Development as modernity, modernity as development

Albeit the divergences on the debate about development in Africa, it is indubitable that the continent remains underdeveloped after five decades of development efforts. To understand this impasse, it is necessary to trace Africa's encounter with Europe to the period of early modernity. This paper first outlines the theory of modernity and Enlightenment. Next, it traces the genealogy of the idea of development as modernity and how the African development process gets entangled in it. Zeroing in on the current idea of late or hypermodernity, the author dismisses the idea that there is something new in the globalization-backed neoliberal development paradigm. He then addresses the complex question of how the impasse of modernity can be transcended, arguing that Africa needs to construct its own modernity, different from that of the West. [ASC Leiden abstract]

A3