Subaltern Voices Series
Speaking & Theorizing from the Disciplinary Margins
Subaltern Voices Series
Speaking & Theorizing from the Disciplinary Margins
Dr. Uma Kothari (Senior Lecturer in the Institute for Development Policy and
Management at the University of Manchester)
Topic: “Disguising Race: The Sanitisation of Discourses of Development.”
Date: Thursday, 25 January, 2007
Abstract: This paper identifies some of the silences about ‘race' in international
development that mask its complicity with broader historical and contemporary racial
projects. Significantly, this concealment is founded upon the assumption that
development takes place in non-racialized spaces and outside of racialized histories. The
paper is concerned with how ‘race’ is disguised and development discourses sanitized
through the use of specialized terminology and criteria whereby race-neutral language
continues to distinguish between the different capabilities, characteristics and attributes
of Others. Through this cleansing of development terminology, notions of ‘race’ are
submerged and the development gaze is diverted from considering how racial
differentiations might shape our understandings of key concerns of development, namely
the dynamics of poverty and exclusion. Furthermore, however, when a development
ethos is framed around a language of charity, empathy, humanitarianism and justice, and
the role of developers is seen primarily to alleviate poverty, it might appear irrefutable
that motives are wholly noble. This assumption of noble intention goes a long way in
silencing the critical appraisal of development interventions and obscuring racialized
relations of power while delimiting attempts to theorize concepts of ‘race’ in
development praxis. This does not mean that questions of diversity and difference are
altogether neglected in development, but through a philanthropic frame, ideas about
‘race’ become subsumed within supposedly more palatable discourses of, for example,
‘culture’ and ‘ethnicity’.
Bio: Dr. Uma Kothari’s is a Reader in the Institute for Development Policy and
Management at the University of Manchester. She was educated at Middlesex, Wisconsin
and Edinburgh. Her research focuses on two areas: critical, colonial, postcolonial and
feminist analyzes of international development discourse; and, transnational migration
and Diasporas. This research is strongly characterized by critical, theoretical engagement
and ethnographic research. She has developed historical analyses of international
development using critical social theories to interrogate mainstream approaches and has
developed methodologies for collecting and analyzing life history narratives. Much of
this research challenges colonial representations of Third World peoples and places
through an analysis of race and racism, an issue that underpins the theory and practice of
development but has been largely invisible. She also has research interests in migration,
culture and identity, most recently critiquing conventional understandings of
cosmopolitanism by demonstrating how transnational migrants embody new kinds of
cosmopolitan identities. She has direct country experiences in Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Mauritius, and Mexico. Recent publications include: 'From Colonialism to Development: Continuities and Divergences', Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics (
2006); 'An Agenda for Thinking about 'Race' in Development', Progress in Development
Studies, 6, 1, (2006); 'Critiquing 'Race' and Racism in Development Discourse and
Practice', Progress in Development Studies, 6, 1 (2006); (with N. Laurie), 'Different
Bodies, Same Clothes: an agenda for local consumption and global identities', Area 37, 2
(2005); (ed. With M. Minogue) 'Critical Perspectives in Development Theory and
Practice', Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2002; and (ed. With B. Cooke) 'Participation: The
New Tyranny?' (London: Zed Books, 2001).