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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Towards a critique of development theories in Africa
Author:Chachage, C.S.L.ISNI
Year:1987
Periodical:Utafiti
Volume:9
Issue:1
Pages:5-30
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs.
Geographic term:Africa
Subjects:development
Economics, Commerce
Development theory
Economic and social development
imperialism
External link:https://d.lib.msu.edu/utafiti/187/OBJ/download
Abstract:Current theories of development and underdevelopment in Africa have reached an impasse, and are an expression of the present generalized crisis. The author argues that the evolution and systematization of and belief in development and growth demonstrated by economic indicators and effected by the State and enlightened individuals through ideologies and strategies, its institutionalization after independence in Africa and, finally, the crisis, are best grasped within the reality of the predatory destructive imperialist domination which negated the colonized subjects and their resistance. He traces the emergence of the developmentalist conception in its differing garbs: Eurocentrism, the civilizing mission of colonialism, the economics of nationalism, modernization thinking, dependency theory. Theorization on development, in whatever guise, has been reduced to an ideological guideline for developing productive forces and technology. The fact that capital or commodities embody specific social relations has been suppressed. In refusing to concede that people make their own history, thereby denying the centrality of social struggles in processes, current theorization on development is fundamentally oppressive, arrogant and authoritarian and reinforces hierarchization. Notes, ref.
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