Frederique Apffel Marglin and Stephen A. Marglin (eds). Dominating Knowledge: Development, Culture, and Resistance. WIDER (World Institute of Development Economics Research) Studies in Development Economics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1990. 293pp.

Abstract

This is a collection of seven original and intelligent essays which question the ethnocentricism implicit in the uncritical advocacy of modernization and development in non-Europeanatel societies, and argue for a greater sensitivity to their cultures. In the intellectual footsteps of Michel Foucault (1980), the authors show a special sensitivity to the power politics implicit in the generation of truths and theories of development and in the process of implementation of the project of modernization. Finally, the authors discuss the remarkable tenacity with which the targeted societies have attempted to defend their cultures against the onslaught of alien values, knowledge, techniques, and lifestyles. In his overview, "Towards the Decolonization of the Mind", Stephen Marglin sets out the hopes and fears of the authors of this volume. Hope, that by decoupling technology from its cultural and political entailments, indigenous cultures may be strengthened, and the process of the dismantling of empire may be brought to its logical conclusion, the decolonization of the mind. Fear, that "If experience is any guide, the authors of the chapters that follow will, singly and collectively, be accused of promoting superstition, religious obscurantism, and even barbarity".