Postcolonialism and Development
an array of productive and provocative debates, with proponents often
advocating competing paths of understanding, but all following a similar
approach: that of advancing traditional understanding beyond Euro-centrism (Biccum 2002). Indeed, the lack of coherence and agreement between postcolonial scholars is a key point of contention among critics of
postcolonial study (a point that will be revisited later). However, taking
into account this lack of coherence between postcolonial scholars, it is
important to note the overwhelming consensus in postcolonial discipline
in its universal critique of theories of global development (Sharp and
Briggs 2006; Biccum 2002; Pender 2001; Escobar 1995).
Despite being inextricably linked by their subject matter and objectives,
development studies and postcolonial theory have seen very little collaboration or cross referencing between their two disciplines. Often, difficulty in fostering collaboration stems from development professionals
viewing postcolonialist study as offering overly complex theories that
have little real world application, demonstrating an ignorance of real
world problems in the Global South. Likewise many postcolonial theorists view development studies as simply a continuation of a Eurocentric
neo-colonialist mind-set that has dominated contemporary development
(Sharp and Briggs 2006). It must be acknowledged that there have been
attempts to merge these two disciplines, notably Jonathan Crush’s book
Power of Development (2006). However, the theoretical gap persists. As
Christine Sylvester contends, “development studies does not tend to listen to subalterns and postcolonial studies does not tend to concern itself
with whether the subaltern is eating” (Sylvester 1999: 703). Nonetheless,
it is noted that the gap between these competing disciplines is the reason
that a dialogue is important for offering an alternative conceptualisation
of development (Sharp and Briggs 2006).
In short, although postcolonial scholarship cannot be characterised by a
singularity of project, often fostering differing intra-disciplinary paths
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