An excerpt taken from Sociology 301, Development and Globalization
This year I took a sociology course that really changed my life, and the way that I see and understand the world. In starting to explore the historical context for inequity in the world, I saw that words and thoughts have been powerful instruments in creating realities. These are some thoughts I recorded for a blog post for sociology: The context is about ‘development’ being at a crossroads where its definition and implications change.
Written by Lana McGuire
Why does it appear that development is at a crossroads?
….the process of transformation is something that happens through relationship, over time, across cultures, values, and different perspectives. The term “development” should really be dismantled, and replaced with a stark admission that we as humans should not attempt to position ourselves above another. Rather, our greatest strength in walking towards a more whole, healthy, and free humanity is to serve one another in love, and to dismantle systems of oppression.
I think that one factor that has brought us to this turbid ebb and flow of change in the understanding and implementation of development is crisis; looming and present. There is an increasingly steady influx of problems that are not solvable using one dimension alone. Furthmore, the former framework for development has been a huge contributor to many of these problems. Conflicts, environmental mysteries and enigmas, political tensions, and the increasing urgency of chronic poverty, disease, and inequity have brought us to a place in which critical reflection and a renewed framework for engagement are vital. Furthermore, I believe that we have come to recognize that the whole of a person is far more complex than one discipline alone, and to hope to see true change in the nations, we must learn to collaborate. The fact that we have come to a place of incredible sophistication in the realm of technology and information, yet the state of our humanity is worse than ever on many levels is an unavoidable indication that something has been missing in the past approach to development, and that to recover that which is lost requires that we embrace new modalities and lenses through which we see the situation.
In conclusion, a crossroads is both a terrifying and exhilarating place to be. It is a place in which the ability to humbly admit our ineptness and seek to discover truth and beauty amidst chaos and ashes is present, for we are no longer under the illusion that we have the answer.