ABSTRACT
Despite its relative neglect within development studies, postcolonialism brings development discourses into critical view as unconsciously ethnocentric, rooted in European cultures and reflective of a dominant western world view. This chapter examines how postcolonial approaches challenge the very meaning of development as rooted in colonial discourse, depicting the North as advanced and progressive and the South as backward, degenerate and primitive. It explores further the notion that postcolonialism is a much needed corrective to the Eurocentrism of a great deal of writing on development. It also examines the ways in which postcolonialism inspires counter-discourses that seek to disrupt the cultural hegemony of the West and its knowledge forms, including development knowledge.
