Culture and Development

Discourses on culture and development vary according to their conceptions of culture and of development and according to their standpoint. The ‘culture and development’ problematic has typically: (1) arisen from a conception of ‘culture’ as a relatively fixed, homogeneous set of mental programmes (categories, frameworks, images, values, norms) shared by members of a population; (2) contained an instrumental concern with how far such ‘cultures’ impede or promote ‘development’, largely conceived of as economic growth; and (3) involved outsiders looking at another group or country and seeking relatively simple explanations for perceived development success or failure. All three features are problematic. Alternatives exist, however, in each respect. This entry refers to conceptions of culture, discourses about the implications of cultures and cultural dynamics for development, and ethical issues that arise when values clash and the value-content of ‘development’ is seen as dependent on culture. It questions the style of discourse in which developers seek to encapsulate the nature of ‘others’ yet rarely treat their own culture(s) so simply. Cultural diversity is quite often ignored in social science, not least in development economics. People are presumed to be everywhere the same in perceptions and values, or those are considered superficial phenomena with expressive but not causal roles. Most conceptions of culture are less shallow than this, but vary in their degree of adequacy. Culture discourses reject the theory that all people behave identically as calculating acquisitive individuals, and treat sceptically claims that there are universally attractive and appropriate methods of governance and management. Van Nieuwenhuijze inverted economists’ presumption and proposed that ‘everything must be taken as culture-specific until it is proven to be general’ (1986, p. 107) rather than the reverse.

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