Development and Change最新文献

Julie and Katherine Gibson-Graham and Kelly Dombroski (eds), The Handbook of Diverse Economies. Cheltenham and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2020. 546 pp. £ 199.80 hardback.

There is a long-standing tradition of thought on human-centred and communitarian economies. It connects to a search for utopias (no lands) and udetopias (neverlands) which has accelerated with the advent of capitalism and the obsession with capital accumulation that gave the latter system its name. Intellectuals like Charles Fourier, Silvio Gesell, François Marie, Karl Marx, Robert Owen and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon were pioneers in developing social, economic and political alternatives to capitalism. They engaged with the original 16th century collectivist and utopian socialism of Sir Thomas More, which, as French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1998: 125) observed, was ‘often discredited, dismissed and ridiculed in the name of economic realism’. Drawing on this tradition, the scholarly couple Katherine Gibson and Julie Graham added the diverse economies (DE) approach three decades ago.1 Since then, it has developed into a fully-fledged research programme among scholars and a vision of social transformation among activists. The latest arrival in their scientific production The Handbook of Diverse Economies, is edited by J.K. Gibson-Graham and Kelly Dombroski, and the subject of this critical review.

Through capturing and valorizing the variety of economic, social and political spaces that currently proliferate in the interstices of the capitalist system, the diverse economies approach has gained considerable traction. These spaces, DE authors and followers would emphasize, are not an exercise of the imagination occurring in the no lands and neverlands of utopianism, but tangible and true sources of global hope. They are existing spaces which evade capitalism or shape resistance to it, and mobilize collectives. Underlining that building alternatives to capitalism is feasible as it is ongoing, The Handbook of Diverse Economies adds cases, findings and reflections, and invites analysis of the way scholars understand and write about economic alternatives.

However, as in previous works (see Gibson-Graham, 1996, 2008), engagement with academics outside feminist, post-structural and post-development circles remains pending in this last book. While this new volume refines the contrast with neoliberal politics and the ‘crushing uniformity of mainstream circuits of value’ (Fuller et al., 2016: xxiv), it does not meet the need to engage with other ways of theorizing alternatives to overcome the relatively marginal position of diverse economies within the dominant capitalist system. Some of the older critiques of the DE approach are explicitly addressed, but the general lack of receptiveness to criticism limits the influence of the research programme beyond the circles of supporters and partisan advocates

This article explores how domestic NGOs responded to new opportunities that emerged during the 2015–2020 ‘modern slavery’ labour reforms in Thailand's seafood sector. The analysis takes place against the background of civil society transitions in a ‘post-aid’ setting. Like NGOs in other middle-income countries, the Thai NGO sector has struggled to remain relevant and financially viable in recent decades, as international donors have withdrawn from countries with steadily declining poverty rates. As a result of the ‘developmental successes’ of Thailand, the NGO sector needed to rethink its strategies. Examining the modern slavery labour reform process provides an opportunity to understand the strategic choices available to NGOs in the face of several important phenomena: the emergence of new actors such as international philanthropic donors; the growing influence of the private sector in governance matters; and the need for NGOs to balance multiple strategic alliances. The article draws on in-depth interviews to explore narratives of Thai labour NGO adjustments during the period of the modern slavery reform. The study contributes to a better understanding of how NGOs in post-aid countries transition and adapt to changing circumstances by embracing new roles as ‘sub-contractors’ for emerging global philanthropic donors and as ‘partners’ of private corporations.

The imperative for vulnerable populations to adapt to greater environmental variability is increasing in lockstep with the onset of wide-ranging climate change impacts. However, while critical adaptation research emphasizes the necessity of addressing the underlying drivers of vulnerability to climate change, mainstream approaches to adaptation stress economic growth as a prerequisite for climate responses. Accordingly, capital-intensive adaptation measures promote competitiveness to spur economic growth in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, where more than 18 million people face environmental hazards such as seawater intrusion, flood, drought and cyclones. This study evaluates competitiveness as a mandate for effective climate change adaptation. It finds that adaptation can advance either competition or vulnerability reduction, but it cannot logically or pragmatically pursue both.

By representing the voice of communities, community-based organizations (CBOs) are increasingly joining development partnerships. This article explores the inherently contradictory relationship between ‘voice raising’ and the politics of listening. While academia has mostly focused on the inclusion of CBOs, few studies have approached this subject from the perspective of the listening practices of ‘fundermediaries’ (a portmanteau term combining ‘funder’ and ‘intermediary’). This ethnographic research on a CBO led by male sex workers in Nairobi, Kenya, illustrates that the listening ability of fundermediaries hinges on their position in the aid chain, and specifically on the dynamics of their own accountability. The analysis distinguishes between two partnership types. The first uses a pragmatic approach, which ultimately limits the channels for CBOs to be included and heard, resulting in them having to ‘make noise’ to ensure they are heard. The second creates more possibilities to listen, engages in constructive dialogues with partner CBOs, and includes the ideas and expertise of CBOs in development strategies; hence, CBOs feel heard and are positive about these partnerships. Improved listening practices facilitate opportunities to reconfigure the position of the different actors in development partnerships and can benefit both the positions of CBOs in the aid chain and the programmatic outcomes of fundermediaries.

This article revisits and empirically tests the conjecture that specialization in natural resource industries (NRI) might not necessarily be a ‘curse’ for developing countries if it generates opportunities for export diversification in backward-linked sectors à la Hirschman. The article systematizes the evolution of the debate around the NRI ‘curse’. Then it empirically tests whether NRI might represent a sufficient ‘domestic representative demand’ à la Linder to favour diversification into backward-linked sectors such as knowledge-intensive business services and high-tech manufacturing. It focuses on the former and discusses the new opportunities for export diversification led by virtuous pathways of domestic structural change. It finds novel, quantitative empirical support for this conjecture, which complements extant qualitative literature and discusses implications that revisit the NRI curse debate.