CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW
3.3 Development problematic-The dilemmas of defining and conceptualizing development
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“Persons or groups of persons who have been forced to or obliged to flee or leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human made disasters and who have not crossed an internationally recognized state border.”
See Cohen (2004) pge 464.
This definition retains most of the underlying causes of displacement raised in the original definition, but it is richer and much more flexible. What this entails is that the causes of displacement can now vary depending on the context. It opened room for the subjective understanding of the causes of internal displacement, which may help to accommodate persons displaced by development projects like dam projects in the context of this study, who have hitherto been overlooked in literature on IDPs. It should however be underscored that in as much as there has been a notable zest to accommodate persons who have previously been excluded in the original definition of IDPs, statistics on IDPs have worryingly focused on people displaced by conflict and human rights violations (Money ibid, International Committee of the Red Cross 2009). What this implies is that development induced displacements remain a dark figure in the global statistics on internal displacement. The persons displaced by developmental projects have therefore become the ‘Invisibly Displaced Persons’ (IDPs) as opposed to Internally Displaced Persons (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre 2008).
3.3 Development problematic-The dilemmas of defining and conceptualizing
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projects including Tokwe Mukosi dam construction for irrigation, tourism and hydro power generation. Notwithstanding the overwhelming popularity of this term, the problem however is that it is difficult to pin down because it is an amorphous and ambiguous concept. The ambiguity emanates from the realization that it means different things to different people. What constitutes improvement or positive social change varies according to culture, historical context, class gender and relations of power (Pieterse 2010). Sociologically the concept has been conceptualized differently from classical sociological theory to modern development theory.
Despite the inherent ambiguity, the generally agreed view is that development denotes evolutionary social change, improvement or progress from a lower stage to a higher stage, presumably in a linear model (Toye 2007). The change however ought to be desirable for it to qualify to be regarded as development, making it a value laden concept. It becomes very difficult to demarcate what to improve, how to improve it and the major question of who decides on what to improve and how to improve it (Summer and Tribe 2008). This speaks to the debates and controversies surrounding the construction of the Tokwe Mukosi dam project in the name of
“development” and who would ultimately be the winners or losers of this developmental initiative. The aforementioned ambiguity can also be linked to the idea that development has been defined from an economic perspective, Human development perspective, social perspective, Sustainable Development perspective inter alia (see Pieterse ibid). This elusive nature of development lends credence to the multifaceted understanding of any developmental project aimed at fostering development like the Tokwe Mukosi Dam project in Zimbabwe.
In line with the above view, the economic dimension of development puts more emphasis on the principles of economic progression or improvement. The principles include but not limited to the accumulation of capital, use of technology, division of labour and an increase in productivity.
This is also pushed by the much vouched desire to move towards modernity and this has been the rationale behind the construction of mega dam projects across the world in general and the Tokwe Mukosi dam project in particular. It should be underscored that the Modernization theorists starting from the post second world war era were among the most vocal in defining development in a modernist manner. They characterized modern societies as those that take on social, political cultural and economic tenets from the highly developed western societies,
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focusing mainly on highly differentiated and technologically sophisticated institutions and urban industrialized societies (Viterna and Robertson 2015). It should be underscored that in practical sense, these tenets of modernization may be manipulated by the ruling elite to gain political capital as opposed to the genuine need to foster development.
Based on this reasoning, development was simply a question of national progression achieved through instilling the appropriate orientations, norms and values in the south, enabling those countries to partake in the wealth creating economic institutions (Ports 1997, Rapley 2007).
Fashionable as it might appear to the state, planners and development practitioners, this approach to development has glaring shortcomings. This is because dams, roads, mines, and pipelines both reflect and instantiate the mega social projects of colonialism, modernity, capitalism, development and globalization, which are worryingly ethnocentric top down and logo-centric (Gillert and Lynch 2003).
Over and above this they are far removed from the needs and aspirations of the poor and marginalized sections of society, whom development programmes should ironically target. They normally fall prey to elite capture there by falling to put the last first (also see Chambers 2013.
This has led to uneven development between and within societies (Smith 2008). Instead of being salvation for communities, particularly the displaced communities, development is paradoxically becoming a threat, with the winners and losers (see Streeten 1998, Nyamnjoh 2003). Politically and ideologically development is seen as a narrative of western hegemony aimed at destroying popular practices, local aspirations and knowledge (Sardan 2006). In post-development thinking, development is deconstructed simply because it has become the new religion of the west (and the state at the local level), imposition of science and modernity as power, with the homogenization and westernization effect (Pieterse 2000, Rist 1997, Sach 1992).
Development and developmental projects should therefore be deconstructed for their inherent power relations and their authoritarian machinations. It is very clear that in the development field, most orthodox theories in spite of their philosophical and ideological grounding, focus
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largely on the economic aspects, turning a blind eye to social, political and cultural issues or at best these aspects are treated as peripheral (Hague 2004). In tandem with this realization, the United Nations Development Programme goes on to state that, the main objectives of the economic view of development are ominously superficial and devoid of the human face of development. The necessity of a more people centered development as a moral imperative inevitably led to the interest in what is now commonly known as the Human Development approach. This approach relates to the overall improvement in the quality of human life, wellbeing and the acceptance that there is no correlation been economic transformation and the quality of life for the poor and in the context of this study, the displaced Tokwe Mukosi community (see United Nations Development Programme 2015, Hague 2004),
In addition to the aforementioned position, the focal point of the Human Development dimension is qualitative development as opposed to quantitative development. Based on the need for qualitative development, it puts emphasis on human development indicators such as human security, literacy rate, infant mortality rate, and the general life expectancy (Smith 2016). There is also a realization that the indicators of economic development perspective and the human development perspective are diametrically opposed and economic indicators tend to override human development indicators. Thus, it follows that in developmental projects such as the Tokwe Mukosi dam project human development is inevitably sacrificed in the quest for the
‘greater good’. Economic development in modernist terms therefore results in radical transformation of the community’s social fabric, economies and livelihoods, adversely affecting human development.
In recent years, development theorists and practitioners have turned attention to a more fluid and more encompassing definition of development, that is the social development dimension. The said approach dwells on the overall development of society in its movement towards modernity with a more rational orientation as well as the positivistic approach (Smith 2016). It incorporates the social-cultural, environmental and political elements of social change which have hitherto been glossed over by the economist or modernist thinkers in development in the dam project- development conundrum (de Wet 2005).
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To show the diverging and sometimes contradictory definition of development there is a spirited interest in what has come to be known as the Sustainable Development Approach, as a new direction in development theory and practice. This interest followed the challenges that emerged owing to the technocratic drive towards modernity as well as the failure of the economic perspective to foster sustainable development for the vulnerable and marginalized sections of society like the internally displaced communities. The approach in question was first popularized by the Brundtland Commission in the 1970s. As a pro-poor perspective the Sustainable development approach states that for sustainable development to be realized, the developmental program ought to meet the needs of the present at the same time enabling future generations to meet their own needs (World Commission on Environment and Development 1988). Unlike the segmented and at times paranoid definitions of development, sustainable development entails the long term sustainability of the economy and the environment, which is achieved through balancing economic, cultural, social and environmental interests of the marginalized in development (Emas 2015). Contrary to the technocratic approach vouched by the modernists in development, the researcher’s desire in this context is to capture the voice and experiences of the displaced Tokwe Mukosi community on the displacement-development dilemma.
In recent times, Amartya Sen (1985) envisioned development in light of capability assets, wherein he enthused that a normal society ought to provide citizens with the freedoms and a chance to choose a life style they cherish. Of note is the fact that Amartya Sen’s vision for development is extremely blurred in the Zimbabwean context, particularly with reference to the Tokwe Mukosi people whose capabilities have been heavily strained by the forced displacements. Prett et al (2013) go on to give a more comprehensive definition of the term development, which I believe helps to dilute the competing definitions of the term highlighted in this section. They conceptualize development as transformational view of the entire state, where change is emphasized across the four dimensions that is the polity, the economy, social relations and public administration. To further cement this conceptualization of development Viterna and Robertson (2015), state that a developed nation should ideally provide the minimum protection which relates to infrastructure, educational security, health security, food security, employment,
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as well as legal and judicial protection from discrimination and abuse with the aim of making the citizens realize their capabilities.
3.4 Situating the displacement-development paradox within classical sociological