Rethinking Development Studies in Southeast Asia: State of Knowledge and Challenges 7 – 8 March 2015 University Academic Service Centre (UNISERV) Chiang Mai University Host organizations:
• Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development (RCSD), Faculty of Social •
Sciences, Chiang Mai University Center for ASEAN Studies (CAS), Chiang Mai University
Background Development studies as a distinctive academic subject has proliferated after the World War II in response to need to understand, interpret, induce and question social transformation occurring in developing countries. The social transformation as we have observed is quite complex, comprehensive and dynamic, and it is commonly described as “development” or “modernity”—a trajectory which transforms developing countries to be like the Western world. To understand and interpret the global phenomena of development and modernity, multi‐disciplinary approach is required, particularly social sciences. Academics and practitioners of development and modernity have subscribed to, as well as reflected upon, different paradigms, such as, dependency theory, Marxist and Neo‐Marxist development theories, and postmodernism. While these metta‐theories tend to analyze the causes and consequences of the social transformation, the postmodern turn suggests that emphasis should be placed on wide range of possibly discordant and even contradictory views, voices and discourses. Thus, “development” is one of the very metta‐ narratives that is to be questioned. How postmodernism would lead to disentangling the malaise of development still needs to find out. It is interesting to see how the subject of development studies has generated multiple sub‐ fields of study allowing scholars from different disciplines to look into development phenomena. The conventional rural development approach is gradually replaced by community‐based, participatory development, while environment and resource management and agrarian transformation have become a new terrain of investigation. The crucial role of the nation‐state in the context of globalization in the control of natural resources and citizens still receives great attention. Lately, some scholars take a “cultural turn” in approaching development paying attention to representation and power leading to an increasing interest in governmentality. They also pay attention to the way in which countries mobilize cultural power to create their imageries to rebrand themselves. Development studies also encompasses the intersect between development and various aspects of society, such as gender and development, ethnic conflict and state, civil society, social capital, globalization and localization, religion and development, media and consumption, urbanization and climate change, etc., to name a few. To a certain extent, this evolution of development studies tends to unnecessarily create departmentalization and boundary maintenance.