Common Challenges for All? A Critical Engagement with the Emerging Vision for Post-pandemic Development Studies

Bibliographic Data

ID3884698
AuthorsJörg Wiegratz (0000-0002-3359-1770, University of Johannesburg), Pritish Behuria (0000-0003-3743-2045, University of Johannesburg), Christina Laskaridis (University of Johannesburg), Lebohang Liepollo Pheko (0000-0003-2237-8541, University of Johannesburg), Ben Radley (0000-0001-5474-7036, University of Johannesburg), Sara Stevano (0000-0002-0532-4894, University of Johannesburg)
Year2023
Volume54
Issue5
Pages921-953
Publication date2023-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDevelopment and Change (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0012-155X • E-ISSN: 1467-7660
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/dech.12785
OpenAlexW4386391211
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited106

The COVID-19 pandemic motivated calls for the field of development studies to be recast. This article analyses two prominent, future-gazing 'pandemic papers' to illustrate salient features of the ascendant trend towards a new 'global development' paradigm. By unpacking and interpreting major lines of reasoning put forward by two agenda-setting articles, this contribution appraises how these texts make the case for the future of development studies. Through this analysis, the article questions the core arguments that seek to shift the contours of the discipline, and thus the study of development generally. In making their call to adopt a universalist or global development framework that includes a focus on Europe and North America, the authors of the 'pandemic papers' overlook the Southern origins of and justifications for the North-South framework they seek to overturn. The present article acknowledges the importance of and supports returning to and advancing - rather than jettisoning - the intellectual lineage anchored in non-Truman understandings of development, including as a popular project of Southern emancipation from colonial, imperial and structural subordination. Rather than de-centring the global North-South framework, it suggests that the analytically more useful way forward is for development studies to (re)centre the global South and use global South theories and lenses to better understand the world economy and the majority world

Development theory · Pandemic · Subordination · International Development and Aid · Political Conflict and Governance · Religion, Society, and Development

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access