Sociology of
Development
Dr Poline Bala
Faculty of Social Sciences, UNIMAS
1
Concepts of Development
Meanings of Development
Definitions of Development
2
What do you understand by the
word ‘development’?
Brain Storming on the
Meanings of “Development”
4
• A Sociological Perspective of
Development
6
How to define Development?
Blind Men and Elephant
8
“ The word development
has many meanings as
there are listeners*
• cited by Alkire and Deneulin, 2009
The word “development” means different things for
different people
One term with multiple meanings
Robert Chambers (1997)
“Development is good change”
10
Question??
• How do you decide what change is
good?
• Does development promote or
undermine efforts for positive social
change?
11
Thomas, Allan (2000) ‘Meanings and Views of
Development in Allen and Thomas (eds.) Poverty and
Development in the 21st Century, Oxford University Press,
Oxford
• Explains Three Ways the word
‘development’ is used
12
Ways of Defining Development
13
Multiple meanings of “development”
economists - growth and diversification
humanists - living standards - better or not
ecologists - environment and future generations
(sustainability)
sociologists - broad definition
Definition set by goals (or end point) to which a
society gets and not HOW those goals are achieved
14
target based definitions - Millennium
Development Goals, Vision 2020
Most people linked with modernity (multiple
meanings) but mostly particular forms of
economy and society based on experiences of
Western Europe - industrialization,
urbanization, application of technology and
scientific principles
Developments as an economic process - GDP,
GNP, GNI as indicators
15
limit of economic measures
Human development as an indicator of
development - non-economic concept. i.e
Human Development Index (HDI) devised
by United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) in 1980’s contain
economic measures as well as well-being
indicators
16
decent standard
Long and healthy life knowledge
of living
literacy
rate
Life expectancy Access to school GDP per
capita
Adult literacy rate
Long & Healthy life knowledge
Decent standard of living
Human Development Index
17
Sociological (anthropological
approaches) distinct ways to view
development
define more broadly considering
implications of poverty and inequality,
social institutions, culture and meanings
individual attach to development
18
Views of Development
19
Question??
Which view of development do you most identify
with?
20
scales of development: individual,
local community, regional, national
and global
affects definition of development;
determined by scale
21
how to measure? important for policy
makers, governments or international
agencies
World Bank focus on economic indicator
problem of comparability with
measuring development
i.e how to define/measure
development?
22
Question??
Who should decide the type and vision
of development?
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the destination, (kind of society striving for)
the vehicle, (mechanism of changing -
urbanization, industrialization and democracy)
the driver, (who steering societies to
development? nation-? Global organizations like
the UN? Global Corporations? Local
community ?
the map, and the “ride” (individuals experience
development? smooth and carefree? or full of
potholes, wrong turns, traffic jams, and other
dangerous drivers?