The session will be interested in examining how macroscopic political economic changes are impacting the development studies in various regions or countries of the world. By employing a sociology of knowledge approach to review a number of cases of rapidly developing economies in the present world, this session will examine whether these development experiences are affecting the paradigms and theories of development; whether such impacts are modifying and refurbishing theories of development; and what could be the possible implications of these changes. How useful is it today to talk about the “World Systems Theory”? Or how useful is it to use a blanket category such as “neoliberalism” as the dominant development paradigm? What is broadly understood as neoliberal development “theory” can be at best a meta-theoretic presupposition. Within the ambit of a neoliberal frame multiple and specific development theories and strategies are at work.
This session explores the theoretical and contextual specificities of the interplay of development (or underdevelopment) or stagnation at work and conceptualization and theoretical innovations of sociology of development from the examples drawn from a variety of societies in the Global South.
Joshua DUBROW, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
