UNEQUAL DEVELOPMENT BY CHRIS HANS AND KEITH

HART

This question will be answered through the work of Chris Hans and Keith
Hart’s “ Economic Anthropology: History , Ethnography, Critique”. In this
essay, we will be looking at the unequal development which occurred in
different parts of the world.

Hans and Hart begins by stating that the concept of development varies based
on different things such as migration, capitalism , socialism and much more.
Development has become a bridge between core and the peripheral countries
but also caused unequal development among the rich and the poor countries i.e.
spatial apartheid , causing regional differences of development , varied degree
of development within the societies sharing a common history.

The author moves on to talk about the relation of development and

anthropology .

DEVELOPMENT AND ANTHROPOLOGY

In the 1950s and 60s, development was defined by modernisation i.e. the poor
need to be brought to the level of the rich by increasing their access to cities, to
capital, to science and technology, law, democracy , education. By the 1970s, it
was realised this has resulted in dependency where the poor are controlled by
the rich. By the 1980s, developmental studies , interdisciplinary approaches,
emphasised the need to understand whose development and at what cost.

The reason for the failure of development was the disconnect between the
bureaucracy and the citizens. Thus, the state was heavily criticised for being
corrupt and ineffective. Anthropologists realised that their role as researchers
holds a significant importance as through the field work , one can create
awareness , advocate people’s interest or simply be the mediators between the
state and citizens. Therefore, a sub-discipline emerged in the field of
anthropology , called anthropology of development , focusing on the rural
development and participatory development i,e, local people having a say in
policy and planning so that they can transform their own communities.

For example, in Africa, there were problems of poverty, disorder, war , famine
etc. After World War I , West Africa saw a sudden development of mass scale
production and Europeans intensively exploited the poor countries for raw
materials, tea etc and all while using indentured labour. Another example taken
by the author is of the cocoa industry of southern Ghana as the development in
Ghana occurred without the help or knowledge of the West. Polly Hill studied
the people of southern Ghana and wrote a book called “ Migrant Cocoa Farmers
of Southern Ghana” . Hill discovered that Cocoa farmers were well educated,
modern class who hired Swiss construction from another country. They
recruited labour on the formula of one by third ratio of two by three where the
labourers got one third of the s]crops sold.

Development in the 3rd world countries were of the informal economy

consisting of hawkers, shopkeepers etc , since there is no capitalism, no rules
and regulations, hidden, unpermitted , black marketeering occurs. Clifforf Gerz
wrote a book called “ Pedlars and Price” where he distinguished between a
corporate firm and a bazaar economy. Bazaar economy refers to a local
economy with a high sense of risk , individualistic in nature and accumulation is
not possible whereas a corporate firm refers to a western cooperation under the
control of the state, with calculative minimum risk and here , accumulation of
capital is the main factor.

Hence, one of the biggest challenges they face is unemployment. This issue was
helped with the emergence of liberalism which brought free markets, decreased
state control, allowed outsourcing of work . However, this also has a negative
impact due to weapon and drug trade, making the African economy 70%
informal and illegal . Today, the idea of development seems to be an unreal,
utopian concept. Some changes are brought about by social movement and
sustainable development but this is still a very slow change.