[On September this year, I was so lucky to be granted a scholarship to participate in a Conference and PhD Workshop with PhD students from the Nordic, Baltic, and Russian universities for the period 5-9 November 2006 at the University of Turku, Finland. But due to some frustrating complications regarding my immigration status here in Estonia, I have sent my letter of regret to the conference organisers that I cannot make it to Finland this time. This sad news comes today, the 14th anniversary of my father's death. A part of my long time plan seems to have died as well. Well, life is...life! And I know that this frustrating experience is telling me something -- some of life's lessons that must be instilled in me. A good game continues. Nevertheless, below is a copy of the paper which I submitted to the workshop organisers a few weeks ago. This is a proofread version of the one I earlier submitted to the organisers, which is also available on-line at the conference organiser's website.]
DEVELOPMENT AS A ‘SOCIAL RELATION’ IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
Reflections on the Methodologies of Post-structuralism for Critical Development Studies*
BONN JUEGOb
Reflections on the Methodologies of Post-structuralism for Critical Development Studies*
BONN JUEGOb
The good is the most accurate measure of all things.
Aristotle, Politikos
Aristotle, Politikos
Introduction
Social sciences today – its associated theories, methodologies, spatial-temporal boundedness, and vocabularies – is being reconfigured by, if not under assault from, multiple hegemonising intellectual currents: from the fad of post-structuralist sensibility, to the project of ‘social sciences colonisation by economics’. Post-structuralism poses a great challenge to the sacrosanct values and assumptions of the disciplines under the social sciences, namely: anthropology, psychology, history, sociology, politics, and geography. Proponents of these respective disciplines have responded to the post-structuralist current in various ways. While some have launched ruthless criticisms against it in defense of their disciplines, some have either wholeheartedly or partially incorporated it in their discipline. For almost half a century now since post-structuralism assumed prominence, the field of economics seems to be untouched from the theoretical challenges posed on by Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. This is rather ironic, especially that a careful understanding of the post-structuralist methodologies (i.e., not simply looking at the conventional understanding on its disregard for ‘systems’ as well as its privileging of contingency over historical causality) would pose a great theoretical challenge to the hegemony of neo-classical economics. In particular, Derrida’s ‘deconstruction’ and Foucault’s ‘power-knowledge’ nexus would certainly empower the counter-hegemonic (ideological) potentials of proponents of alternative development to the dominant model by current mainstream (mathematical, neo-classical) approach to economics.
Academic disciplines are always for someone and for some purpose. In this case, development studies are commonly understood to be carried out for the development of the developing world. The general social sciences discourse on post-structuralism has tremendous implications for development studies and area studies as sub-disciplines of the social sciences – in particular, to the search for context-specific development prescriptions for the Third World countries in Southeast Asia under conditions of globalising capitalism.
This essay reflects upon the usefulness of specific post-structuralist methodologies for development studies, viewed from a critical perspective. First, it sketches out ways on how Derrida’s methodology of ‘deconstruction’ and Foucault’s idea on the inescapable link between power and knowledge could be conducive to a critique on the dominant discourse of the neo-liberal development paradigm. In doing so, it could reveal a reality in the history of economic development that has been concealed through the years by the neo-classical economists and neo-liberal forces in order to impose their authority and hegemony. Second, it provides an account for critical development studies to recognise specificities of social situations – specifically, the combined and uneven character of development in Southeast Asia at this historical moment of the universalisation of capitalism that would require distinct development strategies from society to society in the region. Third, it outlines an example of a development studies research that recognises the usefulness of specific post-structuralist methodologies, yet viewed from critical, historical, and inter-disciplinary perspectives in understanding development as a ‘social relation’. Finally, it concludes with a progressive challenge to development studies, as well as an appropriate classical reminder from the Greeks that a theory’s basic focus must be on the lucrative, the conducive, and the good life.
Deconstructing the Mainstream, Revealing the Power Behind the Development Model
Today’s dominant development model – as prescribed by rich economies and by multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to the Third World – is founded on neo-classical economics that essentially frames the neo-liberal policies of an open market economy through privatisation, deregulation, liberalisation, and the pursuit of global competitiveness since the crises of the 1970s. One of the great-unconsummated theoretical projects for development studies today, if it is to be a tool to usher in real development to the Third World, is the deconstruction of this mainstream, standard textbook economics, as well as the exposition of the power behind its rise to hegemony.
Derrida’s Deconstruction for Development
In the utilisation of the methodology of Derrida’s deconstruction, one does not create a new reality. Rather, one highlights the reality that has been present from the very beginning. In this sense, development studies have to rediscover the contributing factors to development that have been marginalised through the years. Therefore, an essential task for an alternative development economics as a constitutive discipline of development studies is to understand the history of economic development. That is to say, development is to be seen as a process of cumulative causations which are the joint effects of factors excluded by the neo-classical equilibrium metaphors, namely: [i] qualitative difference between economic activities (across and within manufacturing, services, and agriculture); [ii] diversity (the degree of division of labour); [iii] synergies (linkages and clusters between manufacturing, services, and agriculture sectors); [iv] institutions (to safeguard the common good); and [v] novelty (significance of innovation, learning, and science). This will, in turn, discard the mother of all assumptions in neo-classical economics: the assumption of no diversity and no qualitative difference in economic activities; hence the equilibrium metaphor that portrays the market as a mechanism creating automatic harmony.
Using the method of deconstruction this way thus challenges the neo-classical economics’ view on science as ‘a compression of reality’. It does so by focusing on the relevant factors that led to the economic development of rich countries in history. In the end, the theory is to be shaped by reality; instead of the vicious propensity of mainstream economists to shape reality on the terms of neo-classical economics. The foremost interest for theorising would therefore be ‘the economy’ as a real object with people’s lives as its real subject, more than merely the abstracts of ‘economics’.
Foucault’s Power-Knowledge Nexus on the Development Discourse
This deconstruction of the mainstream development paradigm has to be extended to an understanding of the politics behind the emergence of neo-liberal policies, which is patterned after the ideology of mathematics-based neo-classical economics, to be the dominant development paradigm for several decades now. Here, Foucault’s approach to knowledge claims would be very useful to development studies. For Foucault, it is not only the case that knowledge is power; but power is knowledge as well. In particular, knowledge about development is not only a question of epistemology or rationality, but of ‘authority’ to impose one’s will to power.
At least three inter-related, reinforcing factors can be attributed to the project of neo-classical economists and neo-liberals to create the conditions for their hegemony. First, the pro-capitalist political forces in the West during the Cold War found ideological refuge to the factor-price equalisation theorem (which ‘proof’ is based on scientific mathematics) of the most prominent neo-classical economics figure, Paul Samuelson, that under the capitalist system wages in the world will eventually converge in which all wage earners will become rich. This became the West’s ideological counter-offensive against the communists’ promise that everyone will receive according to his/her needs. Second, this has had since led to the essentialism of mathematics in the field of economics in general, and hence reducing the scientific as well as the social-historical into mere quantitative abstractions. Third, the recent emphasis put on ‘social capital’ by the proponents of neo-liberalism aimed at colonising the social sciences. ‘Social capital’ entails non-market responses to market imperfections. It therefore enlarges the circuit of ‘capital’ to include and incorporate in it ‘social’ variables – such as the state, civil society, institutions, and trade unions – that are traditionally outside mainstream economics.
Specificities of Southeast Asian Development: Combined, Yet Uneven
Regional dynamic of contemporary Southeast Asia is, as ever, marked by national differences on levels of economic development, characteristics of political regimes, and diversities of culture. The combined and uneven character of development in the region suggests that there are still pre-capitalist relations coexisting with features of modern capitalism in almost all of the countries. For instance, the persistence of constitutional monarchies in Brunei, Cambodia, and Thailand; of pre-capitalist relations in the states of Malaysia; and of political power rooted in land ownership in the Philippines as well as of conflicts over land. Alongside the universalising tendencies of neo-liberal policies, there exist actually resisting forces in defense of the locale.
Born out of the crisis of the 1970s, a neo-liberal global political economy has evolved, restructuring the impoverished domestic political economies in Southeast Asia which were vulnerable to the constraints and pressures imposed upon by the oil crisis, the internationalisation of financial markets, and the structural adjustment programmes attached as conditionalities to the heavily-indebted Third World. This new configuration of capitalism has dramatically reorganised production through the intensification of new technologies and the introduction of financial innovations.
While development is a universal ideal, the strategies needed to realise it would depend on the specific economic, political, and cultural contexts from society to society within the region in a particular historical moment. Mindful of the historical and social specificities of development strategies, the respective societies then have to collectively define their understanding and their meaning of development. This premise is essential to development studies, if it is to be serious in its social task of ushering in real development to the Third World.
The following section is a sample research project for a particular kind of development studies in Southeast Asia that is founded on the theoretical premises outlined above. It views development as a ‘social relation’, in which the political, economic, and cultural spheres are organically connected in search of social development. As such, it has an inter-disciplinary and a critical approach to the question of development in Southeast Asia. Its ultimate goal is to examine the coherent fit not simply between ‘politics’ and ‘economics’, but especially on the appropriate institutional fit between ‘the polity’ and ‘the economy’ that could potentially uplift the lives of the peoples of developing Southeast Asia.
Progressive Potentials, Regressive Realities: A Critical Political Economy Approach to a Social Innovation System in Southeast Asia
Perhaps a great paradox that lies at the heart of the intensification of technological innovation depicted in the information and communications technology (ICT) revolution as the enduring techno-economic paradigm is that of technology's progressive potentials, on the one hand, and of regressive social realities, on the other. While it can be said that the intensification of the wealth-creating power of technology comes at a time when material inequality in the world is increasing, the apparent phenomenon that of technology becoming a source of perpetuation of this regressive reality is yet another contradiction. The research thus attempts to investigate this conundrum: Why, despite its progressive potentials, technology is resulting in regressive socio-economic realities? And it runs the hypothesis: That the progressive potential of technological innovation is regressively constrained by its dependence on the capitalist, neo-liberal market.
The research explores a ‘critical political economy approach to social innovation system’ that critiques the disembedding of the market from the society, on the one hand, and that attempts to offer an alternative through a progressive project of re-embedding the market forces to the society, on the other. It does so in three inter-related general sections. First, it lays down propositions for ‘a critical political economy approach to social innovation system’. This critical political economy approach improvises from the established national innovation system (NIS) approaches of the Freeman-Lundvall-Nelson persuasion, with emphasis on the developmental needs of the developing countries and the indispensable role of the workers; and the Other Canon reality economics, which is mindful of the intrinsic uneven character of economic development and the need to find alternative, innovative responses relative to specific social situations. Second, it examines the contradictions of the progressive-potential-but-regressive-reality characteristic of today's techno-economic paradigm by juxtaposing the promises of technological innovation vis-à-vis its capitalist market-dependent nature under conditions of neo-liberal globalisation. Finally, an alternative ‘social innovation system’ is being proposed, deriving the alternatives from the very structural contradictions of market-dependence (i.e., the internal logic of the capitalist market competition itself) that constrains the progressive potentials of technological innovation, and not merely out of normative or ethical prescriptions that are devoid of reality. It is exploring the necessary structure conducive for real development, a development as a social relation where ‘the economic’, ‘the political’, ‘the cultural’, ‘the ecological’, ‘the ideational’, and all the other spheres of social life are organically connected to – not separate from – one another. In particular, it is examining the coherent institutional fit and synergy for development among three organically connected spheres in the society: [a] state form, or government structures and systems (the political); [b] economic policies on the relationship among the factors of production (capital, labour, and technology) and the relationship between financial capital and production capital, which will include an investigation of the appropriateness of the stock market as the financial system for innovation and industry (the economic); and [c] system of ideas and values, which will include a critique on and an alternative to the defunct assumptions of neo-classical economics and the outmoded values of neo-liberalism (the cultural). This proposed alternative recognises the fact that the combined and uneven character of development that characterises the geographical landscape of contemporary global political economy would require different innovation strategies and economic policies from society to society in Southeast Asia in pursuit of real development, a qualitative improvement to the lives of the multitude.
The research hopes to immensely contribute to the inescapable link between theory construction and policy advice for real development. In terms of policy, the research will not only reveal the wounds of modernity – the widening social divisions and increasing poverty – that are just sealed, and not healed, amidst the tremendous productive capability of technological innovation; but also the exploration of the necessary synergy among political economic institutions and policies in pursuit of alternative development strategies. And in terms of theory, it hopes to contribute not only to the reconstruction of the theory of uneven development in particular, but to the broader debate, argument, and communication of innovative findings on the fields of political economy, technology governance, development economics, and evolutionary economics in general.
Conclusion
Specific methodologies of post-structuralism such as Derrida’s deconstruction and Foucault’s power-knowledge nexus could contribute a great deal to the essential objective of development studies to understand and critique the outmoded ideas of the dominant neo-classical, neo-liberal development discourse. Much has been written about the pitfalls of post-structuralism. Hence, development studies must be conscious of this, and be guided by the classic reminder of the great Greek theorists: the basic focus must be on ‘that which is lucrative and that which is conducive’. After all, ‘the good is the most accurate measure of all things’.
Social sciences today – its associated theories, methodologies, spatial-temporal boundedness, and vocabularies – is being reconfigured by, if not under assault from, multiple hegemonising intellectual currents: from the fad of post-structuralist sensibility, to the project of ‘social sciences colonisation by economics’. Post-structuralism poses a great challenge to the sacrosanct values and assumptions of the disciplines under the social sciences, namely: anthropology, psychology, history, sociology, politics, and geography. Proponents of these respective disciplines have responded to the post-structuralist current in various ways. While some have launched ruthless criticisms against it in defense of their disciplines, some have either wholeheartedly or partially incorporated it in their discipline. For almost half a century now since post-structuralism assumed prominence, the field of economics seems to be untouched from the theoretical challenges posed on by Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. This is rather ironic, especially that a careful understanding of the post-structuralist methodologies (i.e., not simply looking at the conventional understanding on its disregard for ‘systems’ as well as its privileging of contingency over historical causality) would pose a great theoretical challenge to the hegemony of neo-classical economics. In particular, Derrida’s ‘deconstruction’ and Foucault’s ‘power-knowledge’ nexus would certainly empower the counter-hegemonic (ideological) potentials of proponents of alternative development to the dominant model by current mainstream (mathematical, neo-classical) approach to economics.
Academic disciplines are always for someone and for some purpose. In this case, development studies are commonly understood to be carried out for the development of the developing world. The general social sciences discourse on post-structuralism has tremendous implications for development studies and area studies as sub-disciplines of the social sciences – in particular, to the search for context-specific development prescriptions for the Third World countries in Southeast Asia under conditions of globalising capitalism.
This essay reflects upon the usefulness of specific post-structuralist methodologies for development studies, viewed from a critical perspective. First, it sketches out ways on how Derrida’s methodology of ‘deconstruction’ and Foucault’s idea on the inescapable link between power and knowledge could be conducive to a critique on the dominant discourse of the neo-liberal development paradigm. In doing so, it could reveal a reality in the history of economic development that has been concealed through the years by the neo-classical economists and neo-liberal forces in order to impose their authority and hegemony. Second, it provides an account for critical development studies to recognise specificities of social situations – specifically, the combined and uneven character of development in Southeast Asia at this historical moment of the universalisation of capitalism that would require distinct development strategies from society to society in the region. Third, it outlines an example of a development studies research that recognises the usefulness of specific post-structuralist methodologies, yet viewed from critical, historical, and inter-disciplinary perspectives in understanding development as a ‘social relation’. Finally, it concludes with a progressive challenge to development studies, as well as an appropriate classical reminder from the Greeks that a theory’s basic focus must be on the lucrative, the conducive, and the good life.
Deconstructing the Mainstream, Revealing the Power Behind the Development Model
Today’s dominant development model – as prescribed by rich economies and by multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to the Third World – is founded on neo-classical economics that essentially frames the neo-liberal policies of an open market economy through privatisation, deregulation, liberalisation, and the pursuit of global competitiveness since the crises of the 1970s. One of the great-unconsummated theoretical projects for development studies today, if it is to be a tool to usher in real development to the Third World, is the deconstruction of this mainstream, standard textbook economics, as well as the exposition of the power behind its rise to hegemony.
Derrida’s Deconstruction for Development
In the utilisation of the methodology of Derrida’s deconstruction, one does not create a new reality. Rather, one highlights the reality that has been present from the very beginning. In this sense, development studies have to rediscover the contributing factors to development that have been marginalised through the years. Therefore, an essential task for an alternative development economics as a constitutive discipline of development studies is to understand the history of economic development. That is to say, development is to be seen as a process of cumulative causations which are the joint effects of factors excluded by the neo-classical equilibrium metaphors, namely: [i] qualitative difference between economic activities (across and within manufacturing, services, and agriculture); [ii] diversity (the degree of division of labour); [iii] synergies (linkages and clusters between manufacturing, services, and agriculture sectors); [iv] institutions (to safeguard the common good); and [v] novelty (significance of innovation, learning, and science). This will, in turn, discard the mother of all assumptions in neo-classical economics: the assumption of no diversity and no qualitative difference in economic activities; hence the equilibrium metaphor that portrays the market as a mechanism creating automatic harmony.
Using the method of deconstruction this way thus challenges the neo-classical economics’ view on science as ‘a compression of reality’. It does so by focusing on the relevant factors that led to the economic development of rich countries in history. In the end, the theory is to be shaped by reality; instead of the vicious propensity of mainstream economists to shape reality on the terms of neo-classical economics. The foremost interest for theorising would therefore be ‘the economy’ as a real object with people’s lives as its real subject, more than merely the abstracts of ‘economics’.
Foucault’s Power-Knowledge Nexus on the Development Discourse
This deconstruction of the mainstream development paradigm has to be extended to an understanding of the politics behind the emergence of neo-liberal policies, which is patterned after the ideology of mathematics-based neo-classical economics, to be the dominant development paradigm for several decades now. Here, Foucault’s approach to knowledge claims would be very useful to development studies. For Foucault, it is not only the case that knowledge is power; but power is knowledge as well. In particular, knowledge about development is not only a question of epistemology or rationality, but of ‘authority’ to impose one’s will to power.
At least three inter-related, reinforcing factors can be attributed to the project of neo-classical economists and neo-liberals to create the conditions for their hegemony. First, the pro-capitalist political forces in the West during the Cold War found ideological refuge to the factor-price equalisation theorem (which ‘proof’ is based on scientific mathematics) of the most prominent neo-classical economics figure, Paul Samuelson, that under the capitalist system wages in the world will eventually converge in which all wage earners will become rich. This became the West’s ideological counter-offensive against the communists’ promise that everyone will receive according to his/her needs. Second, this has had since led to the essentialism of mathematics in the field of economics in general, and hence reducing the scientific as well as the social-historical into mere quantitative abstractions. Third, the recent emphasis put on ‘social capital’ by the proponents of neo-liberalism aimed at colonising the social sciences. ‘Social capital’ entails non-market responses to market imperfections. It therefore enlarges the circuit of ‘capital’ to include and incorporate in it ‘social’ variables – such as the state, civil society, institutions, and trade unions – that are traditionally outside mainstream economics.
Specificities of Southeast Asian Development: Combined, Yet Uneven
Regional dynamic of contemporary Southeast Asia is, as ever, marked by national differences on levels of economic development, characteristics of political regimes, and diversities of culture. The combined and uneven character of development in the region suggests that there are still pre-capitalist relations coexisting with features of modern capitalism in almost all of the countries. For instance, the persistence of constitutional monarchies in Brunei, Cambodia, and Thailand; of pre-capitalist relations in the states of Malaysia; and of political power rooted in land ownership in the Philippines as well as of conflicts over land. Alongside the universalising tendencies of neo-liberal policies, there exist actually resisting forces in defense of the locale.
Born out of the crisis of the 1970s, a neo-liberal global political economy has evolved, restructuring the impoverished domestic political economies in Southeast Asia which were vulnerable to the constraints and pressures imposed upon by the oil crisis, the internationalisation of financial markets, and the structural adjustment programmes attached as conditionalities to the heavily-indebted Third World. This new configuration of capitalism has dramatically reorganised production through the intensification of new technologies and the introduction of financial innovations.
While development is a universal ideal, the strategies needed to realise it would depend on the specific economic, political, and cultural contexts from society to society within the region in a particular historical moment. Mindful of the historical and social specificities of development strategies, the respective societies then have to collectively define their understanding and their meaning of development. This premise is essential to development studies, if it is to be serious in its social task of ushering in real development to the Third World.
The following section is a sample research project for a particular kind of development studies in Southeast Asia that is founded on the theoretical premises outlined above. It views development as a ‘social relation’, in which the political, economic, and cultural spheres are organically connected in search of social development. As such, it has an inter-disciplinary and a critical approach to the question of development in Southeast Asia. Its ultimate goal is to examine the coherent fit not simply between ‘politics’ and ‘economics’, but especially on the appropriate institutional fit between ‘the polity’ and ‘the economy’ that could potentially uplift the lives of the peoples of developing Southeast Asia.
Progressive Potentials, Regressive Realities: A Critical Political Economy Approach to a Social Innovation System in Southeast Asia
Perhaps a great paradox that lies at the heart of the intensification of technological innovation depicted in the information and communications technology (ICT) revolution as the enduring techno-economic paradigm is that of technology's progressive potentials, on the one hand, and of regressive social realities, on the other. While it can be said that the intensification of the wealth-creating power of technology comes at a time when material inequality in the world is increasing, the apparent phenomenon that of technology becoming a source of perpetuation of this regressive reality is yet another contradiction. The research thus attempts to investigate this conundrum: Why, despite its progressive potentials, technology is resulting in regressive socio-economic realities? And it runs the hypothesis: That the progressive potential of technological innovation is regressively constrained by its dependence on the capitalist, neo-liberal market.
The research explores a ‘critical political economy approach to social innovation system’ that critiques the disembedding of the market from the society, on the one hand, and that attempts to offer an alternative through a progressive project of re-embedding the market forces to the society, on the other. It does so in three inter-related general sections. First, it lays down propositions for ‘a critical political economy approach to social innovation system’. This critical political economy approach improvises from the established national innovation system (NIS) approaches of the Freeman-Lundvall-Nelson persuasion, with emphasis on the developmental needs of the developing countries and the indispensable role of the workers; and the Other Canon reality economics, which is mindful of the intrinsic uneven character of economic development and the need to find alternative, innovative responses relative to specific social situations. Second, it examines the contradictions of the progressive-potential-but-regressive-reality characteristic of today's techno-economic paradigm by juxtaposing the promises of technological innovation vis-à-vis its capitalist market-dependent nature under conditions of neo-liberal globalisation. Finally, an alternative ‘social innovation system’ is being proposed, deriving the alternatives from the very structural contradictions of market-dependence (i.e., the internal logic of the capitalist market competition itself) that constrains the progressive potentials of technological innovation, and not merely out of normative or ethical prescriptions that are devoid of reality. It is exploring the necessary structure conducive for real development, a development as a social relation where ‘the economic’, ‘the political’, ‘the cultural’, ‘the ecological’, ‘the ideational’, and all the other spheres of social life are organically connected to – not separate from – one another. In particular, it is examining the coherent institutional fit and synergy for development among three organically connected spheres in the society: [a] state form, or government structures and systems (the political); [b] economic policies on the relationship among the factors of production (capital, labour, and technology) and the relationship between financial capital and production capital, which will include an investigation of the appropriateness of the stock market as the financial system for innovation and industry (the economic); and [c] system of ideas and values, which will include a critique on and an alternative to the defunct assumptions of neo-classical economics and the outmoded values of neo-liberalism (the cultural). This proposed alternative recognises the fact that the combined and uneven character of development that characterises the geographical landscape of contemporary global political economy would require different innovation strategies and economic policies from society to society in Southeast Asia in pursuit of real development, a qualitative improvement to the lives of the multitude.
The research hopes to immensely contribute to the inescapable link between theory construction and policy advice for real development. In terms of policy, the research will not only reveal the wounds of modernity – the widening social divisions and increasing poverty – that are just sealed, and not healed, amidst the tremendous productive capability of technological innovation; but also the exploration of the necessary synergy among political economic institutions and policies in pursuit of alternative development strategies. And in terms of theory, it hopes to contribute not only to the reconstruction of the theory of uneven development in particular, but to the broader debate, argument, and communication of innovative findings on the fields of political economy, technology governance, development economics, and evolutionary economics in general.
Conclusion
Specific methodologies of post-structuralism such as Derrida’s deconstruction and Foucault’s power-knowledge nexus could contribute a great deal to the essential objective of development studies to understand and critique the outmoded ideas of the dominant neo-classical, neo-liberal development discourse. Much has been written about the pitfalls of post-structuralism. Hence, development studies must be conscious of this, and be guided by the classic reminder of the great Greek theorists: the basic focus must be on ‘that which is lucrative and that which is conducive’. After all, ‘the good is the most accurate measure of all things’.
But a progressive and critical kind of development studies, one that is for changing the intolerable realities of the status quo into a better life for all, must also be responsive to the hegemonising, and even to the reactionary, predisposition of post-structuralism. Critical development studies must dare to enrich and rediscover productive activity that is being displaced by ‘discourse’ as the constitutive practice of social life; the material reconstruction of society that is being replaced by the intellectual deconstruction of texts; the terrain of progressive politics that is not enclosed within the walls of the academy; and historical causality that is purposefully being dissolved in postmodern fragmentation, ‘difference’ and contingency.
REFERENCES
(These are the specific articles read upon which the reflections in this essay are based. These articles are in the ‘List of the Reference Material’ provided for by the Conference Organiser to the the PhD workshop participants.)
General
Buck, D. (1991), ‘Forum on Universalism and Relativism in Asian Studies – Editor’s Introduction’, in Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 50, No. 1, February, pp. 29-34.
Dutton, M. (2002), ‘Lead Us Not into Translation: Notes toward a Theoretical Foundation for Asian studies’, in Nepantla: Views from South, Vol. 3, Issue 3, Duke University Press, pp. 495-537.
So, A.Y. (2003), ‘The Challenge of Globalization to Social Sciences and Area (Asian) Studies’, in Hong Kong Journal of Sociology, No.4, pp. 13-26.
On Southeast Asia
Jackson, P.A. (2003), ‘Space, Theory, and Hegemony: The Dual Crises of Asian Area Studies and Cultural Studies’, in SOJOURN – Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 1-41.
King, V. (2005), ‘Defining Southeast Asia and the Crisis in Area Studies: Personal Reflections on a Region’, Working Paper No. 13, Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University, Sweden.
General
Buck, D. (1991), ‘Forum on Universalism and Relativism in Asian Studies – Editor’s Introduction’, in Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 50, No. 1, February, pp. 29-34.
Dutton, M. (2002), ‘Lead Us Not into Translation: Notes toward a Theoretical Foundation for Asian studies’, in Nepantla: Views from South, Vol. 3, Issue 3, Duke University Press, pp. 495-537.
So, A.Y. (2003), ‘The Challenge of Globalization to Social Sciences and Area (Asian) Studies’, in Hong Kong Journal of Sociology, No.4, pp. 13-26.
On Southeast Asia
Jackson, P.A. (2003), ‘Space, Theory, and Hegemony: The Dual Crises of Asian Area Studies and Cultural Studies’, in SOJOURN – Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 1-41.
King, V. (2005), ‘Defining Southeast Asia and the Crisis in Area Studies: Personal Reflections on a Region’, Working Paper No. 13, Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University, Sweden.
------------------------------------
* An essay for the ‘Asian Studies at a Turning Point Conference and Ph.D. Workshop’, to be held on 5-9 November 2006 in Turku, Finland. (16 October 2006)
b Bonn Juego (Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia); and Research Centre on Development and International Relations, Aalborg University (Denmark). Email: bonnjuego@yahoo.com.
