‘Development’ in other words is

Orientalism transformed into a science

for action in the contemporary world.

(Akhil Gupta, 1998)

There is never atomistic and neutral

self-understanding; there is only a con-

stellation (ours) which tends to throw

up the myth of this self-understanding

as part of its imaginary. This is the

essence of a cultural theory of moder-

nity. (Charles Taylor, 2001)

BAD LATITUDE, RESURGENT

GEOGRAPHY

Economist Jeffrey Sachs is indisputably part

of the development establishment. Currently

the Director of the Center for International

Development at Harvard University, he is an

international figure in the debates over economic

reform in the post-socialist bloc (as a fearless

advocate of ‘shock therapy’), a sometime critic

of the World Bank and the International

Monetary Fund austerity programs, and latterly a

tireless promoter of the idea that geography

causes poverty. Virtually all of the tropics

remain poor, says Sachs, because climate

‘accounts for a quite significant proportion of

cross-national and cross-regional disparities of

world income’ (2001: 9). Global production is

‘highly concentrated in the coastal regions of the

temperate zones’, the ‘proximate countries’

(Sachs et al., 2000: 73). As his Harvard colleague

(and former Marxist) Ricardo Haussman puts it,

the problem is a case of ‘bad latitude’. The ‘new’

geography of development – bestsellers Guns,

Germs and Steel(1997) by Jared Steel and The

Wealth and Poverty of Nations(1999) by David

Landes both extol the virtues of advantageous

geography in the long march of economic

development – endorses what in a June 2000

address to the then US Treasury Secretary (and

now President of Harvard University) Lawrence

Summers dubbed ‘the tyranny of geography’.

Isolation, poor soil, erratic climate, inaccessibil-

ity, low agricultural productivity and infectious

disease mutually reinforce a vicious cycle of

destitution and underdevelopment. Geography

need not be destiny, they say, but for much of

the world it seemingly is. The solution for the

geographically challenged is a good dose of

globalization (Hausmann, 2001: 53).

For the geographer, the ‘return’ to the role of

geography in human affairs – or more properly to

nature, location and topography as determinants

of growth and welfare – simply recapitulates

ideas of great genealogical complexity and

historical depth (Glacken, 1967). In the Sachs/

Harvard model, however, ecology, disease and

isolation carry a pungent, late-Victorian imperial

odor. Is this not the Dark Continent all over

again? Well, yes and no. In the Sachs account

nature and geography take pride of place, but

unlike the discourses of a century ago, the role of

culture is for the most part invisible. Hausmann,

Sachs and friends do indeed refer to ‘social insti-

tutions’ and markets as necessary building

blocks for growth, but the tropes of sloth, fecun-

dity, racial inferiority and an irredentist anti-

marketmentality – the hallmarks of the Victorian

imperium – are largely absent. Geography is,

rather, a material impediment to growth, its

biophysical properties capable of wreaking

23

Alternative Modern – Development

as Cultural Geography

Michael Watts

3029-ch23.qxd 03-10-02 4:55 PM Page 433