Generally the expression "development" as well as "sustainable development"
has different and even contradictory meanings, connotations and ways it is
used, especially in a multilingual world. First of all it is only an
expression, a word - some say "plastic word" -, and not a well-defined or
elaborated concept. Searching for the varieties of meaning we today
nevertheless may identify two poles or tendencies of a discursive strategic
field: the - traditional and very dominant - meaning of "development" as a
radical heteronomy, forcing a foreign environment - social, cultural or
natural - to behave like the dominant power and the - subdominant and
"reformist" - meaning of "development" as the autonomous praxis or
autopoiesis of social, cultural, "natural" systems that are penetrated by
foreign forces.
Besides this there also are existing practices, which try to negate the whole
semantic field calling all ideas of "development" strategies of
neo-colonialism, ethnocentrism and subordination. These strategies may have
some moral strength and social impact, but they are not able to answer the
questions of real alternatives inside the existing immanence of the
globalised world, which is ruled by the parallel realities of post-colonial
hegemonies, social negations and reformist managements.
If we don´t think about this parallelity it seams very consequent to throw
this ugly word away, loaded with the cruel history of so many destructions
and violations. Of course it is "out of time" to continue the development of
inequality and exploitation masked as social progress. But it is very actual
and necessary to think about the way the contradictory forces of development
are working within the global and spatial reality.
As a part of it we have to think over the word and the concepts of
"sustainable development". Is it only a "plastic word" giving space to every
meaning one is interested in? Does it mean to continue the old ideas of
heterenomous development under changed conditions? Or is it the experiment to
look for more autonomous, decentral alternatives, which take into account the
strong closure of this one world?
Dealing with this experiment we should analyse as well the concepts and
forces of "global development" ("north" and "south": who gets or should be
developed in which direction? What is about the underdevelopment of the
industrialized world?) and of "spatial development" (Who develops urban and
rural space, land to whose benefit?) and their interaction. One subversive
task is to change the perspective: How can the poor develop or civilize the
rich, the periphery the metropolis, the countryside the cities, the unplanned
the planned, the needs the money?
Knut Unger
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