The irrelevence of Development studies by Yosa

This was discussed by Ms Immaculate Yosa and Posted by shadrack Natamba
The irrelevance of development studies.
Approach:
 Define/explain your understanding of the term development and of one or two scholars/writers.
 Define/explain your understanding of the term development studies and of one or two scholars/writers.
 Briefly in a line or two make mention of how the whole issue of ‘development studies’ came to play.
 Begin discussion by citing areas of irrelevance.
 Cite a few areas of relevance.
 Conclude.

Development:

It is a slow and uneven process.
People’s control over the forces which shape their lives (Michael Edwards, 1989, the irrelevance of development studies, third world quarterly)
There can be no fixed and final definition of development, only suggestions of what development should imply in particular contexts. Thus to a large extent development is contextually defined and should be an open ended concept to be constantly redefined as our understanding of the process deepens and as new problems to be solved by ‘development’ emerge. (Hettne, 1994; the research territory, Development theory and the three worlds)
Development studies.
All forms of writing and talking about development as well as forms of action such as training and even project work which grow out of these processes. (Michael Edwards, 1989, the irrelevance of development studies, third world quarterly)
It is problem oriented, concerned with the global disparities in material resources, the social consequences of this situation in different societies and political strategies to change it.
It is interdisciplinary thus dependent on monodisciplinary work in other disciplines such as economics,sociology,political science,anthropology,history and a few science disciplines as well. (Hettne, 1994; the research territory, Development theory and the three worlds)
Most development theorists emerged after WWII.Its after that time that the world came to the realization of the dire need that most countries where in especially in the third world thereby emerging a group of people who prescribed solutions for these countries which once embarked on would improve their situation and thus ‘develop’.


Areas that suggest irrelevance of the study of Development studies.
- Conventional approaches to development and their failure to solve the problems they seek to address. Development studies are still largely based largely on traditional ‘banking’ concepts that embody a series of attitudes that contribute to the irrelevance of much of their output to the problems of the world in which we live. People are treated as objects to be studied rather than subjects of their own development. Research and education has come to be dominated by content rather than form or method thereby becoming processes which focus on the transmission of information usually from one person to another. The most extreme example of this process is the empirical questionnaire based survey designed, analysed and controlled by people outside the community which is being studied.
- Experts and their devaluation of popular knowledge and their love for projects. The idea that development consists of a transfer of skills or information creates a role for the expert as the only person capable of mediating the transfer of these skills from one person or society to another. This serves as justification for the number of experts who flock the south in the name of transferring information and skills to develop the third world. The educated elites too just mimic from the so called expatriates from the north without learning a thing or two about trial and error such that even their exit, they could sustain programs in their own countries. In all sectors of development, the adoption of problem solving approaches is much more important than communicating particular packages of technical information. a system of education and training that relies on experts will never be able to change much of the status quo because the attitudes of the expert prevent people from thinking for themselves. Development is about the process of enrichment empowerment and participation which the technocratic, project oriented view of the world simply cannot accommodate.
- Additionally, the consequence of the predominant technical view of development is the devaluation of indigenous knowledge which grows out of the direct experience of poor people in the search for solutions to the problems that face us. This is inevitable if knowledge is associated with formal education and training. Indigenous knowledge is relegated to subordinate positions. The result is that general solutions manufactured from the outside are offered to specific problems which are highly localized.
- Refusal to accept the role of emotion in understanding the problems of developement.it is impossible to understand the real life problems fully unless we can grasp the multitude of constraints, imperfections and emotions that shape the actions and decisions of real of real living people. People often act on issues about which they have strong feelings. So all education and development projects should start by identifying the issues which local people speak about with excitement,hope,fear,anxiety or anger if ‘development’ is to be relevant to the people it is intended for.

- Conventional approaches to development studies embody certain values and mindsets which act as a barrier to the genuine understanding of issues and problems.i.e modernity, quantification, prediction, tidiness etc vis-à-vis traditional, nonquantifiable, unpredictable and messy. The mismatch between these two sets of preferences results in a series of biases in the perceiver that obscure a real understanding of the situation at a hand. This is coupled with humility on the part of the researcher which many lack. It is the absence of humility that places many academics in attitudes of self appointed superiority over people who are more directly involved in practical development work. The first essential step toward greater relevance in development studies is to change the way we think and act so that we become able to listen and to learn from below.

- Monopoly of knowledge and the control of power:-The field of development studies is dominated by the north and to a lesser extent by the third world elites whom we have trained and sponsored. The journals and books they publish are not only expensive but the materials they have are inapplicable to the problems of the third world and irrelevant because of the bias and misconceptions that form the subject matter. This is no different from the third world elites who in a bid to change and challenge the north haven’t done much to solve the barriers the north and their education and training create. For instance they over emphasize the acquisition of technical skills and yet fail to challenge the prejudices which prevent people from learning from below.(cite relevant examples)

- The growth of participatory research networks throughout the third world may be encouraging but on ground it shows a lot still has to be done. Popular participation is accepted as the only real basis for successful development. In reality however, the practice of development studies continues to be anti-participatory. The contradiction shows itself in the advocacy of participation by writers who do not allow the subjects of their research to participate and by development agencies who parrot the virtues of participation while telling their partners in the third world what to do and how to do it. .(cite relevant examples)

- Majority of the areas which suggest the reason to mark development studies as being irrelevant is simple inequality of power between north and south. The north and them being monopolies over reaserch, academics and control over the funding of development work coz they have all the resources for all. However, power is a central component of development and without it there is little that the poor can do to change their circumstances.centrailsed control over development studies is therefore directly anti developmental in its effects.i.e it undermines local self confidence and prevents the transformation of people into agents of their own development by retarding the sharing of knowledge and information.

- The famous inscription on Karl Marx’s gravestone in highgate cemetery London poses a dichotomy which is central to the irrelevance of much development thinking today. Marx emphasized that changing the world rather than understanding or interpreting it is the prime task of the revolutionary. Conventional approaches to development studies posit the opposite view.undetsdatning must precede the ability to effect change. Problem with much in development studies today is that they are divorced completely from the practical processes of change. We cannot change the world successfully unless we understand the way it works; but neither can we understand the world fully unless we are involved in some way with the processes that change it.Developement cannot be ‘studied’ at all; we can participate in the processes that underlie development and observe, record, analyse what we see but we can never be relevant to the problems in the abstract. Our tendency to separate the processes of understanding and change naturally leads to irrelevance b’se while abstract research cannot be applied in practice; practice is often deficient because it fails to understand the real causes and character of the problems it seeks to address.
- Researchers getting tired and getting new solutions
- Policies which have failed.
- Uncovered solutions to problems