Abstract
In this paper we explore the contours of a ‘method’ for postcolonial development geography, which makes it possible to imagine another ‘world‐picturing’. We suggest three steps towards such a method. First, we propose that a postcolonial method involves thinking about why we are doing research in the south in the first place; how we come to and produce our questions; and how we analyze and represent our findings based on our subject positionings. Second, that we need to recognize theorization as an inherent part of method, rethink how we currently theorize and reconfigure our methods of theorization to address wider political aims. Problematizing theorization helps challenge the universalism of Eurocentric theories, thus enabling development geography to move towards more decolonized versions and visions. Finally, that this must be accompanied by firmer recognition of our multiple investments – personal, institutional and geopolitical – and how they frame the possibilities for change. These are some possible steps that we think can reconfigure the ‘scholarly track’ that postcolonial development geographers traverse.
Highlights
In this paper we explore the possibility of a „method‟ for postcolonial development geography
A commitment to take up issues raised by those who are researched, a willingness to engage in constructive dialogue that takes into account the conceptual landscape of those with whom we engage, as well as a desire to participate in emancipatory politics are all necessary if we are to get outside of a what Sidaway (2000a:606) terms as Eurocentric „world-picturing‟
In this paper we focus primarily on a postcolonial method for development geography as it arises in fieldwork-based research for a number of reasons
Summary
In this paper we explore the possibility of a „method‟ for postcolonial development geography.1 Recently there has been increasing interest in the potentials that a postcolonial perspective offers geography and its subdisciplines (Nash, 2002; King, 2003; Robinson, 2003; Yeoh, 2003; Radcliffe, 2005). Power et al (2006), for example, suggest that the nexus between development and postcolonialism is a fertile one, which helps to embed postcolonial theory in material practices (Abrahamsen, 2003; McEwan, 2003) while providing an umbrella under which to incorporate (newer?) inductive development theories that have followed the postdevelopment impasse.
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