Moving in Circles. Underdevelopment and the Narrative of Uncertainty in the Global Periphery

Moving in Circles draws on Walter Rodney’s treatise on underdevelopment. Underdevelopment is to be associated with various factors contributing to the uncertainties that lack of progress begets, regardless of its genesis. Some of the indicators of this condition are pervasive poverty, liquidation of productive assets, and precarious livelihoods. Uncertainty stands out as a cost as it is also a catalyst for low investment in agriculture, low returns non-agricultural activities, inconsistent approach to planning and rule of law and more generally socio-economic backwardness. Development should in a broad sense entail meeting human needs, actualization of local and domestic potential and liberation from uncertainty. In the long term, for ’development’ talk to be meaningful, there is a need for progressive transformation of underlying structures, improvement in productive capacity and general adherence to principles of good governance: openness and transparency, accountability and meaningful popular engagement.