Progress in Development Studies 6, 1 (2006) pp.
17
Editorial
Critiquing race and racism in
development discourse and practice
Uma Kothari
Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester,
Harold Hankins Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9QH, UK
I Race in development
Forms of racism and expressions that articu-
late ideas about race are fluid and multiple,
contingent and contextual, ranging from
overt to covert and unreflexive. Historically
and geographically rooted, such expressions
have become increasingly variegated, even
detached from their originary impulses, and
can travel far and wide. It is in this spirit of
critical enquiry that the papers in this special
issue aim to reveal some of the tenacious
strands of racialized forms of knowing
and representing in development discourse
and practice. This is a realm that has
remained curiously untouched by the post-
colonial critiques and debates about race in
other social science disciplines (see Biccum,
2002). Together, the papers attempt to dis-
rupt these disturbing silences, banalisations
and erasures (Grovogui, 2001: 437) and,
focusing on a diverse range of issues from
varying perspectives, question the absence of
discussions around race. They suggest how
understanding development in terms of race
can spotlight inadequacies, contradictions and
misrepresentations in development ideolo-
gies, policies and practices, as well as relations
of power.
Escobar (1995) argues that discourses of
(western) development discursively produce
the third world as different and inferior, and
2006 Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd
accordingly as its object of study and inter-
vention. These articles explore how racialized
forms of power and inequality build upon this
foundational distinction between the devel-
oped and developing and draw attention to
the various, unspoken assumptions about
racethat underpin some of the key ideological
bases of development thought and practice.
Additionally, they identify the need for further
exploration of the subtle manifestations of
racism within international development.
Postcolonial, postdevelopment and anti-
development critics have provincialized the
supposed universality of western notions of
development and have critiqued the inability
of the west to theorize non-western experi-
ences. However, while these accounts have
alluded to race, they have largely focused
on challenging eurocentrism (Escobar, 1995;
Pieterse and Parekh, 1995). This does not
mean that ideas about race have been
completely absent in accounts about devel-
opment. Other research and writing, largely
within geography, have explored the relation-
ship between gender/feminism, postcolo-
nialism and development (Robinson, 1994;
Parpart, 1995; Midgely, 1998; McEwan,
2001), uncovered continuities between
colonial histories of development and con-
temporary representations of the third world
(Crush, 1995; Cowen and Shenton, 1996;
10.1191/1464993406ps123ed
2 Critiquing race and racism in development discourse and practice
Sylvester, 1999; Power, 2003; Kothari, 2005)
and examined the institutional machinery of
development discernible in agencies, encoun-
ters and relationships (Crewe and Harrison,
1998; Goldman, 2001; Lewis et al., 2003).
While these accounts have, to varying
degrees, challenged conventional understand-
ings of socio-economic change in the third
world, the ways in which ideas about race
flow through development discourses are
rarely spoken about overtly. Those attempts
to foreground race specifically (for instance,
White, 2002 and Goudge, 2003), have
not effected a serious interrogation of the
discourse. Perhaps this is because race is
seen as an almost empty, fluid and outdated
category with little consensus about its mean-
ing (see Pieterse, 2004). Is the invisibility
around race, therefore, because it is consid-
ered relatively unimportant in shaping
inequities, injustice and poverty while other
categories of social differentiation such as
ethnicity, religion and culture are perceived
to have greater significance? Perhaps within a
discourse framed around humanitarianism,
cooperation and aid, raising race is too
distracting, disruptive and demanding? Or
does the silence of race conceal the complic-
ity of development with racialized projects?
Here we attempt to address these questions
by throwing a spotlight on discourses of
development and interrogating explanations
of difference in terms of race. We explore
how analyses of race can contribute to
understandings of the causes, consequences
and responses to problems of underdevelop-
ment and, importantly, of power, privilege
and inequalities.
Marcus Power (2003: 12) reminds us of
the necessity to flag up the continued
importance of whiteness, racism and racial
formations in thinking about, mapping and
practising development today since develop-
ment is largely related to a geopolitics of
race, where developed countries take an
interest in and consider the needs of poor
countries in ways that often issue directly
from their own preoccupations and strategic
political, cultural and economic objectives and
perspectives. While some of the papers do
address this geopolitics of race by focusing on
how racialized discourses underpin western
ideologies and influence understandings and
representations of the third world, ideas of
race are evidently not unique to the west.
Ideologies, policies and methodological
approaches vary spatially as do the individual
sensibilities of the increasingly diverse range
of people involved in the development
industry. Indeed, as the discussions at the
meeting in Durban in 2001 on the Elimination
of Racial Discrimination highlighted, race
and racism shape distinctions, exclusions and
privileges and obstruct the full realization of
human rights everywhere (United Nations
(UN), 2001). Thus, although the focus here is
on a racialized eurocentrism, it is not the
intention to suggest a singular, homogenized
discourse of development nor deny the
existence of dissenting practitioners in the
west and elsewhere.
The development machine is global in
its reach, encapsulating a diverse range of
institutions, agencies and individuals with
varying perspectives. Some individuals are
involved primarily as academics, teachers and
researchers, others in decision-making and
policy formulation and implementation, while
the majority constitute the so-called bene-
ficiaries of development. While different
motives and interests for development
coexist, some understand its primary purpose
as the support of social, political and
economic change in third world countries and
consequently work towards alleviating
poverty, injustice and inequity. Yet, whatever
the objectives of those involved, development
is framed by a distinct relationship between
aid donors and recipients mapped onto
a first world/third world or developed/
underdeveloped divide. Thus, understanding
global distinctions, hierarchies and relation-
ships becomes especially pertinent in the
study and practice of development.
Felice (2002: 205) questions whether
race can be abstracted from other indivisible

discursive classifications, for in the real
world, a person does not exist only as a racial
category. Indeed these categories mediate
one another and have relational effects so
that class and gender, for example, are also
constructed along racial lines (Whittle and
Inhorn, 2001; Moyo and Kawewe, 2002).
Whilst the intersection of these social
categories has been acknowledged, it seems
to be easier to talk about gender and ethnicity
whereas the subject of race appears to be
particularly taboo. The arguments presented
here, therefore, while sharing the notion that
global forms of ordering through development
produce a variety of interlocking forms of
distinctions and exclusions, focus on the
invisibility and effects of race.
Given the breadth and complexity of
development, it is not possible to cover all
facets of race in the industry. However, the
contributions to this collection offer critical
and challenging perspectives by addressing
some of the discursive, material and institu-
tional elements of race and racism from,
micro- to macro-levels, emphasizing that
race matters and needs to be taken seriously
in all aspects of development discourse and
practice.
II Understanding race
There is great difficulty in defining concepts
of race and racism (see Banton, 2002) with
various articulations on the meanings of race
focusing primarily around opposing demands
of culture and biology, knowledge and
power (Persaud and Walker, 2001: 373).
More recently, debates have concentrated on
challenging these dichotomies, and most
social scientists would now acknowledge that
races are socially determined categories of
identity and group association (Bonilla-Silva,
1997: 472), for biological explanations have
largely been discredited.
Winant (2000: 172) defines race as a
concept that signifies and symbolizes socio-
political conflicts and interests in reference
to different types of human bodies. That is,
that while the meanings of race are socially
U. Kothari 3
constructed and politically contested, race
continues to be known through types of
bodies. Whilst this concept of race seems to
appeal to biologically based human character-
istics, Winant insists that selection of these
particular human features for purposes of
racial signification is always and necessarily a
social and historical process (2000: 172).
There is no biological basis for distinguishing
people along racial lines, although races
typically continue to be identified by their
phenotype (Bonilla-Silva, 1997: 469), for
these human traits are, on serious examina-
tion, found to be imprecise if not completely
arbitrary (Winant, 2000: 172) and always
social rather than biological.
Others have problematized the divide
between nature/culture suggesting that
nature is itself socially constituted and
biological distinctions are, therefore, neces-
sarily contextual. Wade (2002) develops
these ideas, arguing that references made to
biology, heredity and physical appearance
mistakenly imply that race is immutable and
permanent. He explores the social processes
that produced these apparently fixed bio-
logical signifiers and how notions of perma-
nence came about (Wade, 2002: 7). But
there remains a tension in much of the
literature between challenging these ideas
of permanence and yet seeing race as
grounded, material and embodied. There has
been some critical thinking about boundaries
between nature and culture, particularly in
discussions of gender (Butler, 1990), and the
papers here draw upon, develop and reflect
on some of these in the context of the field of
development.
III What the papers say
As Saldanha (2006) summarizes, racial differ-
ence is identified by a variety of material,
embodied, discursive and social markers.
While the papers here discuss race as a dis-
cursive category of difference and inequality,
one that is socially constituted rather than
rooted in biological distinctions, they empha-
size different aspects of these racialized
4 Critiquing race and racism in development discourse and practice
expressions. In some, racial categories and
meanings are given concrete expression
through individual encounters and relations
(see papers by Crewe and Fernando, and
White), while others are more concerned
with historical, ideological and discursive
constructions (see Duffield, Kothari, Power).
Taken together, the papers link the represen-
tational/discursive elements of race with
structural/institutional ones and show how
meanings about race are open to many types
of agency, from the individual to the organiza-
tional, from the local to the global (Winant,
2000: 170). What they also demonstrate
is that meanings of race, as socially con-
structed and politically contested, are as
multiple as the social contexts in which they
have effect.
The papers draw on conceptual under-
standings from a range of disciplinary areas
including geography, politics and international
relations, sociology and anthropology, and
some reflect on their personal experiences in
and of development agencies. To bring
together a collection of papers on race and
racism in development is not an easy task for,
as already mentioned, there has been very
little research and writing on this issue.
Additionally, the meanings of race are as
diverse as the individuals, institutions and
ideologies of global development. A special
issue on gender and development, for exam-
ple, would necessarily have to focus on a
specific development issue or it would be
considered too general. However, since race
has not been so widely acknowledged or
integrated, the imperative here is to signal the
diverse racialized relationships in develop-
ment. As such, this collection can only repre-
sent a beginning of more open, systematic
and rigorous thinking about race, racism and
development.
Despite the range of issues covered there
are some points of connection between
the papers. Invoking socio-cultural readings
of race1 and acknowledging its (colonial)
history, they demonstrate how racism is not
confined to individual prejudice, stereotypes
and assumptions about other people but
inheres in the very idea of development and
its principal distinction between first and third
worlds. In so doing, they problematize the
broader construction of racialized global
dichotomies while variously exploring their
impacts.
That there is a silence around race
in development discourse and practice is
unquestioned in these papers and there is a
clear recognition of the need for further
research. Uma Kotharis paper attempts to
provide an agenda for this and identifies three
potential areas for further examination. The
first is the continuing legacy of colonial con-
structions and the persistence of forms of
racial difference and hierarchy in develop-
ment. She suggests that, to date, much of the
postcolonial development literature has
tended to focus on challenging eurocentrism
rather than addressing race specifically. The
second concerns the power of whiteness and
specifically how authority, expertise and
knowledge become racially symbolized.
Racialized constructions of, for example,
expatriate, local and expertise, are also
explored in the papers by Emma Crewe and
Priyanthi Fernando, and Sarah White. The
third area for further investigation is how
race might be disguised through the use
of specialized terminology and criteria in
accounting for social exclusion. The paper
concludes by suggesting that debates around
multiculturalism and anti-racism could inform
a shift away from racialized representations
and inequalities prevailing in development.
The following paper by Marcus Power
analyses ideas about anti-racism in the
context of colonial legacies and develops
the issue of postcolonial continuities and
divergences raised in Kotharis paper. In
particular he examines anti-racism and the
notion of overdevelopment, to address
how the development/colonialism interface
continues to be subject to competing geo-
political strategies. Taking the dying days of
the Portuguese empire in Africa as a specific
example, he examines the legacy of colonial

rule and representation. The paper goes on to
consider the implications of these highly
racialized discourses following independence
through an examination of some of the post-
colonial debates around racism and anti-
racism in Mozambique from 1975 to 1988.
The paper concludes by identifying the
need for further conceptualization of the
relationship between deracialization and state
nationalism following independence, and
suggests that anti-racist critiques and decon-
structive analyses may provide critical tools.
Powers suggestion that we explore indi-
vidual roles and assumptions within develop-
ment as well as its apparatus is partly taken
up in the following two papers. Drawing on
examples from development agency staff and
their experiences of working within a range of
institutions, Emma Crewe and Priyanthi
Fernando demonstrate the pervasiveness of
generalizations about different racial groups.
They argue that racist representations
and rituals significantly contribute to how
relationships and encounters in international
development are shaped and can be used to
justify power structures that discriminate
against and exclude people. Disrupting the
simplistic black/white dichotomy and acknowl-
edging distinctions between stereotyping
and racism, they highlight the persistence of
everyday practices that inform how people
connect. The racialized identities that privi-
lege some while excluding others are shown
to be particularly evident in the construction
and use of development language and termi-
nology; the time, place and rules of funding;
the consultation rituals and processes of
decision-making. They conclude by arguing
that these widespread, unspoken racialized
assumptions about other people have been
under-researched, particularly in terms of
their impact on the processes and outcomes
of development interventions. The use of
private conversations, anecdotes and per-
sonal experience in this paper reflects the
public silence about race.
Sarah Whites paper also examines the
racialization of ideas and assumptions about
U. Kothari 5
other people but this time within a particular
subfield of development. She asks why the
critical questioning of development institu-
tions and forms of thought that took place in
relation to gender issues did not lead to a
broader consideration of race. While recog-
nizing that feminists have been relatively
over-represented in raising issues of race in
development, she argues that gender and
development (GAD) as a whole has not been
innocent of racial bias. She demonstrates how
this is particularly evident in the failure to
incorporate black feminist perspectives into
core conceptual approaches, consequently
limiting its analytical power. At times, the
promotion of women as an undifferentiated
category has masked the significance of racial
difference. She concludes by suggesting a
broadening of the movement for social justice
in ways that include, but are not limited
to, gender dimensions. This constitutes a
profound challenge to normative develop-
ment assumptions and thus ultimately social
change may come through more and better
politics, rather than more and better planning.
The final paper by Mark Duffield draws on
Foucault to conceive development as a
technology of global biopolitics. He shows
that following decolonization, the dynamics
of global population migration shifted and
subsequently sociocultural categories became
increasingly important in every-day racial
discourse. Bringing together themes of inter-
national migration, racism and development,
he contends that contemporary conflicts
undermine self-reliance and thereby give rise
to particular forms of international migration
that are perceived to threaten the way of life
of mass society. He argues that following
decolonization, the interconnectedness of
the policing of this global circulation of
people, the promotion of homeland social
cohesion and the use of development
resources to reconstruct borderland states
and contain their populations, has led to a
shift in racial discourse.
While focusing on different aspects of a
racialized discourse, taken together the
6 Critiquing race and racism in development discourse and practice
papers insist that race deserves serious dis-
cussion, particularly in this time of changing
global order. Race is fundamental in not only
explaining how the modern world system
emerged but also how it functions in localized
and globalized relationships (see Persaud
and Walker, 2001: 374). It is evident from
these papers that race has shaped systems of
inclusion and exclusion through material,
ideological and epistemological practices.
Given the invisibility of race in development,
the strategic necessity here has been to
spotlight race and racism, although this does
not infer that it is the foremost source of
inequality and injustice. We hope that this
special issue will encourage more rigorous
discussions of race and racism in develop-
ment as well as examinations of other forms
of persistent inequality.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the reviewers of the
papers included in this issue for their invalu-
able comments. I would also like to thank
Jen Peterson for research assistance.
Note
1. Recently, in writings about race that emerge
from Britain (eg, Gilroy, 2000), the term race
is often placed within inverted commas to
emphasize that it is a highly discursive way of
categorizing individuals and groups, and to
underline that it is not based on any valid
biological distinctions. Furthermore, the
inverted commas signal an awareness of the
words tainted history and scepticism about
its referent, while simultaneously conceding
that no other word would do the job
(Saldanha, 2006). In this special issue we have
not insisted on a uniform textual presentation;
some authors have employed inverted com-
mas to emphasize the contested nature of the
concept whereas others accept this as given.
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