ensures ‘objectivity’, or that the
kind of knowledge so generated is not bound by history and politics.
Moreover, other systems of production of knowledge have always existed
and still exist.”
But perhaps the most relevant observation that can be made in relation
to Western science is that the soc ial basis of knowledge on which it relies,
and which it produces, has stagnated and perhaps actually shrunk. Despite
its fantastic accomplishments, access to knowledge is restricted, and tradi-
tional, aesthetic and intuitive forms of knowledge are marginalized, as
knowledge itself becomes mystified, losing sight of people’s needs. In fac t,
local problems and loca l knowledge systems become inac cessible to mod-
ern science at least in the Third World), a fac t of which grassroots activists
have been aware for some time. Hence the need to search for alternative
conceptions of knowledge as part of the search for alternative political
spaces; the latter cannot be conducted without the former.18 As Vandana
Shiva pointedly states, ‘killing people by murdering nature is no longer an
invisible form of violence’. Local struggles, she continues,
are part of the proc ess of global transformation currently under way. They are
modest manifestations of a search, non-theorized and non-verbalized, for an altern-
ative scientific and technological culture; an alternative development paradigm; an
alternative concept of state and security; and, with their stress on non-violence and
justice and peace, an alternative civilization.lg
This is the context in which the new grassroots movements have started to
emerge, espec ially over the past 15 years. Shet and Fals Borda insist that the
grassroots are becoming more visible due to the new conditions that, more
than ever, have imperilled their survival and have instilled in them a new
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Reflec t ions on Develo pm ent ’ 421
consciousness. So they are beginning to show unprecedented initiative and,
in some cases, launch frontal attacks. This has become possible due to the
changes in the social and political context since the beginning of the 1970s
also influenced, of course, by changes elsewhere, which cannot be dis-cussed here*O). Their actual resurgence has certainly been aided by a new
brand of grassroots activists, mostly popular leaders, middle-class educated
youth, intellectuals, professional and church people who in the past decade
have started to work in sizeable numbers with various groups of the poor,
using novel methods and espousing new goals. As a result, grassroots
organizations of many kinds are proliferating and acquiring a force capable
of far-reaching social and political transformations.
Women’s movements of various kinds; ecology movements for in-
stance, the already famous Chipko movement of the Himalayan region of
India, and ‘green movements’ in several Third World countries); peasant
groups and groups of urban marginals or urban working class; civicmovements of diverse nature and scope; new organizations of women,
ethnic minorities, and indigenous peoples; popular culture, student, and
youth movements; squatter movements in urban areas; church-sponsored
organizations such as the Christian-based communities in Latin America,
which have grown noticeably in the wake of the theology of liberation,
becoming a powerful force in some countries), and so forth-all are
examples of local struggles that are taking place in the Third World today.
Some of these movements are constructed around specific problems and
disappear as the problem is solved or dealt with; others last longer,
resulting in more permanent organizations; a few are actually leading over
the years to the formation of important regional movements, in turn a
coalition of many grassroots movements.~’ Some of these groups have been
more important than others women’s and youth groups are particularly
prominent), and many are the result of people organizing themselves to
prevent or repair the damage done by Development and deal with their
current problems, creating along the way new political spaces for popular
causes. Although it would be impossible to summarize even a few of these
movements here, it is important to identify grosso mode some of their
general features.
Features in common . What do all these new social movements of grassroots
orientation have in common, as perceived by the authors we are discussing
and by some of the social movements theorists to be discussed below)?
1) They are essentially local movements, responses given by a group of
people to particular problems or direct instances of power. in this sense,
they concern the day-to-day experience of people. The aim of their struggle
is not power per se, especially not ‘state power’, but the establishment of
conditions which usually include non-formal or non-conventional forms of
power) in which they can have greater autonomy over the decisions that
affect their lives. In spite of their primarily local character, they may branch
out horizontally by sharing information, experiences and actual support
with other struggles), or vertically but always from the bottom up and from
the periphery to the centre). A struggle that arises around a Development
issue for instance access to health care, may lead to other issues such as
women organizing to deal with specific forms of sexism and violence. In
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422 Reflections on ‘Developm ent’
sum, they are non-party political formations which may or may not form
horizontal networks or regional movements
2) They are pluralistic struggles, seldom aligned with one particular
ideology or political party. In fact, they share a distrust for organized politics
and conventional political organizations, and are often times explicitly
pursued as alternatives to Development. Thus, they tend to bypass estab-
lished Development organizations, local elites and parties, or engage them
in different terms. But they are by no means apolitical; instead of a
depoliticized Development, they politicize the rights of the poor.
3) Even if they are frequently motivated by economic reasons, they do
not conceive of their struggle in purely economic terms or only in terms of
economic classes. Local culture, artistic aspects and communal aspirations
are often equally important concerns. They may also become deeply
interested in the history of their communities and the place they occupy in
regional or national contexts especially when participatory research is
involved); that is, they have a certain awareness that local problems and
local power structures have an important relationship with macro structures.
4) More particularly, they do not accept at face value the knowledge of
the ‘expert’ and of government agents. Increasingly, they rely on their own
knowledge or, at any rate, their own knowledge occupies an increasingly
important role in their decision-making processes.
~m~~c~. What impact are these new movements having in the Third World?
‘I) In general, it can be said that these movements are opening the way
for the creation of a politics for an alternative Development anchored in the
grassroots and, in this way, providing new possibilities for satisfying human
needs including food, nutrition and health). Their pluralistic and non-party
character, on the other hand, is bringing into play a whole new style of
political activity, transforming the very nature of what constitutes a progress-
ive political practice. A ‘new mode of doing politics’, or ‘transformative
politics of the future’, as Shet calls it.** This new mode requires a new role
from activists and intellectuals and from knowledge itself), seeks to rede-
fine the role of political parties and, in the long run, that of the state), and
alters our perception of the relationship between local and global issues.
2) In relation to the intellectual, there is a redefinition of the character
of his or her role. To begin with, the distance between intellectuals,
grassroots activists and the grassroots is greatly reduced; the intellectual is
no longer seen as the rationalizer of the dominant model of power and
knowledge, but rather as a person who is or must be) committed to the
generation of knowledge that serves the grassroots, precisely because s/he
takes local knowledge seriously. This does not mean that there is no place
for ‘academic’ knowledge; often, new movements have come about as the
result of the interaction between ‘academic knowledge’ and ‘popular know-
ledge’, as participatory action research theorists and activists believe.23 This
new shift in the character of intellectual work also restores a certain human
dimension to knowledge and social action. Furthermore, the thick veneer
that conventional knowledge has laid upon popular forms of knowledge
starts to dissolve, bringing into view struggles, conflicts and forms ofknowledge that were previously buried. In this new partnership between
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Reflect ions on ‘Development ’ 423
intellectuals and grassroots activists, the former have to consider people’s
self-definitions as a crucial part in their inquiry. To the extent that this is the
case, a new awareness of cultural difference may emerge and contribute
further to the breakdown of ethnocentrism and universal values. As AshisNandy points out, 24 this will preclude knowledge and global awareness from
overlooking the political morality of everyday life. All this speaks of a new
epistemology.
3) The current visualization of the relationship between the local and
the global is also affected by the new visibility of the grassroots. There is a
growing realization, on the one hand, that local contexts offer important
clues and resources for understanding more global issues and, conversely,
on the other, that it is important to understand, within the context of a local
struggle, how local people are linked to world systems. This may lead to
concepts that are more relevant and useful to local people in their daily life
and struggles. For ‘macro’ scholars, it means pursuing a different type ofmacro-thinking according to which the micro-macro linkage can only be
fruitfully investigated through practice, that is, through involvement with,
and reflection on, localized struggles; in other words, intellectuals may
contribute to ‘making the world more transparent for citizens’, as Galtung
puts it, by participating in ‘a plurality of revolutions at the micro level’.25 A
new dialectic of micro-practice and macro-thinking seems to be emerging,
one which is advanced by intellectuals and activists engaged in processes of
social transformation. This ‘local/global ~~o~/e~a~j~ue’ is actually beginning
to be explored systematically in the human sciences.26
4) This, of course, implies the ‘bottom-up’ codification of local strug-
gles. There is indication that some of this is already happening, even if
slowly. Horizontal networks are beginning to appear, for instance, in India,
Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, propitiating at the same time significant
regional and even national debates. 27 It is not inconceivable that parallel
power networks of importance may appear, articulated around the more
human dimensions of localities and regions, and following the principles of
autonomy, decentralization and pluralism. New arenas and surfaces of
struggle are being opened up in the terrain of civil society, augmenting the
possibility of undertaking more autonomous projects. The concept of region
is becoming increasingly important in this regard.28 In general, what is at
stake is a reformulation of the state-development-securi~ triad.
5) Finally, new subjectivities are appearing, a reflection of the recon-
version of subjectivities which usually accompanies important social and
cultural transformations. The categories of the ‘underdeveloped’ and the
‘poor’ are witnessing a hopeful fragmentation; women, indigenous peoples,
the peasantry, various types of urban groups, the environment, questions of
peace and security, and so forth, are achieving a new visibility which makes
them important historical subjects in their own right. The distinction
between ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’, one of the major dualisms through
which development operates, is showing clearer signs of obsolescence,
despite the fact that the current restructuring of the world economy along
the lines of President Bush’s new world order seems to imply that capitalist
‘modernization’ is the only alternative left the Third World. How knowledge
participates in the mapping and constitution of a social field, and how it is
linked to a division of labour and the state emerge as poignant questions in
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424 Refkc f ions on ‘Develop me nt ’
the more pragmatic view of knowledge that informs grassroots movements.
The question of the creation of popular counterpowers is at the heart of
those movements, still limited in number, which use a participatory action
research methodology PAR). PAR grew out of experiences in populareducation and grassroots activism in various parts of the Third World.
Central to PAR philosophy is the question of popular power, ie the
investigation of mechanisms necessary to develop popular counterpowers
and their relationship to the production of knowledge. PAR seeks to
generate power, not ‘to develop’, it combines techniques of adult educa-
tion, social science research, and political activism such as collective
research between external agents or intellectuals and popular groups), the
critical reconstruction of local and regional histories, the restoration and use
of popular cultures including people’s feelings, imagination, and artistic
capabilities), and novel means of diffusing knowledge. By problematizing
the relationship between the intellectual or activist and ‘the people’, PAR
seeks to transform the subject/object division central to conventional epi-
stemology into a subject~subject one. It also reformulates the questions of
the ‘vanguard’ and political representation; whose knowledge counts, and
for what purposes become an overriding concern. What is at stake is the
production of knowledge geared to specific social transformations. En-
dogenous to the Third World, PAR is becoming an important counter-
discourse in relation to development.29.
The account of the new movements given so far may give the impres-
sion that the profound transformation which they are apparently bringing
about is already on its way to becoming consolidated. Unfortunately, it is
not clear that this is the case, especially not in relation to Development perse.
In spite of the importance of these movements, there are immense prob-
lems and obstacles in the way to the consolidation of a mass politics
through the grassroots. The movements are still fragmented, often they are
conceived in narrow ideological terms, and they are usually at pains to
survive financially and materially. Moreover, it is not clear how they can in
practice become an alternative to conventional politics; it is not unusual for
any of these movements to be unable to undermine, bypass or transcend
the existing political structures. The spectre of cooptation is always present,
as the state realigns its forces and modifies its mechanisms of operation;
new forms of visibility and resistance are also new possibilities of domina-
tion. The authors that are beginning to reflect on these movements are also
developing awareness of these problems. But the movements inspire, in
general, a cautious hope, perhaps best expressed by Shet in his assessment
of ‘alternative development as political practice’:“O
The grassroots movements for alternative development, at present limited as they are
in their geographical spread, have nevertheless acquired significant intensity and
persistence. The challenge facing them is how to work this new politics from the
bottom up so that its impact is felt at the national and global levels . . . But if
desertion by sizable number of professionals in the countries of Asia and Latin
America) from their conventional professions and their participation in various types
of people’s organizations is any indication of the strength of these initiatives, and if
the extent to which the people organized through these initiatives are becoming less
and less available for conventional politics, gives any indication of their growing
political influence, these movements are bound to pose a serious challenge to the
political establishments in these countries in the years to come . . The new basis is
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Reflections on ‘Developm ent’ 425
to be found in a new theory of knowledge, a new pedagogy of democracy and a new
conception of politics itself . . . [These movements] are the cutting edge of the
process of democratization which can be the only source and context of fundamental
political and social transformation.31
It is possible to visualize how the new grassroots orientation to knowledge
and social action in the Third World might contribute to transforming
Development. Again, the basic criterion is how it shakes the foundations of
the basic organization of the post-war discourse. It tends to do so in several
crucial respects: by denouncing both the economistic character of Develop-
ment and the inadequacy of conventional knowledge systems-actually
setting into motion alternative practices-it disrupts the fundamental link
between Development, capital and science, at the same time placing
technology in a new context. By fostering new forms of organization and
bypassing official Development institutions, it undermines the position of
the developmentalist state and the international Development organizations,
thus destabilizing the grid of operation of the Development apparatus. The
emphasis on culture, on the other hand, contributes to eroding some basic
dichotomies through which Development becomes effective urban/rural;
traditional/modern; core/periphery). Women’s struggles and those of in-
digenous peoples directly subvert several of the most effective instruments
of Development, namely, patriarchy and ethnocentrism; the defence of the
environment militates against the reification of nature and economism in
general. The localized, decentralized and pluralistic character of the new
struggles, finally, makes conventional Development technologies top-down,
centralized planning; rural Development packages, etc) less effective and
unavoidable.
As Esteva points out, 32 it will be necessary to rely on the scientific and
institutional infrastructure already created by Development in order to
reorient public policy. Too much damage has already been done. To be
fruitful, however, this strategy must reveal the consequences of the bureau-
cratization and rigidity that characterizes policy as a first step towards
reorienting it. These efforts, Esteva proposes, would coexist with the more
autonomous initiatives undertaken by the grassroots and, eventually, the
two main lines of the strategy would reinforce each other, rather than
combat each other; they will reach ‘an agreement in difference’. As more
peasants, ‘marginals’, and deprofessionalized intellectuals become visible,
their vision will probably affect government bureaucrats and professionals,
who, within the limit of their constraints, will begin to share that vision.
New commons will be created continuously as ‘co-motion’, instead of
‘pro-motion’, is encouraged. Through this kind of work, Development may
finally be dismantled.33 In general terms, we may see this process as the
bringing about of a problematization of knowledge and politics through
which a new order may be created.
The new style of people’s participation definitely requires new styles of
decision making, new programmes, and a different public or international
concern. A number of people and organizations are already beginning to
imagine and experiment with those new forms, and international exchange
of experiences is already taking place. ‘The new approach’, writes MajidRahnema,
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426 Reflect ions on ‘Developmen t’
is thus the opposite of any obsessive ‘mission’ for ‘developing’ others for remolding
them according to ethno-technocentrically pre-defined standards or ‘universal’
models . . . new ways and means are to be imagined mainly to allow each different
group to be informed to learn about other human groups and cultures in terms of
their respective life support systems; in other words to be opened to differences
and learn from them. As such only a highly decentralized non-bureaucratic
inter-cul tural rather than inter-nat ional network of persons and groups could
respond to such needs. These could be complemented by international pools and
networks of information aimed at connecting various grassroots movements with
others sharing similar preoccupations as well as assisting them in obtaining the
knowledge, technical advice and, possibly, the resources of their need.34
Some of these networks of grassroots organizations are already being
formed for instance, networks of indigenous, women’s and environmental
groups in the Americas). In fac t, all the grassroots movements we have been
discussing in relation to Development are but one important aspect of a
broader soc ial and political transformation being brought about by so-callednew soc ial movements in the Third World, to which we now turn.
New social movements, anti-Development struggles and alternative politics in
the Third World
Em ergenc e of new soc ia l mo vem ents
The 1980s witnessed a new kind of theorizing about the nature and scope of
soc ial movements, espec ially in Western Europe and Latin America. Long
dominated by Marxist approaches and functionalist soc iology, soc ial the-
orists discovered a vast array of soc ial movements, referred to by some as‘new soc ial movements’ NSMs), which are seen as profoundly transforming
not only the nature of the soc ial and the political, but also theorizing itself.
These movements are thought to be the result of a specific intellectual and
political conjuncture. In Western Europe and industrialized countries in
general, they are seen as responses to the pervasive processes of commodi-
fication, bureauc ratization and cultural massification of soc ial life brought
about by the hegemonic formation that became consolidated at the end of
World War II. New antagonisms have emerged as a response to these
processes, which in turn are fuelling a variety of unprecedented soc ial and
political manifestations. 35 In the Third World, social movements are seen as
the result of the failure of the developmentalist state to fulfil the promises
of the early post-war period, on the one hand, and the inability of
conventiona l political mechanisms to respond to persistent crises, on the
other.36
Although there are many significant differences between the theorizing
about soc ial movements and the soc ial movements themselves in Western
Europe and Latin America, there are also some important points of conver-
gence. Intellectually and politically, what seems to be experienced is the
rupture of a unified political space characterized by a privileged subject,
namely, the working class. This unity has been shattered to give way to a
plurality of collective actors women, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities,
ecologists, peasants etc), each with a relative sphere of autonomy.
Moreover, soc iety itself is perceived as a plural entity which is produced in
part through the construction of collective identities by new soc ial actors in
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Reflections on ‘Developm ent’ 427
pursuit of the control of historicity, defined as the basic cultural models of
society.37 These identities are necessarily unstable, historically formed
through processes of articulation. Many different groups which characterize
today’s social movements are believed to obey this new logic.In the Third World, forms of analysis in terms of dependency or
marginality can no longer capture the essence of these new manifestations.
At the same time, the developmentalist state cannot own up to its discourse
of material progress and ‘catching up’ with the industrialized countries. In
Latin America, the new theoreticians see social movements as the search for
a new ‘political culture’, one in which struggles are less mediated by
conventional forms and discourses, and which may even make possible the
construction of a new political project based on a different practice of
democracy. This practice would be characterized by a more direct and
independent style of participation, and involve the politicization of everyday
individual and social spheres, the expansion of the realm of the political ingeneral, and the recovery of the social away from the control by the state.38
How this will occur is by no means clear at this point although, as we see
below, there are already some valuable theoretical guidelines to understand
the dynamics of this process.
A word of caution is necessary at this point. Reflection in the 1980s has
been marked by a certain sense of optimism. The continued deepening of
the crisis in Latin America, the sluggishness and precariousness of ‘demo-
cratization processes’ in some countries and the acceleration of violence in
others notably, Colombia and Peru, but also Brazil and Mexico), and the
unclear status of the social movements themselves are all contributing to
tempering the early optimism. At the same time, a more sobering view and
a sharper way of looking at social movements are being developed. For
instance, the extent to which social movements are becoming ‘political
subjects’ is not so readily accepted. Participation has been somewhat
glorified, and the sense of direction and forms of convergence until recently
imputed to these movements are now placed in doubt. As a result, social
movements are now admitted to be more fragmented and contradictory,
with more internal conflicts and perhaps not so independent from conven-
tional politics and the state as it was thought in the early 1980s. Moreover,
as Ruth Cardoso, one of the principal and most critical observers of these
movements in Latin America recently stated,
There is no doubt that we are confronted with new actors engaged in direct andconfrontational dialogue with the State; to decipher this dialogue, however, new
ways of understanding are required. If, on the one hand, contemporary society
rediscovered certain forms of participation, the State, on the other, widened and
diversified the field of its actions.39
We already encountered a similar conclusion in Shet’s assessment of the
grassroots alternatives to Development. There seems to be, then, general
agreement on the importance and novelty of the new movements, even if
their nature, real significance, and future role are the subject of disagree-
ment and active investigation. There is also the felt need to refine methods
of analysis and research in this regard. In the following section, we present
briefly the rudiments of a general approach to the study of social move-
ments and their impact on politics, which we then apply to the case of
Development in the Third World.
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428 Reflecfions on ‘Developm ent
Hegemonic form o olit ics and the Thi rd Wor ld
One of the most coherent contemporary theoretical approaches to the study
of contemporary social movements is that provided by Ernest0 Laclau and
Chantal Mouffe.40 According to these authors, a new model of political
practice, referred to by them as ‘the hegemonic form of politics’, is already
established in the industrialized countries of the world. In the previous
model, the political space was composed of two clearly identifiable antag-
onistic camps the working class and the bourgeoisie), and society was
supposed to have an intelligible, rational structure regulated by necessary
laws. The new situation, these authors continue, is drastically different.
There is no longer any privileged historicopolitical subject; rather, each
subject position is endowed with its own symbolic productivity, and each
social identity is ‘unfixed’ that is, with no necessary link to class, means or
production, or a central axis), its logic depending on the specific articulation
which it achieves within a particular hegemonic formation.
It is in this fragmented space in which today’s social movements
emerge. NSMs contribute to the making of the social order on the basis of
the frontiers and articulations they establish among themselves. They con-
stitute partial fixations of meaning in an external field of discursivity which
overflows all identities. These necessarily partial fixations of the social occur
around nodal points privileged points of problematization of social rela-
tions or power relations), so that identities are no longer given and fixed
once and for all, but have to be constructed in a plural space. Thus, if
politics is the practice of creating, reproducing and transforming social
relations-especially those which construct subjects in relations of subor-
dination-the problem of politics is no less than the institution of the social
in a field traversed by antagonisms. One major goal appears in this regard:
to identify the conditions for the emergence of collective action against
forms of inequality by subverting the ways in which different groups are
placed under conditions of subordination. For Laclau and Mouffe, this task
necessarily entails an external discourse which allows the construction of
subordination as oppression, a process which clearly depends on historical
conditions for instance, the subordination of women only became a
feminist movement at a certain moment in the history of capitalism when it
was possible to construct the relation of subordination as a relation of
oppression using the existing democratic discourse of equality).
The spectre of cooptation is, of course, always present. Laclau and
Mouffe insist on the fact that the progressive character of the new identities
cannot be taken for granted; rather, it depends on the form of their
articulation with other struggles for instance, the anti-racist or anti-sexist
character of the workers’ movement cannot be taken for granted). It is
always possible that the oppositional value of some of them might be
absorbed into a homogenizing discourse for instance, the welfare state
tried to neutralize all forms of opposition by turning them into differences
with an equal value under the homogenizing discourse of welfare for all).
Potentially progressive struggles may also become reactionary if they are
articulated by a right-wing discourse as in the case of certain struggles for
individual autonomies captured by the anti-state discourses of Thatcher andReagan), and vice versa for instance, the discourse of liberation theology,
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Reflect ions on ‘Development ’ 429
which emerged as part of other struggles and historical changes in Latin
America, allowed to articulate in a progressive manner certain forms of
spirituality, previously articulated by the apolitical or reactionary discourses
of the Catholic church).Some key questions that emerge from this conceptualization are the
following: what are the relations of subordination which are not yet fully
constructed as forms of oppression. 7 In relation to what external discourse
will they be articulated as such? What new antagonisms are being pro-
duced? Which of these might be co-opted, that is, absorbed into a system
of differences where the oppositional value of the various identities is lost?
if new identities are being formed, what are the discourses and practices
that construct their subject positions eg as ‘urban marginals’, ‘ethnic
minorities’, etc)? What kinds of struggle are likely to emerge as a result of
this construction? Or, for instance, consider the following: in terms of what
discourses has opposition been conceived until now? Are there newdiscourses emerging? How can the latter be made available to social groups
under conditions of subordination, so as to articulate forms of resistance?
Can these new opposition discourses articulate a matrix for a new political
imaginary? Can they provide new nodal points for the institution of the
social and the exercise of the political? fn the final section we explore some
of these questions, albeit in a tentative and general manner.
The logic of Development reflects the old form of institution of the social.
The early post-war period saw the creation of the discourse of Developmentas the key symbolic dimension of a whole socioeconomic and political
experience. Articulated on a certain domain of reality the real conditions of
Asia, Africa and Latin America), this discourse opened up a field of
experience which resulted in a series of practices through which the real
was given shape by those who conceptualized and managed ‘development’.
As we saw, Development brought together a whole series of real elements
and experiences which, characterized as ‘underdevelopment’, became the
target of regulation and control. We now understand Development as the
answer given to the problematization of the specific situation that existed in
the early post-war period. Development, in this way, introduced a relation
between truth and reality through which the real was known and acted on
in certain ways.
The hegemony of this discourse is now crumbling. Development re-
ferred in a fundamental way to a reality which was external to the Third
World that of the industrialized countries); the need is now felt for creating
discourses which are more endogenous, which are articulated in relation to
internal referents. It is no longer a question of posing a bimodai type of
antagonism eg between the North and the South, core and periphery), but
rather of calling into question the totalizing drive of conventional politics;
not a matter of denouncing development as a system of domination, which
might be shaken by a single act of liberation, but of acknowledging the
multiplicity of nodal points through which the social is or might be
constituted.
The present crisis is, in a deep sense, a crisis of the system which until
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430 Reflections on ‘Developm ent’
now defined identities in the post-World War II social and political space.
This has come about as a result of various forces, and has resulted in new
antagonisms through which a new reality, perhaps even a new counterhege-
manic formation, might be brought into existence. But if identities are notgiven, but are or have to be constructed, we have to examine the noda l
points around which social struggles are gravitating or being formed, and
the discourses which are providing or going to provide the necessary
elements for the articulation of those struggles in themselves and with other
struggles, so as to ensure and amplify their progressive character. In relation
to the Third World, it can perhaps be said that there are three major
discourses which today articulate or have the potential to articulate new
forms of struggle:
I) The discourse on the fulfilment of the democratic imaginary including
basic needs, equality, economic and soc ial justice, human rights, class,
gender and ethnicity etc). This first discourse originates in the egalitarian
discourses of the West, and still offers the possibility for important gains
and a radicalization of democracy through new forms of pluralism.
2) The discourses on difference, particularly cultural difference including
self-determination but going beyond its current definition primarily in
economic terms); the need to respect alterity and autonomy in the con-
struction of identities and subjectivities, to assert eac h soc iety’s right to
define its own path. This second set of discourses is made possible in
various ways by struggles for nationa l liberation, the struggles of indigenous
peoples and women, the revision of history, the challenging of European
ethnocentrism, the relativity of knowledge, the breakdown of positivist
epistemology, and so forth.3) An anti-Development discourse proper, related to the current crisis of
Development debt crisis, crisis of the political, further weakening of the
developmentalist state, generalized economic crisis, new international divi-
sion of labour etc). This discourse originates in anti-imperialism in general,
the failure of Western technology and capital to solve the problems of the
Third World and, more recently, the movements for the defense of soc ial
and cultural identities under threat by Development technologies. This type
of discourse may provide the basis for radical anti-capitalist struggles,
capitalism being understood simultaneously as an economic, soc ial, and
cultural construct.
These discourses may provide the basis for the construction of subjec t
positions and the development of struggles which, in turn, may bring about
a new form of institution of the soc ial. As argued above, contemporary
soc ial movements including the growing grassroots alternatives to Develop-
ment) are actually setting up this process of reconstitution of the Third
World. Given this fac t, and keeping in mind the centrality that Development
has had and still has in relation to the present system of constitution of the
Third World, the project that arises for those trying to formulate alternatives
to Development is then that of understanding the potential and ac tual
contribution of anti-Development discourses and practices to the articula-
tion of those soc ial movement which are opening up new terrains of
experience and ac tion. Linked to research and reflection on the present
conditions of the Third World in the international arena, this type of projec t
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Reflections on ‘Developm ent’ 431
may bring fruitful results and avoid futile efforts. Let us explore this
possibility further as a way of concluding our argument.
Present anti-Development struggles, as we already discussed, are the
result of social transformations that have occurred particularly during thepast 5 years, perhaps since the oil and food crises of the early 1970s. They
have become more acute and visible during the present decade. The
construction of subjects in Asia, Africa and Latin America as ‘Third World’ or
‘underdeveloped’ is experiencing new fissures, and so is the building of
oppositional movements on merely anti-imperialist or economistic grounds.
At the same time, the arbitrary character of the relations of subordination
that Development entails is becoming increasingly evident, making possible
the expansion of anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and even anti-productivist
and anti-market struggles to new terrains, and the articulation of these
struggles not only in economic terms but also in relation to manifold social,
cultural, and religious realities. Dominant practices and discourses bearingnew forms of inequality for instance, the debt, militarism, neo-liberal
economics, the new world order) are also allowing certain subject positions
to become new sites of antagonism Contadora, the Cartegena Consensus
for collective debt negotiation, democratization in the Southern Cone,
coalitions of social movements that achieve national proportions, such as
the Worker’s Party in Brazil, the M-19 Democratic Alliance in Colombia, and
Cardenismo in Mexico).
Many of today’s social movements in the Third World are in one way or
another mediated by anti-Development discourses-since the Third World
has been indelibly marked by the mediation of Development-although this
often takes place in an implicit manner. In contrast to the industrialized
countries, struggles in the Third World are not just an extension of the
‘democratic revolution’, although some of this is happening and has to
happen, especially in order to deal effectively with the precariousness of
material conditions and, in general, to bring about the democratization of
social and economic life. They are not primarily struggles against commodi-
fication, bureaucratization and cultural massification, as in the developed
countries-after all, the state can barely provide for its citizens’ needs, and
total homogenization is far from being achieved; but they involve aspects of
opposition to the bureaucratic organization of life achieved by Development
institutions for instance, by peasants against rural development packages,
or by squatters against public housing programmes), and to the steady
expansion of cornmodification and capitalist rationality brought about by
Development technologies. Development has in many ways created the
hungry, the illiterate, the marginals, the migrants, those belonging to the
informal economy, the excluded women and indigenous peoples etc, that
is, the entire cast of characters who are now becoming social actors in their
own way.
Thus the new struggles in the Third World depend on a discursive
context which goes well beyond the principles of equality, relations of
production, citizenship, and so on. Even if they are transnational and
cross-cultural, they cannot be reduced to a single anti-imperialist or anti-
Western movement; in fact, the peculiarities of each society-cultural,
historical, the situation of women, the link to the international division of
labour etc-have to be taken into account, precluding the reduction of
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432 Reflections on ‘Developm ent’
struggles to a single antagonism the case of Islamic fundamentalism might
be a partial exception in this regard). In cases such as South Africa and parts
of Central America, the political space is marked by relatively stable and
identifiable camps, with well demarcated frontiers and antagonisms whichdo not have to be constructed through a hegemonic articulation of the type
needed in other countries. At the other extreme, we have many other
countries in the Third World which approach more closely the model of
hegemonic politics described by Laclau and Mouffe, with many points of
rupture, prec arious soc ial identities, and blurring of frontiers.
As already mentioned briefly, the direc tions in which the new struggles
evolve will depend on hegemonic articulations which are by no means
predetermined. They can be articulated to progressive or reactionary dis-
courses; even a given discourse, such as religion or nationalism, may allow
the construction of struggles in progressive ways in one case and reaction-
ary in others for instance, theology of liberation and Christian-basedcommunities v fundamentalist Protestant sec ts, frequently linked to right-
wing regimes in Latin America). The reformulation of Development has an
important role to play in this regard. Grassroots engaged in alternative
practices of knowing and dealing with their physical and human ec ologies,
on the one hand, can contribute to redefining soc ial justice, basic needs,
and democracy itself; on the other hand, critics and activists working for
alternatives to Development, in turn, may analyse how specific situations,
soc ial relations, or power mechanisms could serve as nodal points for new
discursive formations or collective identities. These two aspects are closely
interrelated; they involve complex discursive operations that have to be
investigated in concrete institutional and soc ial contexts.
The task of articulation of struggles requires to visualize and follow the
particular form taken by the discourses of articulation, namely I) the
deepening of the democratic imaginary, in the direction of a radical
pluralistic democracy; 2) the deepening of anti-imperialist ideologies, in the
direction of the assertion of difference and the right of self-determination;
and 3) the deepening of anti-Development discourses, in the direction of
new power-knowledge regimes for the examination of economic, soc ial and
cultural problems and the construction of ways to deal with them. These
processes would represent-to a greater or lesser extent depending on the
nature of the articulations obtained-possibilities for democratic, cultural
and epistemologica l transformations of local, regional, and, possibly, na-
tional, and global dimensions.
Summary
(1) Development has been the major mechanism for organizing the produc-
tion of truth and knowledge about much of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Embodied in a multiplicity of practices, the discourse of Development has
had a profound effect on reality in those parts of the world. It introduced
ways of doing things, of thinking and acting, through which reality itself has
been greatly constructed and managed. After four decades of this discourse,
we can now suspend its familiarity and see it for what it is: a historical
construction which became normal and transparent, but which was by no
means natural or neutral: it involved crucial choices the nature of which we
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Reflect ions on ‘Developmen t’ 433
are fully recognizing now. Third World people can now recognize the
material, social, and cultural price they have paid for this becoming.
Development has finally lost its normal and transparent character for them.
2) To produce alternatives to Development means to come up withalternative discourses and practices. A discourse is dismantled or trans-
formed by modifying specific practices of knowing and doing. What is at
stake is the articulation of different practices of constituting subjects capable
of knowing, analysing and, eventually, modifying the real. This process
takes place around certain nuclei or nodal points; various grassroots
movements, concerned explicitly with problems of Development, already
seem to be establishing some of these points. It can be said that what is in
the making is a new problematization of knowledge and politics which will
replace the regime brought about by the post-war problematization of
poverty and Development. This problematization arises as a response to the
new real conditions in the Third World, and will result in new forms of
institution of the social.
3) Grassroots alternatives to Development are part of a broader trans-
formation in the nature and style of social and political practice. This
transformation is reflected in, and being produced by, a variety of social
movements, the importance of which is growing steadily in the Third World.
Anti-Development discourses and practices have an important role to play in
the construction of new collective identities; to be most effective, this
construction should be articulated strategically, to the extent possible, to
other social movements so as to promote wider oppositional formations.
Conversely, anti-Development struggles-as well as discursive critiques of
Development and detailed studies of specific Development fields, pro-
grammes, or institutional practices-are potentially of great value in the
articulation of other struggles. Specific proposals for alternatives will have to
be worked out in various fields and situations.
4) It is necessary to visualize how current historical conditions affect
the present possibilities for these processes to take place. As social move-
ments and anti-Development struggles grow, states, international capital,
patriarchy, scientific discourses and the like adapt their modes of operation,
and vice versa. It is of crucial importance to visualize how social movements
stand in relation to the play of these forces. High technology, for instance,
is producing a new international division of labour, referred to by some as
a ‘post-Fordist regime’ of accumulation,42 in which the role played by
various Third World countries is becoming increasingly differentiated,
widening the social distance between and within countries, and inducing
drastic qualitative changes as well. It would be foolish not to deal with these
questions.
5) Development undoubtedly belongs with the larger landscape of
Western history, especially that of modernity. A genealogy of Development,
intended to discover the more distant origins of Development practices in
those of Western modernity, would complement the archaeology of post-
World War II Development discourse; it would allow us to detect the more
profound dependence of the Third World on a Western episteme and
historicity. Lessening this dependence would imply working for a relation
between truth and reality different from that which has characterized
Western modernity in general especially, perhaps, the Western economy),
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434 Reflections on ‘Developm ent’
and Development in particular. Then it might be possible to reverse the
self-evident nature of the need to develop. This, in turn, may be a
necessary, although by no means sufficient, step towards reversing the
relations of domination that exist between the countries of Europe andNorth America and those of Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the process,
we may discover new ways of organizing our societies and our economies,
new ways of relating to nature and to each other. And this may bring about
the possibilities for healing and caring that are so needed in what until now
has been known as the Third World.
Notes and references
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
a.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Throughout the article, I capitalize Development, following a usage proposed by Irene
Gendzier, Managing Pol i t ical Change: Social Scient isfs and the Third World Boulder, CO,
Westview Press, 1985), and already followed by others to highlight the historica l, ‘invented’
nature of this discourse. See Adele Mueller, ‘In and against Development: Feminists
confront Development on its own ground’, unpublished manuscript, 1991; and J ames
Ferguson, The Anti-Pol i t ics Machine: Development, Depol i f ic izat ion and Bureaucratic Power
in Lesotho Cambridge, C ambridge University Press, 1990).
Quoted in Reassemblage Film Script), a documentary about women in Senegal by Trinh T.
Minh-ha Camera Obscura, 13/14, 1981.
Arturo Escobar, ‘Discourse and power in Development: Michel Foucault and the relevance
of his work to the Third World’, Alter nativ es, IV(~), 1984, pages 377-400; Arturo Escobar,
‘Power and visibility: the invention and management of Development in the Third World’,
Cultural Ant hrop olog y, 3(4), 1988, pages 428-443; Ferguson, op t i t , reference 1; Wolfang
Sac hs editor), The Development Dict ionary. A Guide to Know/edge as Power London: Zed
Books, 1992).
Edward Said, Orientalism (New York, Vintage Books, 1979), page 3.
This analysis of Development as discourse is based on Mic hel Foucault, The Archaeology of
Know/edge (New York, Harper Colophon Books, 1972); Michel Foucault, ‘Politics and thestudy of discourse’, in Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller editors), The
Foucault Effect Chicago, IL, University of Chica go Press, 1991). pages 53-72.
Foucault 1972), op t i t , reference 5, pages 208-209.
Michel Foucault, The Use of Pleasure (New York, Vintage Books, 1985), page 9.
Gilles Deleure, Foucault Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press, 1987), pages
20-21.
Gustav0 Esteva, ‘Regenerating people’s space’, Alternatives, 12 l), 1987, page 136.
Ibid, pages 129-130.
Ma jid Rahnema, The Myth and Real i ty of Development: A Reader unpublished reader,
University of California, Berkeley, CA, 1986), page 1.
The main attempts at deconstructing Development are those by Sac hs and collaborators
who include Ivan lllich and several Third World authors discussed in this section). See
Sac hs editor), op t i t , reference 3; Frederique Apffel Marglin and Stephen Marglin editors),
Dominat ing Know/edge: Development, Culture and Resistance Oxford, Clarendon Press,1990); Adele Mueller, ‘The bureauc ratization of feminist knowledge: the case of women in
Development’, Resources for Feminist Research, 15(l), 1986, pages 36-38; Mueller, op t i t ,
reference 1; Ferguson, op t i t , reference 1; Escobar 1984), op t i t , reference 3; Escobar
1988), op t i t , reference 3; Arturo Escobar, ‘Culture economics and politics in Latin
American soc ial movements theory and research’, in Arturo Escobar and Sonia Alvarez
editors), The Making of Social Movements in Laf in America: Ident ity, Strategy and
Democracy Boulder, CO, Westview Press), 1992.
The main works consulted for this discussion include the following: D. L. Shet, ‘Grassroots
initiatives in India’, Economic and Polit ical Week/y, 79(6), 1984; D. L. Shet, ‘Alternative
development as politica l practice’, Alter nativ es, 12(2), 1987, pa ges 155-171; Rajni Khotari,
‘The non-party political process’, Economic and Polit ical Week/y, 79(5), 1984; Rajni Khotari,
‘Masses, classes and the state’, Alt ernati ves, 77(2), 1986, pages 167-183; Rajni Kothari, ‘On
humane governance’, Alter nativ es, 72(3), 1987, pages 277-290; Vandana Shiva, ‘Ecology
movements in India’, Alt ernati ves, 11(2), 1986, pages 255-273; Vandana Shiva, ‘The violence
of reductionistic science’, Alter nativ es, 72(2), 1987, pages 243-261; Vandana Shiva, Staying
Al ive: Women, Ecology and Development London, Zed Books, 1989); Rahnema, op t i t ,
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Refiecfions on ‘Developm ent‘ 435
14.
15.
16.
17.
18,
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.33.
34.
reference 11; Majid Rahnema, ‘Under the banner of development’, Development: Seeds o f
Change, l/2, 1986, pages 37-46; Majid Rahnema, ‘Power and regenerative processes in
micro-spaces’, International Social Sciences Journ al, 117, 1988, pages 361-375; Majid
Rahnema, ‘On a new variety of AIDS and its pathogens: homo economicus, development
and aid’, Alt ernati ves, 73(l), 1988, pages 117-136; Majid Rahnema, ‘Participatory actionresearch: the last temptation of Saint Development’, A/tern afives , 75(2), 1990, pages
199-226; Esteva, op tit, reference 9; Orlando Fals Borda, Resistancia en el San Jorg e
Bogota, Carlos Valencia Editores, 1984); Orlando Fals Borda, Retorno a La Tierra Bogota,
Carlos Valencia Editores, 1986); Orlando Fals Borda, Knowledge and People’s Power Delhi,
Indian Social Science Institute, 1988); Orlando Fals Borda, ‘Social movements and political
power in Latin America’, in Arturo Escobar and Sonia Alvarez editors), The Making of Social
Movements in Lat in America: Ident ity, Strategy and Democracy Boulder, CO, Westview
Press, 1992); Pramod Parajuli, ‘Power and knowledge in development discourse’, Interna-
tional Social Science /our , 127, pages 173-190. The reception or ‘consumption’, as some
would put it) of these works in the USA and Western Europe will not be treated in this
article. As these works and, not infrequently, their authors) circulate in alternative circles
of the First World, they enter into a complex cycle which tends to change the very nature of
the knowledge about the grassroots groups to which they refer. The grassroots, inevitably,
become the sign of something else. These problematic aspects of the travelling of theories
and theorists in the post-colonial world needs further elaboration. An initial statement in
this regard has been provided by James Clifford, ‘Notes on theory and travel’, Inscriptions,
5, 1989, pages 177-188.
Esteva, op t it, reference 9, page 135.
Rahnema, ‘On a new variety of AIDS . . .‘ op tit reference 13.
Fals Borda 1986)‘ op t it, reference 13, page 209.
Shiva 7987), op t it, reference 13; Shiva 1989), op t it, reference 13; Ashis Nandy, The
/nfimafe Enemy; Loss and Recovery of Self Under Co/o~ia/ism Delhi, Oxford University
Press, 1983); Ashis Nandy, ‘Shamans, savages and the wilderness: on the audibility of
dissent and the future of civilizations’, Alt ernati ves, 74(3); 1989, pages 263-278; Apffel
Marglin and Marglin, op t it, reference 12; Paul Feyerabend, Against Method London, New
Left Books, 1975).
Khotari 1987), op t it, reference 13, pages 283-285.
Shiva 1987), op t it, reference 13, pages 272 and 257.
The grassroots movements can be related to what Foucault calls ‘the insurrection of
subjugated knowledges’, and to Deleuze’s notions of ‘minor knowledge’ and, in general,
to their whole conception of political practice and strategy). See Michel Foucault, Language,
Cou~fer-Memos, Practice Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1977); Michel Foucault,
~ower/Know~edge (New York, Pantheon Books, 1980); Cilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari,
Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press, 1986);
Abdul Jan Mohamed and David Lloyd editors), The Nature and Context of Minor i ty
Discourse (New York, Oxford University Press, 1990).
Fals Borda 1992), op t it, reference 13.
Shet 1987), op t it, reference 13.
Fals Borda 1988), op t it, reference 13; Orlando Fals Borda and Muhammad Anisur Rahman
editors), Act ion and Knowledge. Breaking the Monopoly with Part ic ipatory Act ion-Research
(New York, Apex Press, 7991).
Nandy 19831, op cif, reference 17.
lohan Caltung, The True World s (New York, Free Press, 1980), pages 419 and 416.
George Marcus and Michael Fischer,
University of Chicago Press, 1985).
Antbrop o/ogy as Cuffural Cri t ique Chicago, IL,
In Colombia, for instance, only after 15 years of social movement activity have important
networks of movements been created. One of such networks, the M-19/Democratic
Alliance, which brings together a variety of social movements and a former guerrilla group,
has become one of the main political forces in the country. Similarly, some see the Brazilian
Workers’ Party PT) as the first party in the world to emerge out of coalitions of social
movements. See Fals Borda 19921, op t it, reference 23.
Ibid.
Fals Borda 1988 and 7991), op tit, reference 13. For a critique of PAR from within the group
of authors discussed in this article, see Rahnema 1990), op tit, reference 13.
Parajuli, op t i t , reference 13.
Shet 1987), op t it, reference 13, page 168.
Esteva, op t i t , reference 9.ibid.
Rahnema 1986), op t i t , reference 13.
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436 Rc ffec f ions on ‘Develop me nts
35. Ernest0 Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hege mo ny and Soc ial ist Sfrateg y l.ondon, Verso, 1985).
36. For a critical review of the European and Latin American soc ial movements literature, see
Escobar and Alvarez, op cif, reference 12. See also, for Western Europe, Alain Touraine,
The Voic e and the Eye . An Analysis of Soc ial Mo vem enfs Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1981); Alain Touraine, The Return of the Acfor Minneapolis, MN, University ofMinnesota Press, 1988); Albert0 Melucc i, ‘The symbolic challenge of contemporary soc ial
movements’, Soc ial Resea rch, Z’(4), 1985; Albert0 Melucci, Nomads of the Present
Philadelphia, PA, Temple University Press, 1989); Laclau and Mouffe, op tit, reference 35.
37. Touraine 1981 and 1988), op t i t , reference 36.
38. See especially Elizabeth Lelin editor), Movimienfos Soc ia les y Democ rac ia Eme rgenfe
Buenos Aires, Centro Editor de America Latina, 1987); Fernando Calderon editor), Los
Mo vimiento s Soc k/ es Ante La Crisis Buenos Aires, CLACSO, 1986).
39. Ruth Cardoso ‘Movimentos Soc iais na America Latina’, Rev ista Brasileira da s Cien c iais
Soc iais, 3(l), 1983, page 33.
40. Laclau and Mouffe, op tit, reference 35; Ernest0 Laclau, ‘New soc ial movements and the
plurality of the soc ial’, in David Slater editor), New Soc ial Mov em e~fs and the State in Lat in
Amer i ca Dordrecht, the Netherlands, CEDLA), pages 27-42; Ernest0 Lac lau, ‘Po litics and
the limits of modernity’, in Andrew Ross editor), Unive rsal Ab an do n? The Polit ics of
Postmodernism Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press, 1988), pages 63-82;Chantal Mouffe, ‘Radica l democracy: modern or postmodern?‘, in Andrew Ross editor),
Universal Ab and on The Pol i t ics of Postmod ernism Minneapolis, MN, University of Minne-
sota Press, 1988), pages 31-45; Chantal Mouffe, ‘Toward a theoretical interpretation of
“New Social Movements”, in S. Hanninen and L. Palda n editors), Rethinking Marxism
Berlin, Argument Verlag, 1984), pages 139-145. In this discussion, I have singled out the
work of Laclau and Mouffe for ana lytica l and prac tical reasons. The two other important
European approaches to soc ial movements are those of Touraine and Melucc i, already
mentioned. In North America, studies of soc ial movements fall generally within the
‘resource mobilization’ paradigm, rather than the ‘identity centred’ paradigm dominant in
Western Europe and Latin America. For a review of North American literature, and its
possible relation to the European, see Escobar and Alvarez editors), op tit, reference 13;
Sidney Tarrow, ‘National politics and collective ac tion: recent theory and research in
Western Europe and the United States’, Annub Revie w o f Soc iology , 14, 1988, pages
42’1-440; Bert Klandermans and Sidney Tarrow, ‘Mobilization into soc ial movements:
synthesizing European and American approac hes’, in Hanspeter Kriesi, Sidney Tarrow and
Bert Klandermans editors), Internat iona l Soc ial Mo vem enfs Researc h. Vo lume 7. From
Struc ture to Ac fion London, J AI Press, 1988).
41. Manuel Castells, ‘High development, world development, and structural transformation: the
trends and the debate’, Afternatives, I? 3), 1986, pages 297-344; Samir Amin, Ma / d e v e / o p -
menf London, fed Books, 1990).
42. Stuart Hall, ‘Brave new world’, Soc ialist Rev iew , L(l), 1991, pages 57-64; David Harvey,
‘Flexibility: threat or opportunity. T’, Soc ialist Rev iew , 27(l), 1991, pages 65-78.