Abstract
This chapter is a rebuttal of theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of indigenisation and economic empowerment policies that are at the political platforms of governing authorities in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The argument is that mainstream understandings of ‘development’ that inform economic empowerment and indigenisation policies discussed in Chapter 5 are underpinned by Northern development discourse. Northern development discourse makes general claims to universal relevance and, consequently, turns a blind eye to contextual particularities and the diversity of social actors’ contexts. The chapter proposes alternative trajectories of development by introducing the notion of Southern development discourse, which pays particular attention to the role of local linguistic and cultural imperatives in mediating economic development, empowerment and social progress. It concludes by arguing in support of the affordances and promises that African linguistic diversity and cultural resources hold for creativity and innovation. These are considered as key drivers of sustainable economic development and social progress
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Notes
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- 2.
Please refer to the next section for examples of African models of development that leveraged the ideals of Ubuntu and which flourished prior to the colonial imposition of Northern discourses of development.
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I use the term ‘Zimbabwe ’ in the same way that Walter Rodney (1972) uses it to designate the cultures between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers in the few centuries preceding European arrival.
- 4.
There is often a tendency to ask for current examples of how African linguistic diversity and aspects of cultural development have or can transform economic development. It should be noted that the advanced state of development in pre-colonial Africa that was mediated by local linguistic and cultural resources was interrupted and sabotaged by European enslavement of Africans, colonial violence and the plunder of material culture , resources and creative achievements. Therefore, I would argue that when seen against the backdrop of these consequences of the imperial powers’ activities that killed home-grown African innovations, it would be nearly impossible to find current living examples of something that is well known to have been deliberately stifled and squeezed out of mainstream development discourse and replaced with Northern development discourse . For this reason, it is my considered view that though they only refer to a pre-colonial African past, the pre-fifteenth-century examples illustrating the potential of cultural development as described in this section are sufficient to support the claim I am making about the need to seriously consider local linguistic and cultural imperatives in our search for alternative development trajectories for southern Africa .
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Ndhlovu, F. (2018). Alternative Language of Development and Economic Empowerment. In: Language, Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76135-0_6
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