The Dissemination of Development

Abstract

In this paper I consider the ways in which discourses of development enframe postcolonial Africa. The dissemination of development is discussed in three principal ways. First, constructions of national identities and of the nation-state and their dissemination through development discourse is considered. Second, the textual dissemination of meaning through the process of writing development is explored with specific reference to Hegel's writings on the principle of development. Third, the dissemination of historical and geographical worlds through discourses of development is considered with the continued durability of the idea of three worlds as the key focal point of discussion. I formulate an antidevelopment incite which attempts to disrupt the enframing of postcolonial Africa through ‘Western’ discourses of development. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the worlds of development have proven so persistent, and of the implications for a more radical ‘post-colonial’ development geography.