Over the last decade, the calls for Buen Vivir (BV)/ Sumak Kawsay (SK) that have emerged from the Andes have prompted a revival of interest in the indigenous philosophies of the region and their contributions to alternative development thinking. Both in academic and policy discussions, there is an emphasis on recovering Indigenous forms of knowledge to devise alternative paths to development. Yet, given the conceptual ambiguity of discussions of development, these efforts often appear to have ‘blended’ with more ...

Reviewing the contribution of discourse analysis in development studies, the paper first engages with the critique of the approach that has been voiced repeatedly. In this regard, it discusses the reproaches of losing sight of materiality, homogenizing different perspectives in development studies, denying the agency of subjects and being unable to provide political alternatives. By using different examples, the paper shows that these points of criticism are no inherent features of discourse analysis in development ...

Post-Development as a critique of ‘development’ is almost as fuzzy and amoeba-shaped as the concept, discourse and practice it has long proclaimed as failed (Ziai 2015). While alternatives to ‘development’ have been called for, it remains unclear as to ‘alternatives to what?’ and ‘what kind of alternatives’ are in demand and by whom. The approach of this paper is to understand Post- Development as a set of theories, strategies and visions that all depart from a similar critique of ‘development’ as imperial and hegemonic ...

This paper explores the articulations between the present social struggles of Quilombolas (Maroons’ descendants of those who escaped enslavement), state policies, coloniality and global inequality. Two case studies illustrate how the infiltration of global mining and overexploitation of eucalyptus have diminished natural resources in the region and encroached upon the land rights of black communities. This paper first provides a comprehensive review of the policy changes that paved the way for the recognition of the ...

Points of contact between the postcolonial studies’ field of research and international political economy (IPE) are rare. On the one hand, one can note a reluctance in postcolonial scholarship to open up for economic analysis. On the other hand, IPE literature has been somewhat resistant to take up the postcolonial critique. This paper offers an interdisciplinary approach by merging the two discrete disciplines on poststructuralist grounds, suggesting principles for a postcolonial-political economy approach and ...

The United Nations proclaimed the years between 2014 and 2024 to be the Decade of Sustainable Energy for All, and the SDG 7 emphasizes the necessity of universal energy access. Development policies increasingly see decentralised supply structures as a viable solution to achieve that goal. From a postcolonial perspective however, it is also relevant whether renewable decentralized en- ergies enable more local control and reduce dependency relations. Technology critics in the ‘70s and ‘80s saw this potential. In the ...

This paper examines transformations occurring in everyday life in Uganda’s Busoga region as a result of globalisation and the population’s responses to its manifestations. This is done with special emphasis on alternative economic practices, which can be classified as activities of the Social and Solidarity Economy. In the course of this study, several such practices have been encountered and turned out to be in a complex relationship with globalisation. A combination of postcolonial theory, the Post-Development ...

Postdevelopment (PD) proponents have long called for alternatives to ‘development’ as a counter to the logics and impact of Eurocentrism, coloniality and the uncritical belief in euro-modernist ideologies of progress and growth, all of which come to be subsumed as ‘development.’ The question is whether we can think of alternatives to hegemonic models of the economy, politics and knowledge whilst living and being entangled in, through and with them. This paper sets out to examine concrete social and political practices ...

This article discusses the protest movement against the neoliberal capitalist world order which emerged in the second half of the 1990s and was inspired by the Mexican Zapatistas. This movement was considerably globalised and, despite different currents, characterised by a pluralist and anarchist conceptualization of politics. The article argues that it partly succeeded in preventing further liberalisation of world trade and, above all, that it provoked numerous reforms in the global political economy institutions ...