Race, Racism and Development

Interrogating history, discourse and practice

Kalpana Wilson

Race, Racism and Development places racism and constructions of race at the centre of an exploration of the dominant discourses, structures and practices of development. Combining insights from postcolonial and race critical theory with a political economy framework, it puts forward provocative theoretical analyses of the relationships between development, race, capital, embodiment and resistance in historical and contemporary contexts. Exposing how race is central to development policies and practices relating to human rights, security, good governance, HIV/AIDS, population control, NGOs, visual representations and the role of diasporas in development, the book raises compelling questions about contemporary imperialism and the possibilities for transnational political solidarity.

Reviews

'This important book breaks the silence on race and racism in development. Kalpana Wilson's nuanced historical and political analysis goes beyond a narrow critique of the development industry to address broader questions of injustice, making this a book that ought to be essential reading for all students and practitioners of development.'
Andrea Cornwall, Professor of Anthropology and International Development, University of Sussex

'Race, Racism and Development makes several key interventions that bridge postcolonial, political economic, critical race, and feminist literatures. Wilson's critiques of Foucauldian approaches to power and development are a breath of fresh air ... [her] careful attention to the histories and dynamics of domination and resistance around the globe and their significance for contemporary politics is compelling ...The author rightly asks us to think more deeply about what a productive politics of transnational solidarity would look like. This book marks a major moment in the project to break the silence around race and racism in development studies.'
David Naguib Pellow, Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota, author of Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice

'Kalpana Wilson's new book is a clear indictment of the imbrication of race in development, a fact well-known to race critical scholars, but one which has rarely been analysed in such historical and contemporary sociological depth. This accessibly written and cogently argued book is a must-read for students of race and development alike'.
Alana Lentin, co-author of The Crises of Multiculturalism

Introduction
1 Race, capital and resistance through the lens of 1857
2 The gift of agency: gender and race in development representations
3 Population control, the Cold War and racialising reproduction
4 Pathologising racialised sexualities in the HIV/AIDS pandemic
5 New uses of ‘race’ in the 1990s: humanitarian intervention, good governance and democracy
6 Imperialism, accumulation and racialised embodiment
7 Worlds beyond the political? Postdevelopment and race
8 Reconfiguring ‘Britishness’: diasporas, DfID and neoliberalism
In lieu of a conclusion...
Notes
References
Index

About the Author:

Kalpana Wilson is a Fellow at the Gender Institute, London School of Economics. Her experiences teaching development studies in British universities, as well as her involvement as an activist around issues of racism and imperialism, led her to pursue the themes of this book. She has also written and researched extensively on agriarian transformation in Bihar in India, women's participation in rural labour movements and the relationships between neoliberalism, gender and the concepts of agency.

Race, Racism and Development

Interrogating history, discourse and practice

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