International Development and the Globally Concerned European Subject

Abstract

As a global project of engineering and imagining the world, international development shaped subjectivities and societies, engaging with what Ann Laura Stoler (2008) has referred to as ‘imperial ruins’: what was left after colonialism. Ironically, international development as a project is deeply unhistorical in its ‘forgetfulness’ of colonial histories and postcolonial entanglements. This essay discusses international development in relation to spatial organization of the world, asking how development creates certain spaces of imagination where actions become meaningful while the wider context is made invisible, as well as allowing uncomfortable political issues - such as those concerning asylum seekers and the power of multinational corporations in creating poverty – within and outside the borders of the nation-state to become irrelevant. At the same time that individuals from different parts of the world are brought into contact with each other, development creates a platform that structures these relationships as existing outside global political contexts.