If cultures are always in the making, this book catches one kind of culture on the make. Academics will be familiar with audit in the form of research and teaching assessments - they may not be aware how pervasive practices of 'accountability' are or of the diversity of political regimes under which they flourish. Twelve social anthropologists from across Europe and the Commonwealth chart an influential and controversial cultural phenomenon.

First published in 2000, Dipesh Chakrabarty's influential Provincializing Europe addresses the mythical figure of Europe that is often taken to be the original site of modernity in many histories of capitalist transition in non-Western countries. This imaginary Europe, Dipesh Chakrabarty argues, is built into the social sciences. The very idea of historicizing carries with it some peculiarly European assumptions about disenchanted space, secular time, and sovereignty. Measured against such mythical standards, capitalist transition in the third world has often seemed either (...) incomplete or lacking. Provincializing Europe proposes that every case of transition to capitalism is a case of translation as well--a translation of existing worlds and their thought--categories into the categories and self-understandings of capitalist modernity. Now featuring a new preface in which Chakrabarty responds to his critics, this book globalizes European thought by exploring how it may be renewed both for and from the margins. (shrink)

At present, the debate on global justice, a debate which is at the core of global ethics, is largely being conducted by European and American scholars from different disciplines without taking into account views and concepts from other regions of the world, particularly, from the Global South. The lack of a truly intercultural, interreligious, and international exchange of ideas provokes doubts whether the concepts of global justice introduced so far are able to transcend regional and cultural horizons. The article introduces (...) concepts of justice from African scholars, whose voices have remained marginal until now, like the Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka, the Ethiopian philosopher Teodros Kiros, and the debate on ubuntu, one of the most controversial concepts in southern Africa today. These concepts focus on issues that are seldom considered in the debate on global justice, such as the importance of bodily needs as a prerequisite for human beings to act as moral beings and the importance of human rel.. (shrink)

We point out the need to clarify some of the ideas related to the connection between development and sustainability in the Report of the Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development. In particular, the meaning of ‘sustainable’ is not clear when applied to specific areas of human activity. A more detailed explanation of the kind of equality sought for in the proposal is also needed. Because of potential conflicts between goals, we miss some considerations on the impact (...) of population increase both on development and on sustainability. A distinction is made here between two kinds of goals included in the Report. Some of the proposed 17 goals can then be seen as ends in themselves, whereas others seem to be means for the first set. The two sets thereby established should be seen in theory and dealt with in practice in a differentiated manner. (shrink)

While the list of 17 Sustainable Development Goals proposed by the United Nations’ Open Working Group comprises a catalog of highly important post-2015 development priorities, one of the key issue that has not received the attention it deserves is the need to safeguard the Earth's life-support system. Over the course of the past decades, we have concentrated much more on socioeconomic development rather than on environmental sustainability while putting a number of the Earth's systems at risk, and with it poverty (...) eradication and sustainable development. There is thus a need to put the spotlight on global environmental change and to take account of the insights from the latest Earth system science and its implications for the future of global development and global ethics. The ongoing debate on the post-2015 SDGs offers an important occasion for this endeavor. Going beyond the current proposal of the Open Working Group and building on the planetary boundaries or guard rails framework, the SDGs.. (shrink)

The Millennium Development Goals were criticised for failing to address the issue of governance, and the associated notions of responsibility and accountability. The Sustainable Development Goals, we argue, need to recognise the structural constraints facing poor countries – the power imbalances in the global economic system that limit their ability to promote the prosperity and well-being of their people, as was clearly brought out by the Commission on Global Governance for Health, of which we were both members [Ottersen, O. P., (...) J. Dasgupta, C. Blouin, Paulo Buss, Virasakdi Chongsuvivatwong, Julio Frenk, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, et al. 2014. “The Political Origins of Health Inequality: Prospects for Change.” Lancet 383: 630–667]. This article is divided into three parts. We begin by making the case for a global justice perspective which emphasises the responsibility – and hence also accountability – of international organisations and rule-making bodies. We next demonstrate the limitations of accountabi.. (shrink)

Dominant development discourse and policy are based on crucial misconceptions about peasants and their livelihoods. Peasants are viewed as inherently poor and hungry and their farming systems are considered inefficient, of low productivity, and sometimes even environmentally degrading. Consequently, dominant development policies have tried to transform peasants into something else: industrialised commercial farmers, wage labourers, urban workers, etc. This article seeks to deconstruct three key misconceptions about peasants by explaining how and why marginalised peasants around the world face poverty and (...) hunger. An explanation of the process of marginalisation of peasants through the influence of five “mediating factors” is put forward. It is contended that by addressing the mediating factors through policies devised with the active participation of peasants, the marginalisation of peasants would be reduced or eliminated. This would allow peasants to forge an adequate livelihood in rural areas based on their independent farming, and thereby contribute to the achievement of food sovereignty. (shrink)