International development projects supported by governments of wealthy countries, international financial institutions, and influential NGOs like the Gates Foundation purport to uplift poor or disadvantaged populations through political, economic, and social interventions in these communities. However, practices, policies, and discourses of development also have a darker side: they are both premised on and perpetuate the translation of social difference into deficit, ranking groups according to their perceived âstageâ of historical development. My guest today, the political theorist BegĂźm Adalet, has explored how discourses and practices of development have interacted with political processes of racialization. She also examines how anti-colonial movements can resist racialized development practices by envisioning alternative means of recrafting built environments and the creation of selves. Our interview today focuses on three recent articles that she has published in academic journals: âAgricultural infrastructures: Land, race, and statecraft in Turkey,â Environment and Planning D: Society and Space vol. 40, no. 6 (2022): 975-993 âInfrastructures of Decolonization: Scales of Worldmaking in the Writings of Frantz Fanon,â Political Theory vol. 50, no. 1 (2022): 5-31 âAn Empire of Development: American Political Thought in Transnational Perspective,â American Political Science Review (2024) BegĂźm Adalet is assistant professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. She is the author of Hotels and Highways: The construction of modernization theory in Cold War Turkey (Stanford, 2018), which I interviewed her about for the New Books Network in 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
International development projects supported by governments of wealthy countries, international financial institutions, and influential NGOs like the Gates Foundation purport to uplift poor or disadvantaged populations through political, economic, and social interventions in these communities. However, practices, policies, and discourses of development also have a darker side: they are both premised on and perpetuate the translation of social difference into deficit, ranking groups according to their perceived âstageâ of historical development.
My guest today, the political theorist BegĂźm Adalet, has explored how discourses and practices of development have interacted with political processes of racialization. She also examines how anti-colonial movements can resist racialized development practices by envisioning alternative means of recrafting built environments and the creation of selves. Our interview today focuses on three recent articles that she has published in academic journals:
Begßm Adalet is assistant professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. She is the author of Hotels and Highways: The construction of modernization theory in Cold War Turkey (Stanford, 2018), which I interviewed her about for the New Books Network in 2020.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science