Who sustains whose development? Sustainable development and the reinvention of nature

Organization Studies, Jan, 2003 by Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee

Abstract

This paper explores the contradictions inherent in one of the more popular buzzwords of today: sustainable development. I argue that, despite claims of a paradigm shift, the sustainable development paradigm is based on an economic, not ecological, rationality. Discourses of sustainable development embody a view of nature specified by modern economic thought. One consequence of this discourse involves the transformation of 'nature' into 'environment', a transformation that has important implications for notions of how development should proceed. The 'rational' management of resources is integral to the Western economy and its imposition on developing countries is problematic. I discuss the implications of this 'regime of truth' for the Third World with particular reference to biotechnology, biodiversity and intellectual property rights. I argue that these aspects of sustainable development threaten to colonize spaces and sites in the Third World, spaces that now need to be made 'efficient' because of the capit alization of nature.

Keywords: sustainable development, neo-colonialism, North--South relations, environmentalism, critical management studies

'In the early phases of colonization, the white man's burden consisted of the need to "civilize" the non-white peoples of the world--this meant above all depriving them of their resources and rights. In the latter phase of colonization, the white man's burden consisted of the need to "develop" the Third World, and this again involved depriving local communities of their resources and rights. We are now on the threshold of the third phase of colonization, in which the white man's burden is to protect the environment--and this too, involves taking control of rights and resources. ...The salvation of the environment cannot be achieved through the old colonial order based on the white man's burden. The two are ethically, economically and epistemologically incongruent.' Mies and Shiva (1993: 264-265)

Introduction

After more than 200 years of industrialization in the Western world and more than 50 years of 'development' in the Third World, the benefits delivered by the grand design of progress and modernity are, at best, equivocal. Despite phenomenal advances in science, technology, medicine and agricultural production, the promise that 'development' would eradicate world poverty remains unfulfilled in several parts of the globe, especially in the Third World.

'Progress' has come at a price: global warming, ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, air and water pollution are all global problems with wide-ranging impacts on human populations, impacts that are significantly more harmful for the rural poor in Third World countries, and for people who derive their sustenance from the land.

Let me begin with a cautionary note on terminology so as not to offend postmodern sensibilities. I use the terms 'first world', 'Third World', 'developed', 'underdeveloped', 'traditional', 'modern', 'colonizer', and 'colonized' with an understanding of the essentialist and binary nature of these categories. For instance, I realize there are first worlds within third worlds and third worlds within first worlds, but I deploy these and other categories strategically and politically here, in the spirit of what Spivak calls 'strategic essentialism'. In some ways, my critique examines the foundations of knowledge construction about the Third World and the ways in which it becomes constituted and represented by a particular set of discursive power relations that underlie the development discourse. As Escobar (1992: 25) argues, 'Third World reality is inscribed with precision and persistence by the discourses and practices of economists, planners, nutritionists, demographers and the like, making it difficult for peop le to define their own interests in their own terms--in many cases actually disabling them to do so.' Perhaps we can now add the discourses and practices of environmentalists and conservationists to the list, as the earlier quote by Mies and Shiva implies. Although such categorizations might preclude a sense of agency for Third World resistance movements, I discuss in the conclusion of the paper bow transgressions of these categories could create new spaces of resistance.

The concept of sustainable development has emerged in recent years in an effort to address environmental problems caused by economic growth. There are several different interpretations of sustainable development, but its broad aim is to describe a process of economic growth without environmental destruction. Exactly what is being sustained (economic growth or the global ecosystem, or both) is currently at the root of several debates, although many scholars argue that the apparent reconciliation of economic growth and the environment is simply a green sleight-of-hand that fails to address genuine environmental problems (Escobar 1995; Redclift 1987).

In this paper I look critically at the concept of sustainable development. I examine the political, economic, and developmental assumptions that inform the notion of sustainable development and discuss the consequences of these assumptions. I argue that sustainable development, rather than representing a major theoretical breakthrough, is very much subsumed under the dominant economic paradigm. As with development, the meanings, practices, and policies of sustainable development continue to be informed by colonial thought, resulting in disempowerment of a majority of the world's populations, especially rural populations in the Third World. Discourses of sustainable development are also based on a unitary system of knowledge and, despite its claims of accepting plurality, there is a danger of marginalizing or co-opting traditional knowledges to the detriment of communities who depend on the land for their survival.