Thought Provokers
Capitalism and Human Time: Reflections from Unequal Development
A recent post explored the concept of unequal development, under-development and the exploitation of the third world proposed by Amin several decades ago. In this post, we continue exploring Samir Amin’s “Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism” from 1976, and focus upon his analysis of capitalism – what it is, how […]
Tags: #Capital #Capitalism #Mode of Production #Production #proletarianization
Unequal Development & Underdevelopment
Continuing the “Thought Provokers” series from essential development studies reading, this post covers Samir Amin’s 1976 “Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism.” This work represents some of the earlier writing on ideas of unequal development, inequality and underdevelopment. Plenty of food for thought and discussion: “External equilibrium – international order – is possible […]
Tags: #Peripheral Capitalism #Samir Amin #Underdevelopment #Unequal Development #Unequal Exchange
The Mystery of Capital (2000) de Soto
Talking with undergraduate and graduate students has led me to believe that fewer people are investing their time in books. Wikipedia provides the long version, and Twitter keeps us up to date. One important thing that we have lost, in development studies and generally, is a more grounded understanding of where ideas came from and how they […]
Tags: #Capital #Capitalism #Development economics #Private Property #Property Rights
Land’s End (2014)
Tania Murray Li, professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto, published Land’s End: Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier in 2014. If you are interested in ideas put forward by James C. Scott, such as his Weapons of the Weak or Seeing Like a State, Li provides a number of challenges and alternative conclusions. In […]
Tags: #coercion and control #Ethnography #invisibilization #Tania Murray Li #Tarmac Bias
Blinded by Humanity (2015)
Interested in international development, NGOs or the United Nations? Martin Barber’s “Blinded by Humanity: Inside the UN’s Humanitarian Operations” (2015) provides insight on the challenges and lessons learned. On good intentions: “…if there is one message that I would pass on to young people wanting to do good in the world, it is this: be passionate, but […]
Tags: #Celebrities #Good intentions #Priorities #Self-reflection #United Nations
The Colonizer and the Colonized (1957)
Published in 1957, this book is authored by a Tunisian living under French colonial rule. Albert Memmi’s wrote as European colonization was falling. It provides broader insight into oppressor-oppressed relationships: On the system: “Racism appears then, not as an incidental detail, but as a consubstantial part of colonialism. It is the highest expression of the colonial system […]
Tags: #Albert Memmi #Colonized #Colonizer #Oppression #Power
Foreign Intervention in Africa – The Cold War
Elizabeth Schmidt is a professor of history at Loyola University. The following thought provoking quotes are taken from her 2013 book “Foreign Intervention in Africa: From the Cold War to the War on Terror.” The context: “For many outsiders, the word Africa conjures up images of a continent in crisis, riddled with war and corruption, […]
Tags: #Cold War #Elizabeth Schmidt #Foreign Intervention #Power #Privilege
Foreign Intervention in Africa – The Colonial Legacy
Elizabeth Schmidt is a professor of history at Loyola University. The following thought provoking quotes are taken from her 2013 book “Foreign Intervention in Africa: From the Cold War to the War on Terror.” The context: “For many outsiders, the word Africa conjures up images of a continent in crisis, riddled with war and corruption, […]
Tags: #Africa #Assassination #Colonial legacy #Colonialism #Foreign Intervention
Imagined Communities (1983) Anderson
Quotes from Anderson’s book, an essential read for those interested in nations, nation-states and nationality: The idea: “I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” (5) “…it is an imagined as a community, because , regardless of the actual inequality […]
Tags: #Anderson #Imagined Communities #Nation-state #Nationality #nationality-ism
Seeing Like A State – Prescribing Society
Thought provoking quotes from Scott’s (1998) Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed. The rationale: “The publicly stated rationale for planned settlement schemes was almost always couched in the discourse of orderly development and social services (such as the provision of health clinics, sanitation, adequate housing, education, clean […]
Tags: #Development #International development #James C. Scott #Prescribing Society #Seeing Like a State
About me
Logan Cochrane
Logan is a Professor at HBKU in the College of Public Policy. He is an Associate Fellow of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences and an Adjunct Professor at Hawassa University (Institute for Policy and Development Research). Over the last twenty years, he has worked in Afghanistan, Benin, Burundi, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Logan acts as a consultant for governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations, seeking to create bridges between research and practice.
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