Embodying Post-Development: Bodies in places, places in bodies

Abstract

Yvonne Underhill-Sem from her place-based perspective of the Pacific Islands argues that as we think more about place, so too we must think more about bodies. She proposes that what is needed is a theoretical position that allows bodies and places to be both grounded and materially pinchable, but also to be fluid and discursively constituted. Development (2002) 45, 54–59. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1110318

Surviving well together

“…Postdevelopment scholars draw on the poststructural interest in language and representation to explore the operations of the discourses of development: how it came into being, and how it shapes the problematisation of poverty, and the actions taken to address those problems: it is thinking critically about what development discourses do that most concerns us and other postdevelopment scholars. To paraphrase Yvonne Underhill-Sem, we are interested in the ways that development discourse shapes us and how are we shaped by it (Underhill-Sem, 2002 (Gibson-Graham, 2005).…”

Post‐Development: Premature Burials and Haunting Ghosts

“…Some fifteen years later, there are signs that the grave diggers (if I may interpret them as such) were again too quick in their actions. We find that many academic authors did not share the view that the PD debate is obsolete, but used it as a theoretical foundation or at least a starting point from which to develop their argument in the 2000s (see among others Agostino, ; Brigg, ; Cavalcanti, ; Cox, ; Cupples et al., ; Curry, ; Gephart, ; Gibson‐Graham, ; Gilgenbach and Moser, ; Hacker, , ; Lie, ; Lind, ; Matthews, , ; McGregor, ; McKinnon, ; Megoran, ; Nustad, ; Rapley, ; Saunders, ; Sauviat, ; Sidaway, ; Simon, ; Underhill‐Sem, ; Van Ausdal, ; de Vries, ; Ziai, ; etc.). Ahorro () has termed this the ‘second wave’ of PD.…”

The Challenge of Placing Spirituality within Geographies of Development

“…The body is seen as a site and actor of geography that has been previously neglected through the privileging of rationality and consequently analysis has been limited, not only around geographies of the body itself, but also in the considerable fluidity within and between bodies (McDowell 1999). In a development studies context, this area of neglect is highlighted by Underhill‐Sen (2002, 54):…”

“…Given Under‐Hill Sen's (2002) challenge for development studies to focus analysis more strongly around the body and given the limited longevity of debate surrounding development and spirituality, it is not surprising that there is not a depth of literature specifically focused on the embodiment of development and spirituality. That is not to say, however, that such embodied negotiations cannot be discerned within aspects of the development and spirituality literature that has been emerging.…”