DEVELOPMENT DISCOURSE K

1NC
A. Link: The affirmative discourse and motivations to develop
Latin America creates otherizing dichotomies and props up US
imperialism.
Meyer, 12 (Dominique, Department of International Affairs, Florida State University, April
1, 2012, Making Development Discourse Work in Latin American Indigenous Communities,
Google Scholar)ZB

The first time the world heard and universally accepted the word underdeveloped
to refer to areas of the world not scientifically or technologically advanced was on January 20, 1949 during
U.S. President Trumans inaugural address, where he coined it as an emblem of his
own policy (Esteva, 1992) (Richard Peet, 2009). On that day, two billion people became
underdeveloped, as the hegemonic power of the time drew a line in the sand
between Us and Them. It is that date that welcomed the age of development where the label of
underdeveloped provided the cognitive base for what would become the systematic gesture of development
efforts in the preceding years (Esteva, 1992). The concept of Development and its political merits have well been
debated by policy makers, scholars, and regular folks alike, further dividing the world into two camps: those who

Those who look favorably on Development

efforts praise it as a means for making a better life for everyone [providing] basic needs:
favor development schemes, and those who dont.

sufficient food to maintain good health; a safe, healthy place in which to live; affordable services available to

For the members of

this camp, development refers to improvements in well-being, living standards, and
opportunities (Edelman & Haugerud, 2005). This optimistic worldview of Development
starkly contrasts to the more pessimistic one - the in which Wolfgang Sachs describes as a cracked
and crumbling lighthouse standing alone as a ruin of our intellectual landscape (Sachs, 1992). According to
this view of development, the discourse refers to the historical processes of
commodification, industrialization, modernization, and globalization (Edelman &
Haugerud, 2005). In fact, the term development its self is an unstable term .
everyone; and being treated with dignity and respect (Peet & Hartwick, 2009, pg 1).

According to Marc Edelman and Angelique Howard, development is an ideal, an imagined future towards which

Oxfords Dictionary defines the

concept of development as the gradual growth of something so that it becomes
more advanced, stronger, etc, and the same entry provides a babys development
in the womb as a proper example of development (Oxford University Press, 2012). This example
institutions and individuals strive (Edelman & Haugerud, 2005).

is fitting to accentuate the very debate surrounding the idea of international development as it is understood today-

proponents of development view themselves in the maternal role, feeding into

and supporting the advancement of underdeveloped states , and those rejecting the idea
where

insist that growth and advancement occur from within the state its self.

B. Impact: Development discourse paradoxically produces

poverty, insecurity, structural violence, and destroys value to
life.
Kothari/Harcourt, 4 (Smitu, founding member of the International Accountability
Project/Wendy, Rural Development, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus
University Rotterdam, 2004, Introduction: The violence of development, Development,
<http://www.palgrave-journals.com/development/journal/v47/n1/full/1100024a.html>)ZB
Fourthly, the destabilization of natural systems and the threat to cultures and traditions and ensuing insecurities

violence is a problem not of poverty but rather the reverse. It is a problem of

wealth creation. The privileging of materialism and the dominant patterns of
achieving economic growth as the only road to development creates
and

poverty, threatens and destroys livelihoods, creates mass insecurities,

breaking down homes and communities, forcing men and women, often
displaced from their familiar environment, into criminality. It is this criminalization
of poverty that has led to some of the worst forms of gender violence as insecurities compound violence within the
family as men are compelled to redefine their identities, both culturally and individually and endure life-threatening
economic insecurities. The underbelly of the violence inherent in development is reflected in the heightened levels
of domestic violence, the discrimination against the girl child, the increase of women entering the workforce in
debilitating and unhealthy conditions, the trafficking of women and children, the increase in suicides and the spread

All this while those doing development claim to be alleviating poverty and
listening to the voices of those they label poor. Moving from the community level to the
geopolitical level, it is also important to look at the macro-context of violence that allows
policymakers to pay little attention to the voices from the marginalized and the
growing mass resistance to economic globalization. The process of national and global
policymaking and today's geopolitics in the wake of September 11, the invasion of Iraq and the growing US
hegemony is the enabling environment for so much violence to go unheeded in the
name of freedom, democracy and development.
of HIV/AIDS.

C. Vote Negative
1. The question posed by this years resolution is not for us to
answer solutions must come from below and include local
peoples participation.
Kangas, 13 (Laura, Department of Communication, Aalto University, 2013, The WTO
and ambiguous language of development. A rhetorical analysis of the development
discourse of the World Trade Organization.,
<https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/8955/hse_ethesis_13145.pdf?
sequence=1>)ZB

The human focus is shared also by the participatory development approach, the
purpose of which is to involve local people in their own development. This approach
condemns the classical development practices as western ethnocentric,
disempowering, and characterized by top-downism. (Mohan, 2008, 46-47) The main idea
is that every society must define development for itself and find its own strategy.
(Servaes, 1999, 6) As Mohan (2008, 47) mentions, the focus is on the grass-roots level, often
involving civil society, which permits a plurality of development goals to be realized,
as well as giving communities self-determination they need. A central concept in
participatory development is empowerment, which Melkote and Kandath (2001, 197) define as a dynamic process

the
process of development is being formed in a bottom-up -manner, and the agency
in development is given to developing countries. The emphasis on
participation is part of a wider movement, which has transformed orthodox thinking
about public sector management over the last two decades and made decisionmaking based on participation, rather than imposition, central to the idea of modernity. (Brett, 2003, 2)
that enhances the possibilities of an individual or a community to face the continuous social changes. Hence,

The demand for participatory development is an integral part of personal and social emancipation. Mohan (2008,
46) argues that behind the approach is also the belief in not relying on the state, and
therefore it might not be coincidental that participatory development gained popularity around the same time as
the neoliberal counter-revolution of the 1980s, with its discourse of self-help and individualism.

2. This solves Rejecting their discourse of development and

economic engagement allows this debate to act as a counterspatiality to hegemonic knowledge production.
Motta, 13 (Sara C., Lecturer in Latin American and Comparative Politics at the School of
Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, UK, July 2013, Reinventing
the Lefts in Latin America: Critical Perspectives from Below,
<http://lap.sagepub.com/content/40/4/5.full>)ZB

Out of these counter-spatialities come new conceptions of the political. First, there is
a politics of life that cuts to the very heart of the logics of neoliberal globalization, in
which large sections of the popular classes become disposable, reduced to
conditions of bare life in which they are unable to ensure their social reproduction
and survival (see Agamben, 1998; Rancire, 2004). Yet from these conditions emerge struggles
that challenge the foundations of capitalist accumulation. Paradigmatic of this is the
contribution of Philipp Terhorst, Marcela Olivera, and Alexander Dwinell, who point out that the basis of water
movements in a commons approach generates . . . a renewed reference point for the community and alternative

The activists themselves see it as a new kind of politics, a

new kind of economics, and a new model of life that has far-reaching implications
for politics and society in general. It is from concrete and particular struggles for basic resources that
community economies of water.

practices are developed that enable the flourishing, remembering, and reinvention of cosmologies, social
relationships, and political imaginaries. This prefigurative politics challenge the basis of capitalism by enacting an

The contributors call

attention to the centrality of social reproduction as a place of resistance and popular
political construction around struggles over health care, education, land ownership
and use, housing, and community and family life. As Chris Hesketh points out in his
article on Mexican movements, the Zapatistas have created counter-spaces in
which spatial production is based upon collective need. Collective control is asserted over
alternative basis of social life. Social Reproduction and Feminized Resistance

space, and political activity is associated with everyday life.

LINKS

EE Links
Integrating Latin America into a global model of economic
development is part of a larger strategy of hegemonic
development
Munck, 13 (Ronaldo, Head of Civic and Global Engagement at Dublin City University in
Ireland, March 2013, Rethinking Latin America: Development, Hegemony, and Social
Transformation, Google Books)ZB
The compromise state was shattered by military intervention and the development model was overthrown equally
decisively. Some analysts point to 1975 as a turning point in this regard that was as decisive and as punctual as

the transformed and

increased role of international finance after that date saw a new form of international
integration beginning. Since the Second World War the more industrialized countries
of Latin America had been integrated into the international circuit of production
through foreign direct investment (FDI). Now the internationalization of the moneycapital circuit opened up a new era in which the international financial markets were
dominant. Capital flight out of Latin America was a dominant feature of the 19 0s and 1980s, with financial
liberalization increasing even further the vulnerability of the Latin American economies. The new financial
conglomerates brought profound socioeconomic transformations and also severely
weakened the ability of the state to negotiate with foreign capital or take the
measures necessary for national economic development , a concept that would, itself, soon be
deemed irrelevant with the arrival of globalization in the 19905. The roots of this great
transformation lay in the crisis of the postwar global development
model, which opened up around 1973. The first oil crisis of 1973 was followed by the abandonment of the gold
1929 was in terms of being able to see a clear before and after. Be that as it may,

standard in 1974 that signaled the start of clear market dominance over international finance. The fit-eat debt
crisis of 1982 in Latin American can be traced back to is period and the recycling of the Ham that accrued from the

Globalization emerged as a strategy by the dominant powers, the

big international financial institutions, and the transnational corporations to launch
a new more internationalized phase of capital accumulation. They would not rest until the
hike in oil prices in 1973.

world became one big market, as Polanyi had foreseen. Latin American economic strategy, insofar as there were
any vestiges of national development still present, was deemed to be at 0 ds with the new world order. Reform
would be necessary of the banking system, of trade regulations, of labor law, and of any state investment in

The crisis in the imperialism heartlands had an immediate and

devastating effect in Latin America. It led to three intertwined external shocks: an
production.

unprecedented rise in interest rates following the second oil rise in 1979, a sharp deterioration in terms of trade in
the early 1980s, and an almost complete halt in foreign lending (Ffrend-David et al. 1994, p. 185). This set of
circumstances was a direct result of the rich countries seeking to offload part of the price of the capitalist crisis onto
the global South. This had happened under the classic patterns of dependency earlier in the century, when raising
interest rates, cutting imports, and stopping loans was a standard recipe. lt was the sudden halt to foreign loans in
1982 that precipitated the disastrous economic and social performance of the 1980s in Latin America, subsequently
known as thee lost decade. It saw stagnation of production, a lowering of living standards, some staggering

Within Latin America there was also a

certain exhaustion of the previous development model based on inward oriented
growth, which necessitated a new approach. The issue of inflation loomed large and its corrosive
social effect was one reason why there was a certain acceptance of the new model at first. So, for example, when
President Menem took office in Argentina in 1989 it was in the midst of a bout of
hyperinflation that had severely constrained the credibility of the democratic
transition presidency of Ratil Alfonsin who took office in the first post-dictatorship elections in 1983. Faced with
episodes of hyperinflation, and an ever-increasing foreign debt.

this dire predicament as Gerchunoff and Torre puts it, 'The decision to privatize was swift, far-reaching and
included neither restrictions on the participation of foreign capital nor efforts to nationalize the state-owned
enterprises targeted for transfer to foreign ownership (Gerchunoff and Torre, 1996, p. 739). Trade was completely
liberalized, the domestic deregulation was systemic, and to cap it all Menem committed Argentina to participate in
the Gulf war in support of the imperial power.

Extension of neoliberal policy inherently subscribes to

development discourse
Meyer, 12 (Dominique, Department of International Affairs, Florida State University, April
1, 2012, Making Development Discourse Work in Latin American Indigenous Communities,
Google Scholar)ZB

The predominating neo-liberal theory of development has distinct roots in capitalist

theory, which promotes the world system concept and creates an asymmetric and unequal relationship between
the center and the periphery. In relationship to the potential for alternative development strategies in Latin

the asymmetric relations of power that are generated by development theory

caters to the growth and expansion of the core markets, leaving very little room
for alternatives to thrive (Chiapas, 1994). It is because of the persistence of the
dominant neo-liberal schools of thought that alternatives to neo-liberalism have
appeared to disappear from the discourse of development going on within the
America,

international community and the mass media (Chiapas, 1994). As indicated by the previously discussed human
development indicator data from Bolivia, Ecuador, and Guatemala, indigenous populations face significantly
challenging disparities in terms of poverty, lack of access to education and sufficient educational attainment, and
healthcare. However, it must be emphasized that the indigenous perception of adequate well-being largely does

The tension between the

Western neo-liberal worldview of development and the indigenous perspective
arises in how we choose to measure satisfaction and well-being.
not perpetuate the same standards by which we typically measure poverty.

The drive to innovate in Latin America upholds the dominant ideology of economic
development

OBrien, 75 (Phillip J., researcher at the Institute of Latin American Studies at the

University of Glasgow, March 1975, Beyond the Sociology of Development: Economy and
Society in Latin America and Africa, edited by Ivar Oxaal, Tony Barnett, David Booth, Google
Books)ZB
A. O. Hirschman, in a perceptive essay, Ideologies of economic development in Latin America, has traced the main
views advanced by Latin Americans to explain the causes of Latin America's under- development and what could be

The theory of dependency is a response to the failure of these

explanations and those offered by the advanced countries to give either a
convincing explanation of the backwardness of Latin America or a way out of that
backwardness. Specifically the theory of dependency is a response to the perceived failure
of the previous dominant ideology of development in Latin America, that of import
substitution industrialization. A. Gerschenkron noted in his essay, Economic backwardness
in historical perspective, that in backward countries certain institutional innovations
and the acceptance of specific ideologies in favour of industrialization were
necessary to break down the gap between obstacles to industrialization and the
promises inherent in such a development. Backward countries had to substitute for some of the
factors which were prerequisites for industrialization elsewhere. This substitution process and the
drive for industrialization was usually accompanied by an ideology explaining the
cause of, and suggesting a cure for, the relative backwardness of the country concerned.
done about it.

Nineteenth-century Latin America, however, evolved few ideas concerning its underdevelopment and it was not
until the twentieth century that Latin American writers concentrated on attempting to explain Latin American
underdevelopment.

Growth Link
Reliance on models of economic growth contributes to a topdown development discourse
Kangas, 13 (Laura, Department of Communication, Aalto University, 2013, The WTO
and ambiguous language of development. A rhetorical analysis of the development
discourse of the World Trade Organization.,
<https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/8955/hse_ethesis_13145.pdf?
sequence=1>)ZB

The neoliberal agenda often gains the status of hegemonic discourse in the
discussion on development politics today. Thomas (2004, 458) argues that despite different

perspectives on development have been introduced and have ostensibly established their position, they
nevertheless havent succeeded in actually changing the agenda in the discussion. While mentions of human or
sustainable development are nowadays common in discussions the core message eulogizing economic growth still

neoliberalism has indisputably

enjoyed longstanding dominance especially on account of the power of its
institutional advocates. The neoliberal ideology draws squarely on classical economic theories of Adam
prevails. Also Simon (1997, 4) and Fine (2009, 885) argue that

Smith or David Ricardo: by leaving the job to the invisible hand, the Pareto-optimal outcome will follow and market
efficiency will engender development through economic growth.(Chang & Grabel, 2004, 14) The main restriction on
an inherent tendency for a free capitalist economy to grow is deemed to be market failure resulting from perverse
governmental regulation or other domestic features such as corrupt politicians or rent-seeking bureaucrats. (Hettne,

Major forces such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund were
the most vocal proponents of neoliberalism as the best source for economic growth
and development all around the world, and in the grounds of this ideology , the highly
2008, 9)

controversial structural adjustment programmes based on the Washington Consensus, eulogizing free market
economy, were introduced in the 1980s to several developing countries. Neoliberalism inherited many aspects from
the modernization school, which is why Simon (1997, 184) refers to it as contemporary incarnation of modernization

stages of economic growth development is

perceived in a top-down linear manner from the western point of view, economic
growth given the supreme role in the process . Furthermore, development is deemed as an
inherently universal economic process, and the problem of its deficiency is primarily domestic. The reliance on
economic growth benefiting the whole society engenders greatly from the concept
of trickle-down effect. Even thought merely the elite would benefit from the growth first hand, the
theory. Ideologically not far from Rostows (1960)

prosperity is believed to trickle down also to the lower classes in the society, because markets autonomously
engender redistribution of economic growth. (Aghion&Bolton, 1997)

Human Rights Link

Development projects that claim to uphold human rights
inevitably feed back into the development discourse
associated with economic ends
Kangas, 13 (Laura, Department of Communication, Aalto University, 2013, The WTO
and ambiguous language of development. A rhetorical analysis of the development
discourse of the World Trade Organization.,
<https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/8955/hse_ethesis_13145.pdf?
sequence=1>)ZB

Human rights and well-being have unquestionably always been a concern in

development studies, but instead of being directly tackled, they were deemed to
follow the linear process of economic development. One of the first approaches to tackle directly
the delivery of welfare outcomes was the so-called basic needs approach dating to the beginning of 1970s.
According to Elliot (2008, 42), the basic needs approach did much to put poverty, human needs and rights back on
official development agendas and resulted in various programmes focusing on households and covering aspects of
health, education, farming and reproduction practices.
Another influential approach was introduced by

Amartya Sen (1999), who introduced development as a process of real freedoms that
people enjoy. According to him, development consists of the removal of various types of unfreedoms that leave
people with little choice and little opportunity to exercise their reasoned agency. Freedom is therefore
identified as the main object of development, and the focus is put particularly on
the roles and interconnections between crucial instrumental freedoms, such as
economic opportunities, political freedoms, social facilities, transparency
guarantees and protective security. (Sen, 1999, 7) Economic growth, industrialization, technological
advances or social modernization can be means to expand freedoms, but they are never identified as development
themselves.

Oil Link
Pursuing reform in profitable countries oil policies implies the
country lacks the superior knowledge associated with
definitions of development
Chang, 9 (Ha-Joon, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, February 15, 2009,
Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark: How development has disappeared from todays
development discourse,
<http://www.societies.cam.ac.uk/cisa/documents/Chang_Hamlet_Paper.pdf>)ZB

Before the rise of neo-liberalism since the late 1970s, there was a general
consensus that development is largely about the transformation of the productive
structure (and the capabilities that support it) and the resulting transformation of social structure urbanization,
dissolution of the traditional family, changes in gender relationships, rise of labour movement, the advent of the
welfare state, and so on. This was mainly (although not exclusively) to be achieved through industrialization. Even
though they radically disagreed on how exactly this was to be done, most commentators ranging from Walt
Rostow on the right and the Dependency Theorists on the left shared the view that development is something

Most of us still hold such view of

development at the instinctive level. For example, most people would not classify some
oil-rich countries that have incomes higher than those of some developed
countries as developed. In refusing to classify these countries as developed,
we are implicitly saying that achieving high income through resource bonanza is not
development the high income should be somehow earned. At the other extreme,
centred around a process of transformation in the productive sphere.

following the Second World War, the German income level fell to that of Peru or Mexico, but few people would argue
that Germany at that time should have been re-classified as a developing country, because we know that
Germany still had the necessary technologies and organizational capabilities to regain its pre-war level of living

These examples show that we are implicitly saying that in order to

qualify as developed an economys high income should be based on superior
knowledge, embodied in technologies and institutions, rather than simple command
over resources.
standards quickly.2

Developmentalism Link
Policy directed at making foreign economies more prosperous
works through a logic that ignores the actually dynamics of
development
Chang, 9 (Ha-Joon, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, February 15, 2009,
Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark: How development has disappeared from todays
development discourse,
<http://www.societies.cam.ac.uk/cisa/documents/Chang_Hamlet_Paper.pdf>)ZB

the emphasis on individual capabilities and entrepreneurial energy that

dominates todays mainstream development discourse is largely misplaced. To put my
argument above somewhat differently, what really distinguish the US or Germany, on the one
hand, and the Philippines or Nigeria, on the other hand, are their Boeings and
Volkswagens, and not their economists or medical doctors (which the latter countries have in
Thus seen,

quite large quantities). Similarly, what really distinguishes Ecuador or Vietnam from the US or Japan is not the raw
entrepreneurial energy of the people that the neo-liberals so often talk about (which you probably have more in the
former group of countries) but the abilities of a society to set up and manage productive enterprises that can

What little developmentalism that there is

in the currently dominant vision of development is ersatz developmentalism the
belief that, if you educate them better and make them healthier and give them security of
property rights, rational self-seeking individuals will exercise their natural tendency
to truck and barter and somehow create a prosperous economy. However, this vision
is fundamentally at odds with the reality of development. In reality, development requires
channel that individual energy into raising productivity.

a lot of collective and systematic efforts at acquiring and accumulating better productive knowledge through the
construction of better organizations, the cross-fertilization of ideas within it, and the channeling of individual
entrepreneurial energy into collective entrepreneurship.

IMPACTS

Env !
Doing development creates a logic of anthropocentrism and
disposability that justifies environmental destruction
Kothari/Harcourt, 4 (Smitu, founding member of the International Accountability
Project/Wendy, Rural Development, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus
University Rotterdam, 2004, Introduction: The violence of development, Development,
<http://www.palgrave-journals.com/development/journal/v47/n1/full/1100024a.html>)ZB

the dominant actors who give content to and do development rarely

acknowledge another process of violence the disruption and destruction of the
sources of life on our fragile planet the lands, forests, air and water systems that we depend on. We
Secondly,

are polluting and destroying the planet at an enormous and frightening rate through mining, deforestation,
pesticide-intensive agriculture, the massive dumping of toxic wastes, dams, the unsustainable intensive extraction
from our oceans, rivers, forests and lands. Take the much-heralded green revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s
for instance in the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana. New evidence suggests a widening of dying soils, the

We are now
confronted with a situation where life itself is considered even more disposable or is
being re-engineered to sustain the control of a few at the expense of the many. For
instance, genetically modifying organisms is an insidious manipulation of life to
sustain private profit without concern for ecological diversity and security or social
justice. We have moved from extraction from nature and attempting to dominate it to privatizing and reengineering it. The multiple levels and growing intensity of violence should compel the
development community to better understand and challenge the anthropocentric
worldview that not only exploits, manipulates and engineers nature doing grave damage in the process
but also does violence to the thousands of years of wisdom of communities who
have lived with nature and who have evolved complex knowledge systems. It is imperative that the
critical lowering of groundwater and its pollution by the leaching of pesticides and fertilizers.

pluralities of knowledge systems that have evolved with nature rather than against it are brought to the centre of

We need urgently to transit to a biocentric perspective

that recognizes that we are an integral part of nature and must act accordingly . By
political, social and economic action.

using natural resources far beyond nature's regenerative capacity, by contributing to the daily extinction of species,
we do violence to nature and to those whose livelihoods, which are dependent on nature, are threatened or
destroyed by development. We are literally undermining the future of our own species. By appropriating the
commons, a collective domain, and privatizing it, we are denying men and women their basic right to life. The
developmental and political system that allows a private (often foreign) company to privatize water, a life source of
all, reinforces inequality and excludes those who are unable to pay for this basic survival resource. Justifying
privatization in the name of enhancing water and food security and in the name of development is a travesty.

Cultural Survival !
Development discourse leads to cultural homogenization that
spills over to conflict and otherization
Kothari/Harcourt, 4 (Smitu, founding member of the International Accountability
Project/Wendy, Rural Development, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus
University Rotterdam, 2004, Introduction: The violence of development, Development,
<http://www.palgrave-journals.com/development/journal/v47/n1/full/1100024a.html>)ZB

The world's
cultural pluralism is being steadily, often violently, eroded with an alarming loss of
ethnicities, knowledge systems, languages and traditional cultural forms of
expression. There is a deep-seated violence that is severely threatening and
ultimately destroying the identity and rights of ethnic and indigenous groups. There is
Thirdly, in the same way that nature is grossly disrespected and violated, so too is culture.

a profound need to protect creative and grounded cultural, social and political pluralism and diversity through a
deepening of the democratic process. The respect for plurality is a prerequisite to resist the subjugation of marginal

The evidence of how

development has contributed to cultural homogenization is now all around us. In fact,
groups and to resist homogenizing, developmental and scientific processes.

as Arturo Escobar states in his essay in this issue, the inherent violence to marginalized people is written into
development's birth certificate with its interdependent link with the dominant patterns of economic growth,

One example is the invasion of a global corporate-dominated

media based on an inherent assumption of the superiority of one set of cultural and
economic priorities with the implicit, if not explicit, inferiority of another. The spread of
technology and modernity.

such global news and representations of domestic and political life can be seen as a violent attack on the plurality

This cultural invasion leads to deep insecurities,

which in turn breeds violence, intolerance, bigotry and prejudice against those
groups who are perceived as the other. Additionally, the sexualization of women and girls in this
of people's expressions, activities and lives.

process, through promotion of certain forms of acceptable behaviour and appearance, pornography, even the
fixation on rape and graphic scenes of violence against women in news reporting, lead in complex but disturbing
ways to increased violence and oppression in the family, the home and in society at large. The resistance to this by
women in many societies has been strong, but the trend of gender violence continues around the world, closely
linked to other forms of economic and social violation.

ALTERNATIVE/FRAMEWORK

Pedagogy
Reinvention of our intellectual practices is key to overcome the
marginalization of development discourse
Motta, 13 (Sara C., Lecturer in Latin American and Comparative Politics at the School of
Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, UK, July 2013, Reinventing
the Lefts in Latin America: Critical Perspectives from Below,
<http://lap.sagepub.com/content/40/4/5.full>)ZB

It is here that the role of the pedagogical takes center stage , with pedagogical used

broadly to refer to an articulation of educational aims and processes in social, ethical, spiritual, and affective as well
as cognitive relationships. Pedagogical practices help to constitute the processes of unlearning dominant
subjectivities, social relationships, and ways of constituting the world and learning new ones. They are at the heart
of the production of subjects and communities differently and therefore of politicizing contradictions in popular
politics (see Gibson-Graham, 2006, for a conceptualization of producing ourselves differently; see also Motta, 2013,
for a discussion of the role of the pedagogical in social and political transformation in Latin America). As the

many movements explore and experiment with participatory,

collective, and postrepresentative forms of epistemological practice . These create
contributors demonstrate,

immanent theoretical and strategic knowledge relevant to the concrete political experiences of movements. Here
movements are challenging not only the content of twentieth-century left political categories but the form of
popular left alternatives. The politics of knowledge of popular movements involves the development of pedagogies
of the oppressed through popular education with a focus on dialogue, the horizontal, collective, and political nature
of knowledge production, an understanding of everyday life as the substance of critical theoretical reflection, and
the overcoming of the distinction between thinkers and doers in movement strategizing and research (Motta,

The reinvention of Latin American

lefts from below is characterized by pedagogical processes that develop out of
reflection on the lived realities of excluded and oppressed communities . Thus, as is
2011b; see Freire, 1996, for an introduction to popular education).

demonstrated by many of the contributors, the spiritual and cultural become important elements of moral
economies and popular imaginaries and practices. Oral traditions, dance, theater, song, and ritual are considered
knowledge that is not a mere instrument of social transformation but a central part of creating new ways of life that

The politics of knowledge and the pedagogies that result do

not simply engage with intellectual and theoretical production as disembodied
processes. Rather, they seek to overcome the separations between intellect and
emotion, mind and body, and thought and action that characterize one-dimensional man and
contest neoliberal capitalism.

many twentieth-century left alternatives and to create what Boff and Boff call integral liberation. Thus, affective

They
enable marginalized and oppressed communities to become embodied political
subjects. They bring popular subjects, in all their complexity, to the heart of the reinvention of lefts from below.
and embodied pedagogies foreground different ways of being and relating to each other and the earth.

Discussions of development and violence need a plurality of

Latin American perspectives
Kothari/Harcourt, 4 (Smitu, founding member of the International Accountability
Project/Wendy, Rural Development, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus
University Rotterdam, 2004, Introduction: The violence of development, Development,
<http://www.palgrave-journals.com/development/journal/v47/n1/full/1100024a.html>)ZB

In illuminating the contentious link between development and violence, we are

deliberately posing the question of whose vantage point counts. Is it possible to
give primacy to the perspective of those excluded and victimized by development?
How do forest dwellers, traditional fisher people, women and men eking out a living in urban slums, tribal and
indigenous communities, contract workers, domestic workers far from home, displaced and migrant people, sex
workers, orphans and refugees understand development given the violence of their everyday exclusion,

Difficult as these questions may seem, as the

articles in this issue attest, it is not just stories of victimization and conflict that are
presented here, but the resistance these processes have engendered as well as the
celebration of the multiple cultural realities that 4exist within and alongside
exploitation, discrimination and marginalization?

development. This plurality must be noted and celebrated. Men and women at the
community level, in the face of grave difficulty and frequently against great odds, and often supported by
associative links beyond the local, are increasingly seeking to intervene constructively in their own conditions. They
are finding ways to govern themselves, participating and seeking to redefine the contentious process of democracy,
resisting and challenging the threats to their livelihoods and carving out innovative ways to shape positively their

They are creating new structures to enable their own livelihoods, searching
out different ways to relate to each other and to other communities, including the
state. Many are creatively using the possibilities that the electronic and digital options have opened up to
own lives.

communicate within and beyond national boundaries. What remains an area of critical neglect, however, is how
these processes are challenging and altering cultural traditions, class, caste and gender divides. And what is clear is
the magnitude of violence faced by hundreds of millions of people victimized by development.

AT: Perm
Recreation of development discourse must move away from
ends of economic growth
Meyer, 12 (Dominique, Department of International Affairs, Florida State University, April
1, 2012, Making Development Discourse Work in Latin American Indigenous Communities,
Google Scholar)ZB

If the values behind western development do aim to promote empowerment and are
not just a goodwill scheme to expand economic growth, an adjustment must be
made in the way that the international community implements those values. Instead of
looking at facts and data that are often skewed by cultural misrepresentation, we should be gearing our focus on
identifying the inherent potential within the cultures of unique indigenous communities. Development in indigenous
communities should focus on finding a way to emphasize the unique anthropological, cultural, and societal

it is
necessary to approach development through empowering the people to use their
own tools more effectively, not to advocate structural change, and the movement
and desire to grow must come from within. It is the need for alternatives to the
prevailing development discourse that have incited some scholars and activists to
constructively imagine a post-development era where community and indigenous
knowledge its self becomes a reservoir of creative alternatives (Esteva, 1988; Escobar,
strengths of indigenous communities and reducing their marginalization from the mainstream. Because of this,

1995). The alternative development position asserts the abandonment of the whole epistemological and political
field of postwar development (Escobar 1991, pg 675). Here, the ideas of the discourse of alternative development
encourages the celebration of local and indigenous ideas, where traditional culture is emphasized in development
strategy by policy makers rather than stifled (Edelman & Haugerud, 2005).

The criticism must be distanced from the privileged knowledge

of development thinking
Pieterse, 91 (Jan Nederveen, Mellichamp Professor of Global Studies and Sociology in
the Global & International Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara,
1991, Dilemmas of Development Discourse: The Crisis of Developmentalism and the
Comparative Method, Development and Change,
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-7660.1991.tb00401.x/pdf>)

In the holograms of hegemony panoramas of power subtly fade into theories of

history. Evolutionism was an imperial vision, modernization theory bears witness to the American Century, and
development thinking translates into contemporary development policies. In the
discourses of history produced by western hegemony knowledge and power are
intricately interwoven. In his analysis of what he calls the post-totalitarian system Vaclav Havel
observes, The principle involved here is that the centre of power is identical with the centre of truth (Havel, 1985:

The central thesis of

developmentalism is that social change occurs according to a pre-established
pattern, the logic and direction of which are known. Privileged knowledge of the
direction of change is claimed by those who declare themselves furthest advanced
along its course. Developmentalism is the truth from the point of view of the
centre of power; it is the theorization (or rather, ideologization) of its own path of development, and the
25). This also applies to the centres of power and leading truths in the western world.

compara- tive method elaborates this perspective.

AT: Policymaking FW
Policymaking frameworks subscribe to the hegemonic ideals
that uphold development discourse- any attempt to solve
structural impacts must be done through an alternative
framework.
Kothari/Harcourt, 4 (Smitu, founding member of the International Accountability
Project/Wendy, Rural Development, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus
University Rotterdam, 2004, Introduction: The violence of development, Development,
<http://www.palgrave-journals.com/development/journal/v47/n1/full/1100024a.html>)ZB

centralized administrative and policy processes contribute to the

violence of development by imposing standardized, homogenizing
solutions on plural cultural, social and economic contexts. The policy process has
Fifthly,

perpetuated a compartmentalized response to the complex, integrated realities that most people live in. So, for
example, agriculture, water, energy and forests are different policy arenas with little or no coordination between
them when in the life of a community dependent on natural resource systems, they are not just inter-related arenas

Compartmentalized policy responses inevitably fail to see many

different elements that affect the lives and livelihoods of communities. How then can we
but integrated systems.

speak of health when there is no access to clean water, of reproductive rights when there are no bathrooms, of
democracy when livelihoods are not guaranteed, of participation when there is no education for women and of
accountability when massive military and economic power is routinely used to subjugate peoples and nations?

Fundamentally, this is because the huge disparities that exist between the
economic poor and the elites in our societies undermine the very concept of
democratic governance. Those that have economic and political power dominate the representative
process and through processes of democracy and in the name of development continue to perpetuate their own
power and dominance, defending the economic, cultural, educational, social and political structures and systems

This hegemonic
process articulates and thereby imposes the dominate pattern of development and
democracy as the only relevant pattern and the only one to be followed, ignoring
the huge costs to the majority of the world who remain unrepresented and marginalized by the
that protect their interests at the expense of cultural pluralities, ecologies and diversities.

national and global governance systems. It is not surprising then that across much of the world, communities are
redefining democracy whether by defying it, or deepening it, or by defending the community from its corrosive
influence by asserting greater autonomy from it.

AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS

No Link / Aff is True

Development discourse only becomes a problem when its used
as an undefined approach- the aff is a specific policy promoting
positive development
Kangas, 13 (Laura, Department of Communication, Aalto University, 2013, The WTO
and ambiguous language of development. A rhetorical analysis of the development
discourse of the World Trade Organization.,
<https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/8955/hse_ethesis_13145.pdf?
sequence=1>)ZB

Development as a concept is abstract or focused on the economic, human or

structural approach. Development is deemed to be a value judgement that can be a
mutual goal only when left undefined. The economic aspect is predominant and the additional
references stem from the grand narratives representing a very traditional approach to development. The
adherence to neoliberal ideology is the most common premise of the argumentation
supplemented by appeals to emotions and sense of moral. The relationship between trade
and development is understood in three ways: trade is either beneficial, potentially beneficial or detrimental for
development. The benefits of free trade are presented as a belief, a fact or a possibility, but the arguments are not
justified. The minority discourse emphasizes disadvantages of free trade and the arguments are supported by
presenting causal ties or examples. Colourful and symbolic language is used representing resistance to the

Development is seen to concern both developed and

developing countries, but additionally, the role of developed countries as enablers
of development is emphasized. Also direct accusations are made about the conscious actions of
assumingly prevailing discourse.

developed countries hindering development. Particularly the traditional view of development and the prevalence of
neoliberalism as premise for the argumenatation are interesting findings in comparison to the multifaceted
approach of more recent development studies and development co-operation. The abstract nature of development
can be seen as problematic for the delivery of measurable results in development.

Development Good
The concept of development is legitimate- key to value
assignment
Sen, 88 (Amartya, University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy,
Harvard University, 1988, THE CONCEPT OF DEVELOPMENT, Handbook of Development
Economics, Volume L, pdf)ZB

The concept of development is by no means unproblematic. The different

problems underlying the concept have become clearer over the years on the basis
of conceptual discussions as well as from insights emerging from empirical work. Insofar as these
problems have become clearer, something of substance has in fact been achieved, and the demise of the brashness
which characterized the initiation of development economics need not be seen entirely as a loss. A clearer
recognition of the difficulties and problems is certainly a step in the direction of enhancing our ability to tackle

the agreed valuations in the

form of emphasizing the importance of certain basic achievements in life make it
possible for us to pursue practical debates on policy and action on the basis of an
acceptable valuational foundation. Since many of these debates relate to matters of life and death,
them. Work on valuational problems will undoubtedly continue. Meanwhile,

well-being and illness, happiness and misery, freedom and vulnerability, the underlying objectives are perspicuous

Work on development economics need not await a

complete "solution" of the concept of development.
enough and command broad agreement.

No impact to development discourse- the process is selfcorrecting

Crush, 95 (Jonathan, Professor of Geography at Queens University, 1995, Power of
Development, Google Books)

If the human landscape is both object of development and a testimonial to its

power, so too is its physical counterpart. In Johnston's virtually uninhabited precolonial landscape, natural forests are destroyed by bush fires set by the evilminded. This image is given analytical substance by several of the chapters in this volume. In her study of the

silencing power of environmental discourse in colonial Kenya, for example, Fiona Mackenzie argues that Africans are
constructed as unscientific exploiters' of the environment. Their knowledge of the local environment can then be
disqualified as pre-modern and unscientific. The peasant fanner, undifferentiated and ungendered, is established
as the object in need of exogenous agricultural science and expertise. In South Africa, the language of
environmental mismanagement was also central to the idea of separate development described by Tapscott.
Betterment was premised on the notion that African cultivation and pastoral practices despoiled the environment.
Only scientific management could redeem the environment and re-educate the despoilers. This notion resonates

Development itself is never the disease, only the cure. It

proceeds, Escobar suggests, by creating abnormalities which it can then treat or
reform. Development discourse has a remarkable capacity for forgiving its own
mistakes and reinventing itself as the remedy for the ills it causes. One of the primary
into the present.

mechanisms for this periodic reinvention is the appropriation of the language and imagery of other, related,
modernist discourses.

Perm
Perm, do both- the criticism fails when it focuses strictly on
discourse- promoting a justified policy like the aff aids the
criticism.
Crush, 95 (Jonathan, Professor of Geography at Queens University, 1995, Power of
Development, Google Books)

Development discourse promotes and justifies very real interventions and practices
with very real (though invariably unintended) consequences. To incarcerate or confine these
(often catastrophic) effects within the text is to embark on a dangerous descent into
discourse (Palmer I990). In this volume, poetics and politics are generally envisioned as discrete, though
interwoven, strands of social life. ln this way, conceptual space is made for an exploration of
the links between the discursive and the non-discursive; between the words, the
practices and the institutional expressions of development ; between the relations of power
and domination that order the world and the words and images that represent those worlds. Development
discourse is constituted and reproduced within a set of material relationships,
activities and powerssocial, cultural and geopolitical. To comprehend the real
power of development we cannot ignore either the immediate institutional or the
broader historical and geographical context within which its texts are produced. The
immediate context is provided by the development machine. This machine is global in its teach, encompassing
departments and bureaucracies in colonial and post-colonial states throughout the world. Western aid agencies.
multilateral organizations, the sprawling global network of NGOs, experts and private consultants, private sector
organizations such as banks and companies that marshall the rhetoric of development, and the plethora of
development studies programmes in institutes of learning worldwide.

Development discourse is grounded in moral ends that

intersect with economic engagement
Gauri, 3 (Varun, of the World Bank, 2003, Social Rights and Economics: Claims to Health
Care and Education in Developing Countries, World Development Vol. 32, No. 3,
<http://www.utexas.edu/law/journals/tlr/sources/Issue%2089.7/Ferraz/bib014.Gauri.Social
%20Rights%20and%20Economics.pdf>)

Rights are an increasingly important component of international development

discourse. At the same time, they are also subject to a number of criticisms. In reality, the criticisms both
over- and underestimate the contentions of rights advocates. They overestimate the

contentions because most accounts of social rights interpret them as goals and grounds for moral criticism, not as
legally binding constraints on the policies and programs of governments and international agencies. Most accounts

The
criticisms underestimate the contentions of rights advocates because they fail to
recognize the enormous rhetorical importance of rights, both at the international
level and within developing countries, and their historical role in the mobilization of
social movements, professionals, and others in the expansion of education and
health care services. Although there remain significant differences between a rights
based approach and an economic approach to health care and education, particularly regarding the
issues of long-term deprivation, tradeoffs, and the behavioral effect of subsidies, their policy
consequences overlap considerably. Both are skeptical that electoral politics and de facto market rules
also hold that rights cannot be realized at once, and that the provision of services can take several forms.

by themselves provide sufficient accountability for the effective and equitable provision of health and education
services, and that further intrasectoral reforms in governance, particularly those that strengthen the hand of service
recipients, are essential.