Colonial Empires and the Political Economy of “Backwardness”: Knowledge Hierarchies and Colonial Development Discourse

Author(s) : Qurat Ul Ain, Abdul Wajid

Abstract:

The notion of 'backwardness' has been integral in organizing global hierarchies of knowledge and power since the colonial era. This article claims that backwardness was not a fact of nature as seen from the colonial point of view rather it is a political-economic product of colonial discourse and imperial economic institutions. Colonial knowledge systems endowed colonized societies with the characteristics of stagnation, irrationality, and deficiency while colonists’ political economy re-invented colonized societies to create structural underdevelopment. The article brings together postcolonial study, discourse analysis and global political economy to show how backwardness was self-confirming as it perpetuated and legitimized imperial domination and reinforced the domination of colonial powers. The paper further argues that the modern thinking on development emphasizes colonial norms and views the Global South societies as deficient, less mature or underdeveloped. In doing so, this article underscores the deep rooted colonial epistemologies on current development processes and suggests a critical review of the categories under which global inequalities are constructed.