Live with the Tension: Rethinking Development Politics

How many times have we pursued Global Development Projects, from agricultural technology to power grids, with the promise that it will all be okay, and then it falls short? All the time. How many times have Global Development Theories encouraged a change in discourse to rest upon idolized examples that mask over important complexities? All the time.

This time Dr. Ilan Kapoor and Dr. Gavin Fridell have written a provocative book Rethinking Development Politics. Where they confront an often invisible, but active unconscious fetish for perfection and simple solutions in Global Development. Whereas mainstream development politics is organized around stability and rationality, psychoanalysis points to disharmony and irrationality, helping to explain the development subject’s often self-defeating behaviour — for example being seduced by growth and shopping, despite being aware of the inherent perils of inequality and climate crisis. From Sweatshops to E-Vehicles, can we grow beyond these fetishes?

Ilan Kapoor is Professor of Critical Development Studies at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University, Toronto. His research centers on psychoanalytic and postcolonial theory/politics, and ideology critique. He is the author of seven books. 

Gavin Fridell is a University Research Professor and Chair of Global Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University. His research focuses on fair trade and free trade, global political economy, and critical social and psychoanalytic theory. He is a member of the Trade and Investment Research Project of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) and lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Follow Dr. Bob on "X" : @ProfessorHuish

Follow Dr. Kapoor on "X": @ilankapoor

Follow Dr. Fridell on "X": @gavinfridell