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22nd - 25th November 2010
WASD Eighth International Conference
"Towards Epistemic Sovereignty: (Re)-thinking Development in a Changing Global Political Economy"
The aim of this multi-disciplinary conference is to encourage a critical examination of the neoliberal approach to development and all that it connotes. More importantly, however, the conference seeks to encourage participants to consider alternative explanations for the Third World problematique of underdevelopment, as a precursor to “constructing a way forward”.
The world is reeling under the pressures of the current ‘Financial Crisis’, desperately seeking answers to some rather troubling questions. Raging debates about the merits and demerits of modern day capitalism abound. In fact, doubts are being raised about the relevance and adequacy of neoliberalism as the philosophical lynchpin of the global economy.
Arguably, capitalism has failed those trapped on the margins of the global political economy, who have long struggled to find a way out of underdevelopment. Much of what is now being experienced in the North, with respect to unemployment, economic hardship and desperation are the ‘staple’ of Third World existence. These realities have now come to haunt those in the ‘Core’ who are forced to re-examine that which free market economics has come to symbolise. This crisis is perhaps the result of ‘rampant excesses’ and ‘maldistribution’ of global wealth. A corrective is urgently needed and is the focus of all who care to deliberate on the problem and ultimately fix it.
Third World scholars have struggled to find an appropriate lexicon to adequately reflect these realities and how they affect ordinary people. The contention is that the very lexicon itself is imprisoning. Can scholars escape the seemingly fixed contours of a Eurocentric and ethnocentric discourse on development, which at best is insufficient if not restrictive? In an attempt to liberate peoples of the world from the ‘costs’ of capitalism, how far can thinkers and practitioners go in defining and resolving the ‘problematique of underdevelopment’? Moreover, how best can countries (re)-position themselves in the global political economy, to ensure that they reap whatever benefits are associated with the current forms of exchange and interaction.
Similar to previous conferences organised by WASD, this multidisciplinary conference is expected to attract large number of global experts and scholars in addition to WASD members all over the world.
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