Pluriverse: A Post–Development Dictionary

by Ashish Kothari

When did the era of development start? In our Development Dictionary we identified President Harry S. Truman as the villain. Indeed, on 20 January 1949, in his inaugural address he referred to more than half of the world’s population as coming from ‘underdeveloped areas’. It was the first time that the term ‘underdevelopment’, which would later become a key category for the justification of power, both international and national, was proclaimed from a prominent political stage. This speech opened the era of development – a period of world history, which followed the colonial era, only to be replaced some forty years later by the epoch of globalization. And today there are clear indicators that globalization might be replaced by an age of populist nationalisms.

The third narrative – ‘solidarity’ – is different. Fear of the future calls for resistance against the powerful, the guarantors of an everyone-for-himself society and capitalist pursuit of profit. Instead, human rights – collective and individual – and ecological principles are valued; market forces are not an end in themselves, but means to an end. As expressed in the slogan ‘think globally, act locally’, a cosmopolitan localism is nurtured whereby local politics must also take into account wider needs. This means phasing out the imperial way of life that industrial civilization demands, and redefining forms of frugal prosperity. In the words of Pope Francis, currently one of the most important heralds of solidarity with his encyclical Laudato Si’: We know how unsustainable is the behaviour of those who constantly consume and destroy, while others are not yet able to live in a way worthy of their human dignity. That is why the time has come to accept degrowth in some parts of the world, in order to provide resources for other places to experience healthy growth (§193 of Laudato Si’).