Colonial Concepts of Development in Africa

The main purpose of the proposed research project is to scrutinise the concept of development during the late colonial era by analysing French and British discourses on colonial development. The project will focus on the period from the end of World War I to decolonisation as well as on two specific African territories and their respective colonial metropolises (Senegal/France and Tanganyika/Britain). Adopting primarily but not exclusively a discourse analytical approach, the project will focus on four distinct spheres which are deemed essential for reconstructing the colonisers` mindset: Political utterances (parliamentary debates and other political declarations), administrative documents (at both the metropolitan level and the level of the two colonies in question), academic texts (articles and books related to development issues), and colonial literature (written by authors who were immediately involved with the colonial system). The project will place particular emphasis on how these spheres and the various discursive strands emanating from them related to each other. The investigation will distinguish between two levels of analysis: At the first level, the project will investigate the concept(s) of development within colonial discourse, try to fathom its (their) relative importance over time and explore the relationship between colonial discourse and the emerging development discourse. At the second level, the project will closely look at the internal structure of the development paradigm itself, at its various discursive strands, and its overall trajectory from the early 1920s to the late 1950s. This in-depth analysis of the (emerging) development discourse will focus on the self-proclaimed goals of development - ranging from raising productivity to improving human well-being -, the means that were envisaged to attain these goals, and the roles that were assigned to the various protagonists in the colonial arena. By comparing Britain and France the project will try to establish whether the development discourses in the two major colonial powers of the 20th century had similar characteristics and followed similar trajectories within similar time horizons, thus pointing towards common structural features and circumstances that transcended specific national contexts.

During the 20th century development became a key concept structuring economic and political relations in the global order. Contrary to widely held assumptions, concepts of development and related practices (as for instance development aid) were not entirely novel creations of the Cold War and decolonisation in the 1950s. Instead, they can be regarded as major legacies of European colonialism, with roots reaching back to the age of Enlightenment. Throughout the 20th century, actors from the global North focussed on Africa when they developed and applied strategies of externally steered development, as a historically new way to plan, enforce, control and evaluate social and economic change. To improve the understanding of development as an important object and instrument in global relations, this project sought to apprehend the object through historical and discourse analytical approaches and to reveal the colonial roots of modern development policy in Africa. Our research concentrated on the period between the end of First World War and the late 1950s, the era of decolonisation. During this time development became a powerful concept, defining and shaping the relation between metropolis and colonies, between Europe and Africa. After the First World War development discourse became important for colonial governments and relevant metropolitan government authorities, came to the fore in colonial propaganda and press, and shaped African and European mentalities and interaction between Europeans and Africans.The collection and documentation of multifaceted texts and text fragments, and the description and analysis of concepts and practices of development in British East Africa on the one hand and French West Africa on the other provided the basis for a historical comparison of Great Britain and France, as the two most significant colonial powers, in their approach to colonial development or mise en valeur. The comparative approach enabled us to identify and better understand discursive and institutional frameworks relevant for the drafting and implementation of development policies and projects. Combining historic approaches, literary and cultural studies, as well as content and discourse analysis we related government discourses in the metropolis and the colonies to scientific studies, media and popular literature. Our work relies on archival research in Great Britain, France, Senegal and Tanzania as well as on ample knowledge of manuals and popular stories written by colonial officers, missionaries, teachers and academic scholars, male and female, Africans and Europeans. Their stories, novels and autobiographic writings addressed a vast and heterogeneous public. The not yet fully completed analysis of the collected documents and the presentation of its results is on the one hand a contribution to comprehend and grasp colonialism from a new perspective, scarcely noted in previous research, and on the other an essential contribution to and correction of the widely ahistorical approaches and discourses in development studies and development politics.