The Age of Transition: Postdevelopment and North-South Synergies

• Author: Parisa Nourani Rinaldi
• Published date: 01 January 2022
• Date: 01 January 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211060381
• Subject Matter: Articles: Contemporary Theoretical Debates

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211060381

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 242, Vol. 49 No. 1, January 2022, 237–256

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211060381

© 2021 Latin American Perspectives

237

The Age of Transition

Postdevelopment and North-South Synergies

by

Parisa Nourani Rinaldi

The development enterprise has deepened the maladaptation of a social order built on

the values of modernity and coloniality. Postcolonial scholars critiqued the discourses that

were perpetuating its failures. Latin American decolonial scholars sharpened the analysis,

rejecting Eurocentric frames of thought and drawing on a plurality of voices and ways of

knowing. Mounting evidence of global socio-ecological interdependence has led to the

emergence of discourses of transition advocating a break with the civilizational model of

the modern West. Buen vivir and postextractivism are two Latin American examples of

these discourses. Although there are divergences between these and Northern transition

discourses, the scale of civilizational transition renders dialogue imperative. A review of

the path of Latin American critical thought raises the possibility of North-South syner-

gies, highlighting the implications of a true dialogue of ways of knowing.

El proyecto del desarrollo ha profundizado la mala adaptación de un orden social con-

struido sobre los valores de la modernidad y la colonialidad. Los analistas poscoloniales

hicieron una crítica de los discursos que perpetuaban dichos fracasos. Los académicos

descoloniales latinoamericanos fueron más allá, rechazando marcos de pensamiento

eurocéntricos y recurriendo a una pluralidad de voces y formas de saber. La creciente

evidencia en torno a la interdependencia socioecológica global ha llevado a la aparición de

discursos de transición que abogan por una ruptura con el modelo civilizatorio del

Occidente moderno. El buen vivir y el posextractivismo son dos ejemplos latinoamerica-

nos de estos discursos. Aunque hay divergencias entre ellos y los discursos de transición

del Norte, la escala de la transición civilizatoria exige el diálogo. Una revisión de la línea

de pensamiento crítico latinoamericano plantea la posibilidad de sinergias Norte-Sur,

destacando las implicaciones de un verdadero diálogo de saberes.

Keywords: Decolonial, Postdevelopment, Transition discourses, Pluriverse,

North-South synergies

Development has gone through several waves of critique since the inau-

gural address of Harry S. Truman in 1949 from which the term “underdevel-

oped” launched a hegemonic discourse (Escobar, 1995). Postcolonial and

decolonial scholars have emphasized the impacts of Western domination on

the geopolitical structures, society-nature relations, and patterns of the mind

that shape development. Scholars have written extensively on development’s

Parisa Nourani Rinaldi is a joint Ph.D. candidate in interdisciplinary development studies at the

Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, and in integrated studies in land and food sys-

tems at the University of British Columbia.

1060381LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X211060381Latin American PerspectivesRinaldi / THE AGE OF TRANSITION

research-article2021

238 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

failures, contradictions, and tendency toward othering (see Saunders, 2002).

The earliest critiques of development, emerging from structural and depen-

dency theory, brought attention to increasing inequalities and the need to

bridge the gap between center and periphery (Cardoso, 1977; Furtado, 1964;

Sunkel, 1990). Later, poststructuralist Foucauldian analysis deconstructed

the very notion of development, questioning its basis and detailing the dia-

lectic nature of development discourse (Escobar, 1995). Members of this

group asserted that the crisis of development was evident, that development

had effectively “died,” and that a postdevelopment agenda was necessary

(see Rahnema and Bawtree, 1997).

Latin American scholars who were initially inspired by the postcolonial par-

adigm broke off to establish the decolonial research program. Moving away

from poststructuralism and postmodernism, building on the traditions of

dependency theory, liberation theology, and participatory action research, and

nurtured by indigenous and Afro-descendant worldviews (Gómez, 2014), this

group sought to trace development’s failures to Eurocentric, patriarchal pat-

terns of thought inherited from modernity and coloniality (Escobar, 2003;

Unceta, 2009). Seeking to change the patterns of academic knowledge genera-

tion, decolonial scholars collaborated with civil society, social organizations,

and activists to forge a rich and distinct corpus of thought from and with the

subaltern (Grosfoguel, 2007).

It is through these collaborations that the decolonial program has entered

conversation with discourses of transition that advocate a civilizational transi-

tion toward a more just and sustainable social order. Buen vivir and postextrac-

tivism are two examples of transition discourses that have emerged from the

Latin American context. In an effort to transcend difference and critique, schol-

ars have identified a potential synergy between transition discourses of the

North and the South (Beling etal., 2018; Demaria and Kothari, 2017; Escobar,

2015) and called for bridging the divide, recognizing that the emancipatory

potential of transition discourses requires changes both in Latin America and

in the Global North (Brand, 2019). It is still unclear how these alternative pro-

posals will build a common framework of thought and action leading to the

change they propose. Recent contributions by decolonial scholars on the role of

religion and spirituality in civilizational transition are particularly relevant in

this regard. This article traces the path of Latin American critical thought, from

postcolonial and decolonial theories to transition discourses, and explores the

possibility of North-South synergies, highlighting the implications of a true

dialogue of knowledges.

PostdeveloPment and the decolonial Program

To understand the decolonial program’s unique contributions and its role in

shaping Latin American transition discourses, it is important to trace it to its

origins in postcolonial scholarship. Although the difference between postcolo-

nial and decolonial theory may not be evident at first glance, there are particu-

larities in the differences between them (Gómez, 2014). Whereas postcolonial

theory relates to poststructuralist critique and the application of the theory of