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| Long Summary | |
| Title | Culture and Development : a Critical Introduction |
| Author | Schech, S. and Haggis, J. |
| Publication Date | January 2000 |
| Publisher | Blackwell Publishers |
| Long Summary | This book views culture as constructed and changed
by multiple influences. Whether these influences come from inside
or outside the culture may not be definable if, as argued in this
book, cultures are fluid and interactive rather than distinct from
each other. Points of contact between culture and development are
discussed and challenged, for example the implicit assumption sometimes
made that through development, a culture will become modernised, westernised,
and better. The contrasting idea that through development a culture
will become modernised and lost, is also unpacked. If culture is viewed
as constructed and changing then there is no original, authentic culture
to be lost, and traditional becomes a relative term. The most important intersection between culture and development, the authors argue, is that neither can be understood without the other: people can only see development (or anything else) through their cultural lens; development is not simply an activity, but an approach which brings with it a whole system of knowledge and power. Gender is a theme throughout the book, and one chapter looks specifically at how feminist approaches to development have opened up the above debates. Other themes are: human rights, traditions and nationalism, and information and the media.
The gender-focussed chapter: "Feminism, development, culture" covers gender approaches to development from Women in Development, to Gender and Development, to postcolonial feminism. These different approaches all challenge the idea that development is primarily about economic growth, and bring in the importance of culture as well as economics. This challenge comes in part because women have been associated with culture. However, at the same the association of women with culture has also been questioned.
The distinction between sex and gender is discussed, and how viewing gender as a cultural construct ties in with the viewing of development ideologies as constructed. New arguments are presented that sex, like gender, is a social construct rather than a biological fact. Such arguments make the case that the way people understand human bodies is an interpretation, and the categorising of humans into male and female is part of that interpretation. So sex does not describe the reality of human bodies, but instead provides a framework for our understanding of our bodies.
The chapter concludes that the most important contribution of "Cutting edge feminist thinking" (page 114) to development is to bring together a) the perspective of gender (and sex) as constructed, b) the importance of power and difference (eg. north-south, differences between women), and c) the need to build an international feminist politics which addresses the needs of poor women. This combination generates new possibilities for development. For a copy of this publication, please contact: Tammy Coffin, Tel: +44 (0)1865 382224, Email: tcoffin_bmk@blackwellpublishers.co.uk
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