Arturo Escobar is the Kenan Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a Research Associate with the Culture, Memory, and Nation group at Universidad del Valle, Cali. His research focuses on political ecology, ontological design, and the anthropology of development, social movements, and technoscience. His books include Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World and the forthcoming Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds.
‘Development’ is Colonialism in Disguise
The paths to a bio-civilization are multiple – and the pluriverse is already visible in the cosmovisions and radical practices of many groups worldwide. The notion of a pluriverse questions the alleged universality of Euro-Americacentric modernity. As the Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico, put it so wisely, the pluriverse constitutes “a world where many worlds fit”.
September 12, 2019
Farewell to Development
As inequality and environmental degradation worsen, the search is on not only for alternative development models but also for alternatives to development itself. Post-development challenges the idea that all countries must develop along Western capitalist lines according to these dictates.
February 23, 2018