Colonialism and development

I read a great article by Duane Champagne. I have lifted a few passages from his article to highlight a systematic approach to understanding the relationship of colonialism on contemporary development practice.

Political competition, economic incorporation, cultural exchange, and biological resistance are major features of the colonial context

Each of the three dimensions of colonialism, geopolitics, market incorporation, and cultural exchange, presents critical threats to indigenous or colonized communities
Similarly, the increasing economic globalization of the world and the penetration of markets and trade confront each nation. If indigenous peoples are going to engage in trade, and if they are to achieve any comparative advantage in that trade, the price they must pay is increased economic dependency and loss of self-sufficiency. The movement from relative self-sufficiency to market dependency implies that Natives will need to compete or at least participate in the marketplace. Global market incorporation is a new form of economic relations for indigenous nations, and, once involved, each nation is confronted with the issues of producing for exchange, which often involves economic specialization of labor, production, and entrepreneurship. Native nations that cannot reorganize social and economic relations according to the demands of the marketplace will be forced into impoverishment. The observed result over the past several centuries has been the economic marginalization of many indigenous nations. Thus, once captured in the trade and market networks, and dependent on market relations for basic goods, each indigenous nation is confronted with the requirement to maintain production for the market and to change economic output according to its demands. The possibility that any indigenous nation is able economically to survive within the world market system is not only partly dependent upon available local markets, but also upon the organization of labor, skills, resources, and the economic culture of the indigenous group. The possibilities of change or marginalization are not wholly contained within the colonial situation of market relations and resulting dependency.
A third requirement faced by indigenous nations within a colonial context is cultural pluralism. Through cultural exchange, new values, norms, political models, economic ethics, religious worldviews, language and other cultural aspects will be transferred and internalized by some members of the indigenous nation. These new forms of cultural understanding may be compatible with indigenous culture, may be tolerated, or may lead to division as well as to cultural and political factionalism

Every colonized nation confronts the dilemma of how to manage multiculturalism. The response of community members of colonized nations may depend on the organization and exclusiveness of the indigenous worldview, the compatibility of indigenous cultural elements with the culture of the colonizers, the degree of indigenous control over the socialization of children and other elements.

In the colonial situation, each indigenous nation is confronted with protecting self-government, economic viability, and cultural continuity. If the biological dimension is added, then protection of physical health is yet another responsibility for colonized communities. Given the situation of colonial expansion, each indigenous nation must develop, from within its own institutional order, a strategy that will ensure meaningful survival, despite drastic change and unfavorable situations. Since each nation confronts similar issues of maintaining self-government, economic viability, and preserving cultural communities, it is possible to make systematic comparative empirical descriptions and historical analyses of the ways in which indigenous nations have tried to solve the demands of colonization (Skocpol 33-40).

To read the entire paper:
http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~jast/Number3/Champagne.html

From Dependency to Agency

The mission of the Highland Support Project is to promote transformational development. A term that often needs to be defined. In the simplest terms, we define transformational development as fostering agency to end cycles of dependency.

We view poverty as a complex process rather than a singular condition. Focusing on indigenous communities, it is arguable that the greatest obstacle to sustainable development is the colonial legacies that forced entire nations into states of dependency that continue to be sustained today.

Therefore, it is imperative to analyze the effects of development and charitable programming to assess the degree that these policies encourage dependency.