Race, biopolitics and liberal development from the Jim Crow South to postwar Africa

Abstract

In this paper I document links between the racialised biopolitics that characterised the US government interventions in the US South in the early 20th century, and the USA's and the UK's late colonial and early development strategies in Africa. I do so by interrogating why Thomas Campbell, the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) head of African‐American agricultural extension, was chosen by US philanthropic elites and approved by the UK's Colonial Office to co‐direct a 1944–1945 survey of educational facilities in Africa. I show that it was Campbell's experiences and expertise with “improving” rural life through strategies of self‐help and character‐ and community‐building – key markers of a liberal way of development – that made his presence on the survey seem essential to both the USA and UK elites. By so doing, this paper documents the importance of the USDA's biopolitical interventions in the US South for understanding the historical geography of late colonialism and liberal forms of development, thus contributing to critical geographies of development.