Abstract
The purpose of this contribution is to consider what the significance of the new discussion taking place around humanism is for the ways in which we think about development and education. It attempts to hold the idea of development in a frame in which we can think more constructively and less instrumentally about the place of education within it. It attempts a restatement of the idea of development that draws on the consensus about its meaning that is emerging out of the SDGs, and that also brings to bear the discussion concerning new humanism. What is this new humanism? the article asks. What is it a response to? To what are scholars and commentators in the development arena, particularly people such as Hans d'Orville, reacting in their emphasis on the urgency of the moment?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ackerman, D. (2014). The human age: The world shaped by us. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.
Braidotti, R. (2013). The posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Crewe, E., & Harrison, E. (1998). Whose development? London: Zed Books.
D’Orville, H. (2015). New humanism and sustainable development. Cadmus, 2(5). http://cadmusjournal.org/node/503.
Donker, R., Truscott, R., Minkley, P., & Lalu, P. (2017). Traversing the social. In M. Donker, R. Truscott, G. Minkley, & P. Lalu (Eds.), Remains of the social: Desiring the postapartheid (pp. 1–39). Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
Easterly, W. (2015). The SDGs should stand for senseless, dreamy, garbled. Foreign Policy. http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/28/the-sdgs-are-utopian-and-worthless-mdgs-development-rise-of-the-rest/.
Fioramonti, L. (2017). Wellbeing economy: Success in a world without growth. Johannesburg: Pan MacMillan South Africa.
Harvey, D. (2007). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kirk, M. (2015). What if everything the SDGs are premised on is just wrong? African Arguments. http://africanarguments.org/2015/09/23/what-if-everything-the-sdgs-are-premised-on-is-just-wrong?
Klugman, J., Rodriguez, F. & Choi, H.-J. (2011). The HDI 2010: New controversies, old critiques. United Nations Development Programme. Human Development Reports. Research Paper 2011/01.
Kristeva, J. (1989). Black sun: Depression and melancholia. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Kumar, R. (2017). Critics of the Sustainable Development Goals were wrong: Here’s why. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/turns-out-sdg-critics-were-wrong.
Mbembe, A. (2017). A critique of black reason. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
Omar, Y. (2017). Mamdani returns. University of Cape Town News, 24 August 2017. https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2017-08-24-mamdani-returns.
Oxfam (2016). An economy for the 1%: How privilege and power in the economy drive extreme inequality and how this can be stopped. Oxfam Briefing Paper 210. Oxford: Oxfam.
Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tetior, A. (n.d.). “Sustainable building”: Concept and binary plurality of unstable world. Unpublished paper, Moscow State University of Environmental Engineering, Moscow, Russia. http://www.irbnet.de/daten/iconda/CIB2518.pdf.
UNDP [United Nations Human Development Programme] (2013). The rise of the South: Human progress in a diverse world. Human development report 2013. New York, NY: UNDP.
UNDESA [United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs] (2015). The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld.
Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. (2009). The spirit level: Why equality is better for everyone. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
WCED [World Commission on Environment and Development] (1987). Our common future. Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. http:// www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
About this article
Cite this article
Soudien, C. The significance of new humanism for education and development. Prospects 47, 309–320 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-018-9440-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-018-9440-2