Decolonizing Knowledge: From Development to Dialogue (WIDER Studies in Development Economics) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198288840 ISBN 13: 9780198288848

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 1996

Synopsis

Development failures, environmental degradation and social fragmentation can no longer be regarded as "side effects." They are the toxic consequences of pretensions that the modern Western view of knowledge is a universal neutral view, applicable to all people at all times. This work argues that the linear evolutionary paradigm of development emerging from the modern Western view of knowledge is a contemporary form of colonialism. The work proposes a pluralistic vision and a decolonization of knowledge: the replacement of one-way transfers of knowledge and technology by dialogue and mutual learning. It will be of interest to scholars of development studies, sociology, and anthropology.

About this title

About the Author

Frédérique Appfel Marglin is at Smith College, Massachusetts. Stephen A. Marglin is at Harvard University.

From the Back Cover

Development failures, environmental degradation, and social fragmentation can no longer be regarded as side-effects or 'externalities'. They are the toxic consequences of pretensions that the modern Western view of knowledge is a universal neutral view, applicable to all people at all times. The very word 'development' and its cognates 'underdevelopment' and 'developing' confidently mark the 'first world' as the future of the 'third'. This book argues that the linear evolutionary paradigm of development that comes out of the modern Western view of knowledge is a contemporary form of colonialism. The authors - covering topics as diverse as the theory of knowledge underlying the work of John Maynard Keynes, what the renowned British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane was looking for when he migrated to India, and the knowledge of Mexican and Indian peasants - propose a pluralistic vision and a decolonization of knowledge: the replacement of one-way transfers of knowledge and technology by dialogue and mutual learning.

Edition details

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0198288840
• ISBN 13: 9780198288848
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 406
• Editor: Apffel-Marglin Frédérique, Marglin Stephen A.