How Did ‘Development Discourse’ Originate in Remote Places Before Development Projects Took Place There?

  There are still places in the world that are so remote that they lack primary schools and health facilities, but they have what can be called actors knowledgeable about 'development discourse.' We cannot say for certain that development discourse, by which I mean the series of arguments in support for specific projects of development, entered those places entirely from an external source like a more modern city or university. For example, the human character trope of a ‘development enthusiast’ in the village meeting is something that is all too common, and for all intents and purposes, seems to have organically and internally emerged from the village setting itself. How is this arising of the development enthusiast to be explained generally? How come development discourse came to 'undeveloped' places before actual projects of development—such as good schools and hospitals—did? This question is interesting because it points to the emergence of a sophisticated idea or knowledge though there were no text-books or schools available there for that idea's emergence at that time. 

The answer to this question of how development discourse emerged organically might lie in the fact that what can be called ‘civilizational pressures'—such as ideas on the proper conduct of body and speech—existed even in these remote places. The origin of civilizational pressures there was not organic, but from some source of power—even within a single community, the civilized make demands on the uncivilized. Civilizational pressures, or ideas such as ‘one has to speak in a certain civilized way’ and ‘conduct one’s body and bodily activities in a civilized manner,’ might have been sufficient as conditions for the emergence of development discourse organically, albeit at a later time. Here, civilizational pressure is of course only an example, the point being that an earlier external pressure was the condition for the emergence of the later, seemingly internal, development discourse. Thus, it is only when we isolate development discourse as a single object do we find that we can attribute some kind of 'organicity' to the remote village's originating of that discourse and thereby characterize that remote village with a false sense of agency.  

If a prior pressure, such as civilizational pressure, caused development discourse to emerge, then the main criticism of development discourse is not so much its direct relationship to any  European or civilizational power [such as a charge of Eurocentrism of development might have it], but the ease with which this discourse grew with only one or a few prior pressures as supporting conditions. This demonstrates some kind of proximity, or at least 'eagerness,' to grow from a root power, whatever that power may be. So, development discourse is like a seed that grows even in shallow and undernourished soil, which makes it all the more capable to be spread everywhere; but by the same metaphor, it might be like a weed that might not be wanted everywhere. Of course this imagery alone might not demonstrate that development discourse is a bad thing, but the element of external power that caused it to originate in a seemingly organic manner is certainly a form of domination and therefore could be perceived as injustice. At the least, the theory written in this post means that we cannot just accept the originality with which development discourse emerged as a sign that it is a well-meaning discourse, and a wider lens has to be taken upon it and the activities done by its thinkers and enthusiasts, even in a remote village.