The Dictionary of Human Geography

development becamemodernityon a planet-
ary scale, in which the West served as the
‘transcendental pivot of analytical reflection’
(Slater, 1992, p. 312). Western modernity
attempted to organize social life on the basis
of voluntary actions of individuals whose values
were supposed to be predominantlyutilitar-
ian.Similarly,natural resources came to
mean those parts ofnaturethat were required
as inputs for industrial production and colonial
trade. Technology and economics mutually
reinforced the assumption that nature’s limits
must be broken for the creation of abundance.
The concept of thenation-state, moreover,
displaced other surviving notions of thestate,
the latter being perceived as examples of
medievalism and primitivism (Anderson,
1991a [1983]). The process was strengthened
when ‘indigenous’ intellectuals and activists
confronting the colonial power found in the
idea of the nation-statetheclue to the West’s
economic success and political dominance:

Indeed, no other idea, except probably the
twin notions of modern science and devel-
opment, was accepted so uncritically by the
elites of old continuous civilizations like
China and India. Even modern science and
development became, for Third World elites
the responsibility precisely of the nation-
state and two new rationalizations for its
predominant role. (Nandy, 1992, p. 267)
Developmentdiscourseshave continued to
construct the relationship between West and
non-West in terms of the West being the
detached centre of rationality and intelligence:
the Westpossesses the expertise, technology and
management skills that the non-West is lacking.
Conversely, this lack is the chief cause of the
problems of the non-West (cf.occidentalism;
orientalism). What is consistently ignored in
this framework are questions ofpower and
inequality, whether on the global level of inter-
nationalmarkets, state subsidies and the arms
trade, or the more local level of landholding,
foodsupplies and income distribution. This
dominant paradigm of the West, furthermore,
‘constitutes a perfectly auto-referential sphere,
containing only a very limited number of elem-
ents. Need, scarcity, work, production, income,
and consumption are the key concepts within an
enclosed semantic field that has no need of the
outside world’ (Latouche, 1992, p. 254).
While the history of the ‘modernizing’ world
is often erroneously written as one of failed
imitation of the West – failures of seculardem-
ocracy,nationalism, enlightened modernity
or enslavement to ‘tradition’ – scholars

working in the post-colonial paradigms have

complicated such frameworks (see post-

colonialism). Conceptualizing modernity

as a construct and an organizingtrope, especially

for the national developmentalist successors of

colonial regimes, these scholars have suggested

ways in which the complexities of the East–West

encounters might be better apprehended

throughmetaphorsof translation, hybridization

and dislocation, rather than more monolithic

ideas of imitation, assimilationor rejection

(Abu-Lughod, 1998, p. 18). Furthermore, they

have complicated the very exercise of knowledge

production ‘in and for the West’ where the very

act of writing for the West about ‘the other’

implicates us in projects that establish Western

authority and cultural difference (Abu-Lughod,

2001, p. 105).

Such intellectual projects acquire particular

significance in the context offeministpolitics

in thethird world, which has had to negotiate

a complex relationship with Marxist struggles

at home, as well as with women’s movements

and writings in the West (Loomba, 1998,

p. 253: see alsomarxism). Despite the deep

scepticismtowhich‘feminism’ and agendas

associated with Western feminisms are often

subjected in post-colonial contexts, women’s

movements have consistently challenged the

assumption that women’s activism in post-

colonial worlds are only inspired by their

Western counterparts (see feminist geog-

raphies). Such moves have involved rewriting

indigenous histories, appropriating pre-

colonial symbols and mythologies, and ampli-

fying the voices of women themselves, each of

which is ridden with its own problems and

contradictions (Loomba, 1998). Grappling

with ‘the woman question’ anywhere requires:

(a) attending to the complex ways in which the

West and things/concepts associated with the

West are embraced, repudiated and translated

in contemporary politics; and (b) developing

subtle ways of thinking about thecultural

politicsof past and present colonial encoun-

ter(s), and more broadly, the relationship

between the constructs of East and West as

they have shaped anti-colonial nationalist pro-

jects on the one hand, and the complex

dynamics between processes ofglobalization

and the post-colonial nation-state on the other

(Abu-Lughod, 1998). rn

Suggested reading

Mitchell (2002c); Parajuli (1991); Sachs (1992).

wetlands Covering about 6 per cent of the

Earth’s land area (Turner, 1991), wetlands

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_W Final Proof page 809 31.3.2009 4:10pm

WETLANDS