Seminar: Fortid, nutid og fremtid for international bistand

TIME: Tuesday, 20 March, 13.00 – 15.30

VENUE: Danish Institute for International Studies, Main Auditorium, Strandgade 71, ground floor, Christianshavn, 1401 Copenhagen K

TIME: Tuesday, 20 March, 13.00 – 15.30

VENUE: Danish Institute for International Studies, Main Auditorium, Strandgade 71, ground floor, Christianshavn, 1401 Copenhagen K

While ‘development’ is often discussed in technical terms, based on an underlying understanding of the concept as neutral and universally applicable, it can be argued that it is in many ways highly normative, shaped by a particular historical context and based on specific moral and ideological assumptions.

In his presentation, Beyond Development: In Search of New Forms of Engagement in International Relations, Philip Quarles van Ufford will speak about the idea of development, tracing its trajectory from its birth after the 2nd World War until today.

He will discuss three discourses of development – hope, politics and management – identifying contradictions, strengths and weaknesses inherent in each.

Quarles van Ufford will present ideas for a new vision of international relations, centring on three insights: the need to confront contradictions in between the ‘here and the there’; the ‘uses of pessimism’ in the shaping of new political views in international relations; and finally, the re-writing of religious and political histories of compassion.

Focusing more specifically on the role of aid agencies in the contemporary development system, David Lewis will give a lecture titled Reconnecting Development Policy, People and History.

Using experiences in the history of flood control in Bangladesh as an example, his lecture seeks to examine some of what anthropologist Paul Connerton (2009) terms the ‘types of structural forgetting which are specific to the culture of modernity’.

Development agencies are trapped in the ahistorical ‘perpetual present’ of policy worlds, and face a consequent inability to learn lessons from past experiences. Previous policy experience is only poorly remembered by agency staff, if at all. Why is this?

Lewis argues that an ideology of managerialism pushes a relentless emphasis on novelty and change in the development system. Organizational pressures result in what may be called ‘a continuity of discontinuity’ as expatriate staff come and go, and agencies ‘escape into the future’, losing their capacity to retain their own past.

Speakers:
Philip Quarles van Ufford, Professor Emeritus, Free University, Amsterdam
David Lewis, Professor, LSE, London
Marie Juul Petersen, Project Researcher, DIIS
Signe Marie Cold-Ravnkilde, PhD Candidate, DIIS

Programme

13.00-13.05: Introduction; Marie Juul Petersen, Project Researcher, DIIS

13.05-13.50: Beyond Development: In Search of New Forms of Engagement in International Relations; Philip Quarles van Ufford, Professor Emeritus, Free University, Amsterdam

13.50-14.05: Coffee Break

14.05-14.50: Reconnecting Development Policy, People and History; David Lewis, Professor, LSE, London

14.50-15.30: Open Discussion

Chair: Signe Marie Cold-Ravnkilde, PhD Candidate, DIIS

The seminar will be held in English.

Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. Read more about the seminar and use the online registration form on the website no later than Monday, 19 March at 12.00 noon. Please await confirmation by e-mail from DIIS for participation.