Thinking ‘differently’ about a feminist critical geography of development

Abstract

This paper makes a case for grounding the global in feminist, anti‐racist, and post‐colonial scholarship in order to foreground questions of race, colonialism, and history in critical geographies of development. I argue that the process of ‘doing development’ involves the imposition of power; hence, geographers' critical engagements with development need to consider the intersectionality of gender, race, and ethnicity that comprises identities of the subjects of development and of those who ‘do development’. This consideration would entail questioning the homogeneity of ‘Third World women’ as a singular category in need of development and recognising the normativity of women from the global North who, so far, have been the ‘doers’ or the key actors in global interventions.

Introduction: critical development studies—critique and radical praxis

“…For Kuntala Lahiri‐Dutt () and Yvonne Underhill‐Sem (), racialised and colonial logics are the stubborn things that continue to structure institutional arrangements and power differentials. As attested by Lahiri‐Dutt's poignant example of the experiences of contemporary Gender and Development students, development (still) occurs, very much, ‘under Western eyes’ (Mohanty, , p.61).…”

“…Lahiri‐Dutt () invokes the interdisciplinary language of feminism as a way of coming to terms with and subverting the ‘multiple vectors of race, class, gender, and Northern status along which global subjects are imagined and constituted’ (p.330). To move beyond the Western women as civilising agent will require ‘heightened cross‐cultural understanding’ (p.327) through an understanding of the self as socially and geographically situated.…”

“…To Lahiri‐Dutt and Underhill‐Sem building alliances and carving out agendas that embrace concepts and practices that simultaneously challenge and transform relations of power in the academy constitute the kind of radical praxis that aims to decolonise the institutional spaces which, for too long, have served those best placed to benefit from the status quo. Radicalism in this sense must involve illuminating ‘theoretical erasures’ (Lahiri‐Dutt, , p.328) and working with ‘intellectual allies’ (Underhill‐Sem, , p.336) to subvert the racialised discourses and practices that continue to structure the academy. Decolonising academic and development institutions, in the first instance, might just mean that established luminaries ‘step back’ thus enabling space for new practices and epistemological horizons to appear with fresh knowledge claims and grounds for legitimacy.…”

“…Now, a vibrant and rejuvenated sub‐discipline is represented by calls for: sustained efforts to decolonise institutions and knowledge production, especially at a time of neoliberal intensification (Lahiri‐Dutt, ; Underhill‐Sem, ; see also Hodge & Lester, ; Jackson & Crabtree, ; Pain, ); a re‐imagining of what purposeful engagement might mean for ‘critique in practice’ as a pedagogical impetus for hope work and activism (McKinnon, ; Wright, ; see also Gibson‐Graham & Roelvink, ; McKinnon, ); and the mobilisation of more‐than‐human thinking and research agendas in the Anthropocene (McGregor, ; see also Cook et al, ). …”

Mine closure, women, and crime in Matjhabeng, South Africa

“…First, it challenges research from the Global North (O’Connor & Ruddell, 2021) that argues there is no relationship between mine decline and crime. Although there is a growing body of work on the effects of mining on women (Lahiri‐Dutt, 2017), the link between mine closure and crime has been less well studied. Second, we highlight examples of physical and symbolic violence.…”