Language and Power. The Implications of Language for Peace and Development: The Implications of Language for Peace and Development

The Language of Education and Development

- 107 DEVELOPMENT SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT By Steven J. Klees Introduction Discussions of education and development use a proprietary language that has evolved over decades. Crush (1995: 3) notes that: The discourse of development, the forms in which it makes its arguments and establishes its authority, the manner in which it constructs the world, are usually seen as self-evident and unworthy of attention. However, this position is usually held by those who are partisans of the dominant discourse. Critics like Samoff (2008: 3), point out: Words matter. The language we use structures how we think about things…. Over many years the development business has spawned a standardized authoritative terminology. Within that terminology are embedded particular conceptions, orientations, prejudices, and policy preferences. Kincheloe (2007: 23) elabourates more generally: Critical theorists have come to understand that language is not a mirror of society. It is an unstable social practice whose meaning shifts, depending upon the context in which it is used. Contrary to previous understandings, criticalists appreciate the fact that language is not a neutral and objective conduitfordescriptionofthe“realworld.” Rather,fromacriticalperspective, linguistic descriptions are not simply about the world but serve to construct it. With these linguistic notions in mind, criticalists begin to study the way language in the form of discourses serve as a form of regulation and domination. In this chapter, I use a critical perspective to examine some of the language of education and development and the discourses in which that language is embedded. In the next section, I look at overall development discourses, followed by sections that consider some of the specific language and discourses of development. This specific language deals with empowerment and participation, partnership, conditionalities, dialogue, and ownership, Sector Wide Approaches (SWAps), the Comprehensive - 108 Development Framework (CDF), and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) as well as knowledge management, economic efficiency, and development. This is followed by a short conclusion. Development Discourses Perspectives on development (the term will be problematised later) have changed over time.The subject is complex and hotly contested. Still, I think it useful to think about three distinct relatively long-term discourses about development (for elabouration, see Chan 2007, Chabbott 2003, Mundy, 1998). The liberal discourse predominated worldwide in the 1960s and the 1970s and can trace its modern history in the US to the 1930s and the New Deal. Liberals believe development resulted from a judicious mix of capitalist markets and state intervention. Markets, left to themselves, would be inefficient and inequitable. With the advent of Reagan and Thatcher and consequent changes in the World Bank and elsewhere, liberal dominance was changed almost overnight around the world. The ascendancy of neoliberal discourse and policy has now lasted over a quarter of a century (Klees, 2008(a)). Neoliberals argue the efficiency and equity of relatively unfettered markets and the inefficiencies and inequities resulting from government interventions. Neoliberals have given us the Washington Consensus and policies designed to curtail the state, privatise, deregulate, and liberalise. From a critical perspective, neoliberal policies have wreaked havoc with billions of lives, increasing poverty and inequality, prejudice and discrimination, environmental destruction, and conflict. From a critical perspective, neoliberal discourse is ideology masquerading as science. The critical discourse has a long lineage and has operated side-by-side with liberal and neoliberal ones. Criticalists, to borrow Kincheloe’s (2007) term, have been longstanding critics of both liberal and neoliberal policies and discourses. Criticalists believe that the market is problematic and needs to be tightly regulated, perhaps even replaced (Hahnel 2005, Brock-Utne 2000). A reformed state is generally seen as necessary to facilitating a much more equal, just, and participative society. Critical discourse sees the world as composed of systems and structures that maintain, reproduce, and legitimate the existing inequalities. From this perspective, inequalities are not system failures but the logical consequence of successful system functioning. While recognising that such reproduction is pervasive, criticalists also agree that there are serious challenges to reproduction from two interrelated sources. One is that the systems and structures that dominate are not monolithic but are pervaded by contradictions, such as that between the stated value of political democracy and the reality of economic authoritarianism, or that between the stated value of human equality and the reality of systematic discrimination. The other challenge comes - 109 from a belief in human agency, implying that oppression can be recognised and fought...