Postdevelopment at 25: on ‘being stuck’ and moving forward, sideways, backward and otherwise

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Arturo Escobar
Gustavo Esteva

Abstract

Escobar and Esteva engage in a retrospective conversation on postdevelopment, reassessing the critiques and discussing openly the meaning of ‘living beyond development’ today. Some of the topics covered include: how the development discourse has shaped mentalities and practices; the tensions and contradictions in the institutional world, trapped in their compulsion for development in the face of the multiple crisis plaguing the world; the new shapes and manifestations of the resistance to development; and the relevant experiences that anticipate the new worlds beyond development and patriarchal capitalist modernity and towards the pluriverse. 

Keywords:
Postdevelopment, needs, modernity, grassroots communities, Zapatismo.