ABSTRACT
‘There is … no such thing as theory in itself, divorced from any standpoint in time and place. When any theory presents itself as such, it is all the more important to … lay bare the concealed perspective’ (Cox 1981: 87). This statement certainly applies to post-development theory as well. In contrast to mainstream development theory, which is still (even if less so than in earlier decades) dominated by mostly male scholars from ‘developed’ countries writing about ‘underdeveloped’ countries, the most prominent of the post-development protagonists come from Colombia, Mexico and Iran. 1 Others, however, come from industrialised countries, and it is to their merit that they reflect on rather than brushing over this fact, 2 not pretending to be one of those excluded by ‘development’, but well aware that they belong to a privileged minority. But even the post-development scholars from the North usually focused mainly on the South: on the destruction caused by some ‘development’ projects and on the attempts of various groups to make a living beyond the promises and principles of the development era. If ‘development’ was to be implemented in the South and failed in the South, it is there that we have to look for alternatives to the present system — so this line of thinking seems to imply.
