Page 140 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

9781412934633-Chap-08 1/10/09 10:52 AM Page 111

SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS 111

considered to be linked globally (Azoulay, chairwoman, Gro Harlem Brundtland. It
2002). Cooperation was situated in the focused on the necessity of supporting envi-
longue durée that insisted on structural con- ronmental measures and international devel-
ditions of internal (local elites) and external opment. The Earth Summit organized by the
(world economy) domination. Numerous United Nations Conference on Environment
scholars from the South and the North con- and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992
tributed to this discussion by analyzing dif- popularized the idea of irreversible sustain-
ferent factors (for example, Cardoso and able development: 172 governments partici-
Faletto, 1979; Frank, 1967) and insisting on pated in the conference; 108 at the level of
evidence of unequal relations, characterized heads of States or governments.
more by conflict than by cooperation. Since the final years of the twenti-
In 1973, the movement around the New eth century, the UNDP (United Nations
International Economic World Order asked Development Programme) favoured a develop-
for a redistribution of the advantages of ment approach that added a human dimension
economic growth. The idea was to improve to economic growth. Development had
the integration of the countries of the South become conditional on cooperation in a global
in the global system. But financial crises, the world. International organizations, together
beginning of the debt regime and structural with national political and economic elites,
adjustments changed the focus of this move- favoured increasingly international cooperation
ment. The new regulation system had less while numerous counter-movements appeared
consideration for the protection of labourers that criticized the globalization process, such
than it did for the protection of financial as ATTAC (Association pour la taxation des
credits. The imposition of austerity measures transactions pour l’aide aux citoyens) or the
by indebted governments worsened social Chiapas movement in Mexico.
inequalities even more. During these years, It is interesting to analyze feminist
the importance of the ‘basic needs’ approach critiques of development that are concerned
began to emerge, even if its theoretical foun- with the negative impact of mainstream
dations (a common ‘human nature’) were development on the lives of women. In some
rather limited. cases, development projects, introduced to
Finally, theoretical approaches began to improve welfare of certain groups, have led
lose their importance in the face of actions to a decline in women’s well-being. Since the
taken by international cooperation actors, 1970, the women’s movement and women’s
such as the World Bank, the International activists have contributed to research
Monetary Fund and other organizations of programmes in both the North and the South.
the United Nations. The ‘laws’ of the market In the 1970s, women were brought ‘into’
were increasingly opposed to humanitarian development; this focus was named the
actions of UN agencies and NGOs. Political women-in-development (WID) approach.
actions placed the westernization of the The WID approach influenced the policies of
world by economic, political and social lead- the World Bank without challenging existing
ers in question. Indigenous groups were gender ideologies that conceive of all repro-
defended to a greater extent. The breakdown ductive work as women’s work. Some ten
of the Iron Curtain resulted in the disappear- years later, the focus was extended with
ance in Eastern Bloc countries of a model of the influence of feminist theorizing about
development that had been favoured by parts research on women-and-development (WAD).
of the South. In 1987, the World Commission More recently, feminist researchers in the
on Environment and Development (WCED) North have underlined the need to contextual-
published a report entitled Our Common ize discourse on development in order to show
Future. The document came to be known as its effects on women. These studies are com-
the Brundtland Report after the Commission’s plementary to those of indigenous feminists.