Enacting the Millennium Development Goals

Political Technologies of Calculation and the Counter-calculation of Poverty in Namibia

Bibliographic Data

ID12716639
AuthorsSuzan Ilcan (0000-0003-3809-261X, University of Waterloo, corresponding author), Anita Lacey (0000-0001-7725-3303, University of Auckland, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume12
Issue4
Pages613-628
Publication date2015-06-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlobalizations (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1474-7731 • E-ISSN: 1474-774X
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14747731.2015.1038095
OpenAlexW2292730172
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited42

This paper advances that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) act as a governmentality that brings with them assemblages of international and national policies and practices of poverty reduction. These assemblages are characterized by neoliberal rationalities that shape relationships and practices with and of the poor themselves by repositioning and deploying the values and norms of the market as the principal means for the establishment of development aid partnerships. Such rationalities, we argue, are exercised through political technologies that make visible and operable certain governing schemes such as calculative practices. Drawing on extensive interview, policy, programme, and archival documents, the paper advances the argument that the MDGs and the national development plan for Namibia, Vision 2030, shape ideas of poverty reduction through political technologies of calculation and via multi-scale partnership arrangements. These technologies emerge from diverse elements, subsume the shaping of social and political spaces, and have diverse effects on the lives of the poor. Our analysis also highlights an approach to poverty reduction in Namibia, that of BIG, a Basic Income Grant scheme. We view BIG as a potential counter-calculation of poverty, and counter-partnership to poverty reduction efforts, which can develop into a more socially just and sustainable means to reduce poverty and lead to an overturn of contemporary neoliberal assemblages of poverty reduction

Argument (complex analysis · Basic needs · Culture of poverty · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · General partnership · Governmentality · Millennium Development Goals · Neoliberalism (international relations · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Poverty · Sociology · Children's Rights and Participation · Human Rights and Development · Law · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare