Culture and Development

Culture is so intrinsic to economic, political, and social processes that it is difficult to make sense of development without taking 'the cultural' into account. Culture and development emerged as a distinctive approach in the 1990s at a time of crisis in development thinking. Existing Marxist, neoliberal, and modernization theories seemed unable to fully explain how, when, and why countries develop; understand what development means to people in different places; and provide development interventions to improve their lived experience. One key contribution of the 'cultural turn' in development was to identify the narrow conceptualization of culture in the mainstream development literature. Second, it turned attention to the non-economic aspects of people's lived experiences and how they are shaped by - and connect to - cultural formations such as religion, gender, ethnicity, and colonialism. Third, drawing on cultural, postcolonial, and critical development studies, scholars started to examine development as a concept shaped by ideas, norms, and values, and hence as a cultural construct that is deeply contested, both intellectually and in everyday struggles over development.