Power and Visibility: Development and the Invention and Management of the Third World
Author(s): Arturo Escobar
Source: Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Nov., 1988), pp. 428-443
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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Power and Visibility:
Development and the Invention
and Management of the Third World
Arturo Escobar
Latin American Studies Program
Universityof California,Santa Cruz
This articlepresentsin a succinct mannerthe basic argumentand the major
resultsand lines of analysisof a doctoraldissertationon the constitutionof a number of nations (much of Asia, Africa, and Latin America) as "Third World" or
"underdeveloped,"and their treatmentas such thereafter(Escobar 1987). The
studybuilds upon recent work in variousfields on the dynamicsof discourseand
power in the representationof social reality, and examines (1) the conformation
of a new mode of thinkingaboutsocial andeconomic life in those countriesin the
early post-World War 11period;(2) the anchoringof this new mode of thinking
in Westerneconomic practices;and (3) the institutionalpracticesthroughwhich
"development" functions, at the same time enacting the discourse and creating
extendedculturalandsocial relations.Some of these issues will be illustratedwith
the experienceof one country, Colombia. Finally, some conclusions are offered
in relationto anthropology.
The Invention of Development
From 11 July to 5 November of 1949, an economic mission, organizedby
the InternationalBank for Reconstructionand Development (the World Bank),
visited Colombiawith the purposeof formulatinga comprehensivedevelopment
strategyfor the country. It was the first mission of this kind sent by the InternationalBankto an underdevelopedcountry.The Mission included 14 international
advisers in the following fields: foreign exchange; transportation;industryand
energy; highways, railroads, and waterways;community facilities; agriculture;
health and welfare; finance, banking, and nationalaccounts;and petroleumengineering. Workingclosely with the Mission was a similar group of Colombian
advisersand experts.
Here is how the Mission saw its task and, consequently,the characterof the
programproposed:
andinterourtermsof referenceas callingfora comprehensive
Wehaveinterpreted
nally consistentprogram. . . ratherthanmerely a series of disconnectedrecommen428
POWERANDVISIBILITY429
dations. The relationshipsamong various sectors of Colombian economy are very
complex, and intensive analysis of these relationshipshas been necessaryto develop
a consistentpicture. . . . We are not seeking to suggest that a radicallynew orderbe
adoptedby Colombia. On the contrary,we seek only to modify an existing situation,
to shift the emphasis somewhat, and to suggest a multitudeof improvementsand reforms. . . . This, then, is the reason and justificationfor an overall programof development. Piecemeal and sporadic efforts are apt to make little impressionon the
generalpicture. Only througha generalizedattackon the whole economy on education, health, housing, food and productivitycan the vicious circle of poverty, ignorance, ill health and low productivitybe decisively broken. But once the break is
made, the process of economic development can become self-sustaining. [International Bank for Reconstructionand Development 1950:xv]
The program called for a "multitude of improvements and reforms" coverall
ing
aspects of the economy. One of the features most emphasized in the approach was its comprehensive and integrated character. Its comprehensive nature
demanded interventions in all social and economic aspects of importance; careful
planning, organization and allocation of resources, on the other hand, ensured the
integrated character of the program and its successful implementation. The report
(supplemented with ten technical appendices "of interest to specialists") also furnished a detailed set of prescriptions including goals and quantifiable targets, investment needs by sector, design criteria, methodologies, and so on. In short, it
constituted a radically new approach to the management of the social and economic affairs of a country.
This mission to Colombia, however, was only one of the first concrete manifestations of an entirely new strategy for dealing with the perceived problems of
a large number of countries that, after the war, came to be known as "underdeveloped." The aim of all the countries that emerged with this new status in the
global concert of nations was invariably the same: the creation of a society
equipped with the material and organizational factors required to pave the way for
rapid access to the forms of life created by industrial civilization. Articulated
around a fictitious construct ("underdevelopment"), a discourse was produced
that instilled in all countries the need to pursue this goal, and provided for them
the necessary categories and techniques to do so. This discourse emerged and took
definite shape between 1945 and 1955, in the climate of the great postwar transformations, drastically altering the character and scope of the relations between
rich and poor countries and, in general, the very perception of what governments
and societies were to do.
The historical roots of this new strategy ("development") are to be found in
the political rearrangement at the world level that occurred after World War II.
The notions of "underdevelopment" and "Third World" emerged as working
concepts in the process by which the West (and the East) redefined themselves
and the global power structures. ' We cannot analyze here the historical conditions
that made possible the strategy of development; these included the breakdown of
the old colonial systems, changes in the structures of population and production,
the advance of communism in certain parts of the world and the concomitant fear
of communism in the capitalist world; it also included the faith in science and
430 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY
technology, reinvigoratedby the success of the MarshallPlan, new forms of economic knowledge and the developmentof area studies (e.g., "Latin American
Studies"), as well as an enriched experience with the managementof complex
social systems. The end of the war had also confrontedthe advancedcountries,
particularlythe United States, with the need to find overseas investmentopportunitiesand, at the same time, marketsfor theirgoods, a reflectionof the fact that
the productivecapacity of the U.S. industryhad nearly doubled duringthe war
period.Economicdevelopment,tradeliberalizationunderthe aegis of the nascent
giant corporations,and the establishmentof multilateralfinancial institutions
(such as the WorldBank and the InternationalMonetaryFund, foundedin 1944)
wereto be the maininstrumentsto satisfy these requirementsandadvancethe new
strategy.2
Development, however, was not merely the result of these elements, or of
theircombinationand gradualelaboration;nor was it the productof new forms of
knowledge or institutions, nor the response to changes in the conditions of the
dynamicsof capital, or a reflectionof a new sensibility to povertyinternationally
or of the success of the MarshallPlan. It was ratherthe resultof the establishment
of a system thatbroughttogetherall of those elements, institutions,and practices
creatingamong them a set of relationswhich ensuredtheir continuedexistence.
"Development," as a mode of thinkingand a source of practices, soon became
anomnipresentreality.The poorcountriesbecamethe targetof an endless number
of programsandinterventionsthatseemed to be inescapableandthatensuredtheir
control. Everythingthat was importantin the social and economic life of these
countries(theirpopulation,processes of capitalaccumulation,naturalresources,
agricultureand trade, administration,culturalvalues, etc.) became the object of
explicitcalculationby expertsformedin new sciences developedfor thatpurpose,
and the subjectof interventionsdesigned by a vast arrayof newly formed institutions. In a few years, this unprecedentedstrategyextended its reach to all aspects of the social body.
The Professionalization and Institutionalization of Development
The productionand circulationof discoursesis an integralcomponentof the
exercise of power, as contemporaryscholarshave amply demonstrated(see, for
example, Foucault(1980, 1981); Frow (1985); Said (1979)). Developmentitself,
as a discourse,has fulfilledthis role admirably.Two majormechanismshave been
essentialin this regard:
1. The professionalization of development. The concept of professionaliza-
tion refersto a set of techniquesand disciplinarypracticesthroughwhich the generation,diffusion, andvalidationof knowledgeareorganized,managed,andcontrolled;in other words, the process by which a politics of truth is created and
maintained.In the case of development, this was achieved by the applicationof
existing disciplines to ThirdWorld problems, or by the creationof new subdisciplines (developmenteconomics being the most important,as we will see, but
includingalso fields such as health, demography,urbanplanning, education,nu-
POWERAND VISIBILITY 431
tritionalanthropology,etc.). The resultingtheoriessucceeded in conferringupon
situations,behaviors,and so on, a visible realityamenableto specific treatments.
In Latin America, an entire reorganizationof knowledge institutions and
styles took place after 1950 to suit the needs of the developmentaliststates. The
new professionals adopted the empirical social science model of research and
teachingproducedprimarilyin the United States (Fuenzalida1983, 1985). In this
lattercountry, the consolidation of "development studies" in most major universities set into motion a powerful mechanism for producingtruth and norms
aboutthe ThirdWorld. The trainingof ThirdWorld studentsat U.S. and European universities,internationaladvising (such as the WorldBank missions), and
the socializationof professionalsinto the empiricalsocial science model in Third
Worlduniversitieswere importantcomponentsof this professionalizationof development.
2. The institutionalization of development. This mechanism refers to the es-
tablishmentof an institutionalfield in which, and from which, discourses and
techniquesare produced,recorded, stabilized, modified, and put into operation.
The networkof developmentinstitutionsresponsiblefor this effect extends from
internationalorganizations(such as the United Nations and its "technical" agencies), bilateralinstitutions(e.g., the U.S. Agency for InternationalDevelopment)
and voluntary agencies (for instance, CARE) to national, regional, and local
agencies in the ThirdWorld. The knowledge of developmentis utilized by these
institutionsthroughappliedprograms,conferences, expert meetings, consultancies, and so on. By using certain forms of knowledge and producing specific
forms of intervention,these institutionsconstitutea networkthat organizes visibilities and makes the exercise of power possible.
Developmentplanningwas the majortechnique in which processes of professionalizationand institutionalizationconverged. The Basis of a Development
Programfor Colombia, the reportof the World Bank mission of 1949, was the
firstof a long series of plans producedin this countryduringthe past 40 years. A
National Committee on Planning and an Economic Development Commission
were alreadyin place by 1950 and, althoughof modest activities, they gave place
to full-fledgedplanningorganismsin the late 1950s. Regional planningcommissions were also establishedbeginning in the mid-1950s (for example, a regional
development corporationwas established in the fertile Cauca River Valley in
southwesternColombia, with involvementby the WorldBank and the Tennessee
Valley Authority,TVA, and following the TVA model). The lack (sic) of qualified Colombianpersonnel was reflected in the fact that the first plan was elaboratedby a foreign mission, and that nationalplanningbodies were often advised
by foreignexpertsduringthe firsttwo decades of the "age of planning." Colombian studentswere sent to universitiesespecially in the United States, where they
could obtainthe knowledge of the new techniquesandthe frameof mind required
for the new enterprise.3
The plannerand the economist played a special role in the new world of
development. But planning was not just the applicationof a theoreticalknowledge; it was the instrumentthroughwhich economics became useful, linked in a
432 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY
very direct fashion to policy and the state. The developmenteconomist was the
expertpar excellence called upon to producethe most basic truthsabout development. Little by little, so it was thought, underdevelopmentwould yield its secrets to the attentive-and, of course, unprejudicedand objective-gaze of the
economist. In the next section I look brieflyat this peculiarbut powerful figure.
The New Science of Development Economics
Writingin 1979, JohnKennethGalbraithrecalledthe skepticismmanifested
his
by colleagues when he began instructionat Harvardin "the economics of poverty and economic development" in the late 1940s. "As a differentfield of studies"-he concludes-"the special economics of the poor countrieswas held not
to exist" (Galbraith1979:27). By 1955, this situationhad drasticallychanged, to
the point that, to continue with Galbraith'srecollection, "no economic subject
morequickly capturedthe attentionof so many as the rescue of the people of the
poorcountriesfromtheirpoverty" (1979:29). A new field, developmenteconomics, had been bor and took it upon itself to give directionto the entiredevelopment process. To understandthis historicalevent, it is importantto analyze the
conditionsof its coming into being: how it emerged, buildingupon alreadyexisting economic doctrine;how developmenteconomists constructedthe "underdeveloped economy," and how their theories embodied in their discourse features
of the capitalistworldeconomy andthe cultureof the advancedcountries;finally,
what form of prewareconomic discourse did the new science displace or absorb
in the ThirdWorlditself.
As originallyformulated,developmenteconomics was an outgrowthof classical and neoclassical economics. The crisis in the world economy that started
with WorldWarI, however, broughta new set of preoccupationsto the economic
theoryagenda, embodiedchiefly in Keynesianismand a new growtheconomics,
this latterdeveloped in Englandand the United States in the late 1930s and mid1940s. This growth theory was the most importantimmediateprecursorof developmenteconomics. In orderto grow, accordingto this theory, economies must
save and invest a certainproportionof their output.Given a specific level of savings and investment,the actual rate of growth would depend on how productive
the new investmentis. Investment, on the other hand, creates new capacity to
producethatmust be matched, in turn, by increasesin income and new demand.
In this way, economies grow and productionand well-being rise accordingly.All
that is needed is to establish the necessary "savings ratio" that, given certain
productivity,would producethe desiredrateof growthof the gross nationalproduct (GNP).
Development economists trying to apply this theory to "poor" countries
soon foundthatthe level of savings was too limited to sustainthe growthprocess
("savings gap"). They also found a privilegedarenaof investment,one in which
the benefitsof capital accumulationwould be largerthan in any other realm:industrialization.That industrializationwas the key to developmentwas "clear as
daylight," as a pioneer development economist, W. A. Lewis, wrote in 1946
POWERAND VISIBILITY 433
referringto Jamaica'sindustrializationprogram(quotedin Meier 1984:143). Industrializationwould not only pave the way for growthand the modernizationof
the backwardeconomies, but also for spreadingamong the local populationsthe
properrationality,that is, for "traininglabor and accustomingit to factory discipline," as Lewis put it (in Meier 1984:143). It would also be the best way for
drawinginto moreproductiveactivitythe largemasses of surpluspopulation(sic),
wastingthemselves away in the countrysideunderterriblyinefficientconditions,
and for becoming more competitive in internationaltrade. The actual mannerin
which industrializationwas going to happenconstitutedthe core of most developmentmodels formulatedin the 1950s. Planningwas called for since industrializationwould not happenspontaneously;foreign aid, loans, and investmentwere
necessaryto fill the "savings gap" andbringin neededtechnologies. Some economists believed that a big initial effort was necessary to breakthe vicious circle
of poverty, low productivity,lack of capitaland so on. But all of them agreedthat
the taskwas manageable,andthatthe backwardeconomies could be modernized,
if sufficientcapitaland the right technologies could be secured.4
Prewareconomic discoursein LatinAmericawas of a quite differentnature.
Economicdiscourseuntilthen was closer to the 19th-centuryessay, in which economic, social, andpolitical factorswere inseparable,thanto empiricaleconomics
or sociology introducedthere after 1950. Changes had occurred, of course, especially in the 1920s and 1930s, that preparedthe groundfor developmenteconomics (the remnantsof positivism, and the growing industrialclass, resultof the
firstdecades of "modernization"and industrialization).But even the proposals
put forth by those somewhat imbued in the new scientific spirit were strikingly
differentfromthose to be knownafterthe inceptionof development.In Colombia,
this was true until the arrival of the first World Bank mission in 1949. What
changed, afterthe war, was the very system of formationof economic discourse.
Throughoutthis period, a new structurewas laid down that united a theoretical
corpus (developmenteconomics), a numberof practices (e.g., policy and planning), and internationaland nationalorganizations,making possible the articulation of a new economic discourse upon a set of political and economic events.
In this way, a system came into being thattransformedthe way in which objects,
concepts, and strategieswere formedin economic discourse. Moreover,economics was called upon to lead the effort to reformunderdevelopedsociety, bringing
with it an entirelydifferentway of conceiving economic and social life. And from
this privileged place, economics was to pervade the entire practice of development.
Food and Nutrition Planning: A Paradigmatic Case
in the Functioning of Development
We should now illustratebrieflyhow "development" embodies a regime of
practices.To examine developmentis to examine practicesabout specific problems that emerge from existing theories and institutionalapparatuses,not independentfrom them. In this section, I will exemplify the way in which a specific
434 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY
corpusof rationaltechniquesorganizes both a type of knowledge and a type of
power, relatingone to the other, in the constructionof one particularproblem:the
problemof hunger.
For 40 years, strategies to combat malnutritionand hunger in the Third
World have succeeded one another, in spite of the persistence of the problems
they are supposed to eradicate. Until 1970, malnutritionhad been attributedin
varyingdegree to inadequatefood production,health care, sanitationand education, but generallythese causes were treatedin an isolated fashion. The failureof
past efforts-including grandiose strategies such as the Green Revolution-led
to the belief, in the early 1970s, thatonly a comprehensiveandintegratedstrategy
coulddeal successfullywith the complex factorsinvolved in the causationof malnutritionand hunger.Accordingto the new theory, food and nutritionpolicy had
to be an integralpartof nationaldevelopment,and take into accountall the major
aspectsrelatedto the system regulatingfood and nutrition:food supply (production, prices, importsand exports, etc.), food demand(income, food habits, education, subsidies), and the biological utilizationof food (health, environmental
factors, age, sex, and so on). Once again, althoughfor the firsttime in nutrition,
planningwas called for. Moreover, it was recognized explicitly that a new discipline was needed.
The discipline was christened Food and Nutrition Policy and Planning
(FNPP). How this strategyarose in the early 1970s, flourishedand finally was
eclipsed in less thanten years, and how it originateda whole body of knowledge,
endless programsand new institutionsin the ThirdWorld, alteringexisting social
relations, constitutes a prime example of how development works. A meeting
held in 1971 at MIT "first served to focus internationalattentionon the need for
special attention to nutritionpolicy and planning activities" (Scrimshaw and
Wallerstein1982:xiii). The discipline crystallizedformally with the publication
of two volumes in 1973, one of which was based on the 1971 MIT conference
(Berg 1973; Berg, Scrimshaw,and Call 1973), and at least six othervolumes and
innumerablespecialized studies andjournalarticleswere publishedon FNPP beforethe discipline'sdemise in 1982.5In the fall of 1972, an InternationalNutrition
PlanningProgramwas initiated at MIT with funds from the Rockefeller Foundation and the U.S. Agency for InternationalDevelopment (USAID). The program broughttogetherfor the first time naturalscientists, engineers, and social
scientists to discuss the problemsof food and nutritionin the Third World. By
1975, governmentsandinternationalorganizationshad alreadyidentifiedresearch
and trainingin FNPP as a majorpriority;special programswere established in
several universitiesin the United States and England, where scores of students
fromall over the world were trainedin the new discipline.
In the same vein, the Inter-AgencyProject for the Promotionof National
Food andNutritionPolicies (PIA/PNAN)had been set up in 1971 in LatinAmerica by several United Nations agencies. The PIA/PNAN was the agency responsible for disseminatingthe new doctrine in Latin America. Armed with a voluminous methodologicalguide for the formulationof nationalfood and nutrition
plans, this agency was soon active in advisinggroupsof plannersandnutritionists
POWERAND VISIBILITY 435
in manycountrieson how to go aboutdoing so. Alreadyin 1973, a groupof young
Colombianplannerspresentedat a PIA/PNANregionalmeeting in Lima the basis
of what was going to be the firstcomprehensivenationalfood and nutritionplan
in LatinAmerica.The plan was approvedby the highestauthoritiesin government
two yearslater, and its implementationbegan in 1976, paid for by the Colombian
governmentand by loans from the World Bank, the CanadianInternationalDevelopment Agency, and USAID. Similar plans were soon developed in many
othercountriesof Latin America and Asia.
The ColombianNationalFood and NutritionPlan (NFNP) includeda host of
programsthat sought to affect the majorcomponentsof the "food system." All
programswere carefully targetedto reach the most affected population. Socioeconomic data on all municipalitiesof the country were gatheredand systematized, with a scope and sophisticationunprecedentedin the country,especially to
suit the demandsof World Bank missions. The Plan included a strategyof integrated rural development, focused on small farmers, and a variety of applied
health, nutrition,and food programs(primaryhealth care, nutritioneducation,
food stamps, family gardens, etc.). It would be impossible to analyze here the
plan itself, but we would like to highlight several generalfeaturesof attemptsof
this naturein our examinationof developmentpolicy practices.
Often times, as in the case of nutrition,a first step is the creationof a subdisciplinethat, in turn,requiresa special institutionalapparatus.The demarcation
of fields and their assignmentto experts is, of course, not new; it is a significant
featureof the rise and consolidationof the moder state. Whatshould be emphasized, however, is how institutionsutilize a set of practicesin the constructionof
theirproblemsthroughwhich they controlpolicy themes, enforceexclusions, and
affect social relations. Problems emerge from these subdisciplinesand apparatuses in ways in which they can be handled. One such practice, for instance, is
the productionof labels ("small farmers," "illiteratepeasants," "pregnantand
lactatingwomen," etc.) which the appropriateprogramswould treatand reform.
These labels-and, in general, the professional discourses that sustain theminevitably structurethe encounter of the organizationand its "clients" (e.g.,
peasants)in such a way thatthe latter'slocal realityis transcendedand elaborated
upon by the former. In the process, peasants are organizedby the development
apparatusas producers,or as elements to be displaced, or modernized,or "integrated" into the nationaleconomy. In other words, they are managedand controlled, obliged to maneuverwithin the limits posed by the institutions.6
Politicaleconomists, who explain the crisis of food productionin the Third
World-and its concomitant manifestations, chiefly poverty and hunger-in
terms of the laws of motion of capital at the world scale, argue that the total or
of the peasantrywas a necessaryconsequenceof the patpartialproletarianization
ternof capitalistdevelopmentadoptedafterthe Second WorldWar;they maintain
thatit was necessaryto turnthe peasantryinto a source of cheap laborfor capital
accumulationto take place (see, for example, Barkin 1987; de Janvry 1981). It
should be pointed out, however, that while capitalismin the peripheryrequires
the continuoussupply of cheap food and cheap labor, it has been development
436 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY
thathas broughtthe peasantryto a prominentrole in the fulfillmentof those conditionsthroughthe series of discoursesand programsproducedto deal with their
reality. The peasants'world is largely organizedby professionalinstitutionsand
practices.The latterinterpenetratethe former,coordinatingsocial relationsin the
countryside(e.g., between peasants, commercial agriculture,agribusinesscorporations),implicatingother types of relations(e.g., gender), and renderingaccountablethe interactionsamongall these actorsonly throughthe set of categories
originatedin professionaldiscourse. What emerges is a view of the "malnourished" or "illiterate peasant" as a problem to be eradicatedthrougheffective
development (e.g., the "Green Revolution" or "Integrated Rural Development"). Needless to say, one never finds in these accountsconsiderationgiven to
peasants'struggles, to cultureor resistance.These items are blocked by the configurationachievedby the developmentapparatus.
Colombia's integratedruraldevelopmentprogram-one of the key componentsof the NFNP-introduced a new style of interactionbetween local field personnel (extension workers, health workers, planners)and various categories of
small farmers.These interactionsare automaticallystructuredby the bureaucratic
operationsof the institutionsinvolved that, in turn,organizetheiractivitieson the
basis of the FNPP/ruraldevelopmentdiscourseproducedprimarilyby the World
Bankand a few universitiesin the United States and Europe.Similarly,the interactionbetweenthe nationalplannersin Bogota andthe WorldBankis conditioned
by the need to obtainfundingand, so, structuredby WorldBankroutines.A very
concrete result of these operationshas been a significant redefinitionand rearrangementof the structuresof the Colombian agrariansector. This result is of
course seen as the logical and generally desirable outcome of rationalpractices
that, in this way, go for the most partunchallenged.WhatI wantto emphasizeis
thatthese practicesare not only deeply political, having a very real effect on people, but also thatthey have to be renderedvisible if we areto understandthe functioning of developmentprogramsas techniquesof power and knowledge and to
pursuealternativeconceptualizationsand practices.
Most of the plans producedunderthe spell of FNPP discourse were being
dismantledby the early 1980s (conveniently, two books, one writtenby a senior
World Bank official and the other preparedfor the World Bank by a group of
HarvardandStanfordprofessors,closed the cycle andopeneda new one, this time
with emphasis on more pragmatic,less encompassingpolicy. See Berg (1981),
Timmer,Falcon, and Pearson(1983)). We contend that the case of FNPP is exemplaryof how development works. Subdisciplines with their respective programs aboundin all fields of development. We discussed in some detail one of
the dominantfields, namely, developmenteconomics, and an importantsubdiscipline, FNPP. Similar inquiries may be conducted in other fields as part of a
broaderresearchstrategythatseeks to understandthe mappingof the ThirdWorld
in the post-World War II period.
Anthropologizing the West: Ethnography of Resistance,
Development, and the Western Economy
To provide a more complete account of development, however, it is not
enough to study this process from 1945 onward. Development is linked to other
POWERAND VISIBILITY 437
phenomenaexisting priorto its invention. One must deal in particularwith the
formationof Westerneconomic practicesandrationality-those we have become
accustomedto associate with Homo Oeconomicus-and their extension to the
ThirdWorld, since it was these practicesthatprovidedthe fabricfor development
economics in the firstplace.7
Colombiansociologist OrlandoFals Borda describes an incident that took
place in the Tierrasde Lobaof the AtlanticCoast region of Colombia, propitiated
by the first U.S. companies to enter the region. Among the many practicesthat
these companies introducedwas the use of barbwire, an apparentlyinocuous
event thatneverthelesshad great significancefor the local population:
It is knownthatthe foreignerswere adamantlyopposedto the communaluse of lands,
which was a substantialpart of local culturalidentity and the local economy...
Moreover,they introducedthe use of barbwire(broughtfirstto the countrybetween
1875 and 1880), fostering its use as a rationaland naturalpractice for agricultural
production.This practice, however, was particularlyupsetting to the peasants of
Loba, whose rationalityand survivallogic was quite different;this irritationincreased
even more when they saw theircommunallands andtheircustomarypathscrossed by
fences, supposedly in defense of the sacrosanctprinciple of private property. [Fals
Borda 1984:172B]
In anotherstudy of contemporaryculturalresistancein western Colombia,
anthropologistMichael Taussig provides an interpretationof certain practices
throughwhich
Peasantsrepresentas vividly unnatural,even as evil, practicesthatmost of us in commodity-basedsocieties have come to accept as naturalin the everyday workings of
our economy, and thereforeof the world in general. This representationoccurs only
when they are proletarianizedand refers only to the way of life that is organizedby
capitalistrelations of production. It neither occurs in nor refers to peasant ways of
life. [Taussig 1980:3]
These practices,associatedwith certaindevil beliefs, emerge, accordingto Taussig, as a response of the peasants' precapitalistorientationto the experience of
commodificationthat they increasingly have to face. In a similar vein, several
authorshave studiedresistancein otherareas, for instance, the persistenceof "petit-commodity"productionin Guatemalaas an alternativeto fully capitalistproduction, the ways in which Andeanpeoples have defendedtheir communitiesin
the face of commercialand capitalistintrusion,and so on (Mallon 1983; C. Smith
1984).
The responsesgiven by ThirdWorldcommunitiesto the spreadof capitalism
have thus become recently an importantanthropologicalconcern. A series of
works concernedwith the questionof resistancehave appearedin which investigation of historical process, social practice, and symbolic mediation are interwoven in orderto accountfor such responses(see, besides the worksby Taussig,
Fals Borda, and Smith cited above, Comaroff (1985), Nash (1979), and Scott
(1985). For a review of this trend in anthropology, see Marcus and Fischer
(1986:chapt.4) and Escobar(1988)). But this phenomenonshouldbe understood
438 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY
in its broadestsense, namely, as the creation, in moder culture, of a producing
subjectcharacterizedby a given behaviorand immersedin certainpractices.This
entailsthatwe examinecapitalismnot only in the sense of production,as narrowly
definedby political economy, but ratheras a manifestationof what can perhaps
be called the WesternEconomy, understoodas the ensembleof threesystems that
coalesced at the end of the 18thcenturyin northwesternEurope:a system of production(broadly,the capitalistworld economy), a system of power (disciplinary
and normalizingmechanisms), and a system of signification(ideology, science,
and representation,includingphilosophicalcurrentssuch as liberalismand utilitarianism,and a dominantcode articulatedaroundthe notions of labor and production). Only in this way can we graspthe natureof the WesternEconomy and
the significanceof its extension to the rest of the world.
An investigationof this nature8shows thatit was only througha slow process
thattoday's dominanteconomic practicesbecame the common propertyof communitiesin Westernsocieties, that they came to be seen as normal, transparent
ways of behavingand acting. It is precisely these practicesandrationalitythatare
now being introducedin the ThirdWorld throughdevelopmentin a scale larger
thanever before. Developmenthas become the grandstrategythroughwhich the
transformation
of the not-yet-too-rationalLatinAmerican/ThirdWorldsubjectivis
to
be
In this way, long-standingculturalpracticesandmeaningsachieved.
ity
as well as the social relationsin which they are embedded-are altered.The consequences of this are enormous, to the extent that the very basis of community
aspirationsand desires is modified. Thus the effect of the introductionof developmenthas to be seen not only in terms of its social and economic impact, but
also, andperhapsmore importantly,in relationto the culturalmeaningsandpractices they upset or modify.
In this way, an analysis of the WesternEconomy as an ensemble of systems
of production,power, and significationcan be useful in relatingthe critiqueof
economics in the West to the aforementionedanthropologicalconcerns. Certain
types of social dominancemay then be analyzed as the productof the interconnectionbetweenthe introductionof dominantdiscoursesaboutthe economy, their
inscriptionin institutionsandpractices(e.g., throughdevelopment),and theireffect on local historicalsituations,includingthe resistanceto these processes. This
strategywould be useful not only to "anthropologizethe West"-in the sense
given to it by Rabinow, that is, of revealing the historicalcharacterof those domainsmost takenfor grantedand universalin the West, such as epistemologyand
economics (Rabinow 1986:241)-but also for understandingbetterthe geo-culturaldistributionof identity and difference and its implications in terms of the
materialand culturalrelationsamong differentpeoples.
After all, the anthropologyof modernity,as Foucaulthas shown,9is that of
Homo Oeconomicus,the subjectthatseeks certaintyis the disciplinedindividual,
the orderachievedis the orderof a given rationalityand laws of capital. Modernity as such thus remainsprimarilya Europeanexperience that has sought to become universal.Not in vain do the most hopeful currentcritiquesof development
addressexplicitly the questionsof subjectivity,knowledge, andpower. These cri-
POWERAND VISIBILITY 439
tiques are fueling a growing number of social movements that reject the economistic character of development, are deeply aware of other concerns (ecological,
and those of peace and of women and indigenous peoples), and seek to use local
knowledge to shift the existing architecture of power. It is in the vitality of these
new movements that the dissolution of a 40-year-old development apparatus, already beginning to crumble but still in place, and the coming of a new era, more
pluralistic and less oppressive, can be visualized. '
Notes
'On the origins of the notions of "development" and "ThirdWorld," see Ardnt(1981),
Binder (1986), Mintz (1976), Pletsch (1981), Wallerstein(1984), and Worsley (1984).
Valuablecritiquesof developmentsomewhatrelatedto thatofferedherearefoundin Gendzier (1985) and Morande(1983).
2Thehistoricaland political context in which development arose is well summarizedin
Gendzier(1985); see also Chomsky(1987), Little (1982), Meier (1984), and Seers (1982).
3Themost importantforeign advisersor missions to Colombianplanningorganismshave
been:L. Currie/WorldBank, 1949; A. Hirschman,early 1950s; Lebret, 1957; Watterson/
WorldBank, 1963-64; a Harvardmission, 1960-70; a UnitedNations (CEPAL)mission,
1959-62; D. Avramovic/WorldBank, 1970; D. Seers/ILO, 1970. All these missions had
a majorrole in the formulationof Colombia's developmentplans. Besides these "grand"
missions, innumerablemissions and advisers have visited the countryas experts or consultantson a short-termbasis.
4Someof the models proposedduringthe 1950s were those by Nurkse (capitalformation
and "balancedgrowth" as a means to breakthroughthe "vicious circle of poverty"), W.
A. Lewis (with his well-known "dual economy" model), P. RosensteinRodan (who emphasizeda "big push" in investmentto mobilize the ruralunderemployedfor industrialization), H. Liebenstein(who postulatedthe existence of a "low-level equilibriumtrap"),
A. Hirschman(with his emphasis on "backwardand forwardlinkages" in the industrialization process). Rostow's famous Stages of Economic Growth (Rostow 1960) in many
ways crownedthese efforts. The best paperswrittenin the 1950s on economic development
are found in Agarwalaand Singh (1958). Some of the early theories are also discussed in
Meier (1984) and Seers and Meier (1984).
5Theworks on FNPP cited here do not include the copious literatureon the strategy of
"integratedruraldevelopment" (IRD), launchedby the WorldBank in 1973. The rhetoric
and practiceof IRD are also examinedclosely in my dissertation(Escobar 1987).
6Analysesof developmentpolicy and planningas a regime of practicesare found in Clay
and Shaffer (1984) and Wood (1985). Smith has developed a powerful methodology for
investigatinginstitutionalpracticesas constitutiveof social relations(see D. Smith 1974,
1984, 1986). An applicationof Smith's methodthat also uses the critiqueof development
in terms of discourse and practices is found in Mueller (1986, 1987). See also Escobar
(1984-85).
7Inotherwords, we shouldundertakea "genealogy of development," in Foucault'ssense.
A succinct statementon the natureof genealogy is found in Foucault (1985:3-24). The
440 CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
constitutionof the WesternEconomy and its extension to the rest of the world has to be
seen, as I contendin my dissertation,as an essentialpartof this genealogy of development.
8Thesignpostsfor an investigationof the WesternEconomyin termsof production,power,
and significationhave alreadybeen developed in contemporaryscholarshipby a handful
of authors(chiefly K. Polanyi, J. Schumpeter,F. Braudel, L. Dumont, M. Foucault, I.
Wallerstein,J. Baudrillard,P. Clastres). This argumentis developed fully in my dissertation,basedon the worksof these authorsandon those of severalhistoriansof capitalism.
9"Whatis centralis that at the beginningof the nineteenthcenturya new arrangementof
knowledge was constituted,which accommodatedsimultaneouslythe historicityof economics (in relationto the forms of production),the finitudeof humanexistence (in relation
to scarcityand labour),and the fulfillmentof an end to history-whether in the form of an
indefinitedecelerationor in that of a radicalreversal. History, anthropologyand the suspensionof developmentare all linkedtogetherin accordancewith a figurethatdefines one
of the majornetworksof nineteenthcentury thought . . . nineteenthcenturyeconomics
will be referredto an anthropologyas to a discourseon man's naturalfinitude" (Foucault
1970:262, 257). This, for Foucault, defines modernity,with its analytic of finitude, and
"the articulationof economics upon history" (1970:255). See also Vint (1986).
Critiquesof the notions of scarcity and rationalityin economics are found in Caille
(1986) and Stikkers(1985).
'?Initialreflectionon these new grass-rootssocial movementsare found in Esteva (1987),
Falk (1987), Fals Borda (1985, 1988), Kothari(1984, 1987), Nandy (1987), Rahnema
(1986, 1988), Sheth (1984, 1987), Shiva (1986). These works are summarizedand elaboratedupon in the conclusion of my dissertation.
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