The Loaded Language of Development
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By Cara-Marie Findlay
FHG Founder and Principal Consultant
The Loaded Language of Development
Certain words elicit specific emotional responses. For example, a word like “failure” can conjure up feelings of fear or extreme disappointment. Words and phrases that include this additional emotional dimension are often referred to as “loaded language.”
Confusion—an inability to clearly understand and/or to act upon that understanding or intelligence—is also an emotional response.
One reason people around the world feel disempowered (deprived of opportunities to exert influence over their life and circumstances) is because many of the subjects related to their lives leave them feeling confused.
In addition, many (if not most) of the systems and institutions that “run the world” and are engaged in Development activities, seem to be hidden away from the eyes (and access) of everyday individuals. These same institutions and systems are often cloaked in language that isn’t easily decoded.
© BRUCIE ROSCH
On top of that, many of the words and phrases that make up the specialized language of Development are loaded not only with an emotional dimension, but also inherent bias.
As Robtel Neajai Pailey states, “Even the geospatial terms we employ [in international development] reek of [what she calls] ‘the white gaze,’” (Pailey, 2020, p.734).
For example, referring to nations, regions or societies as:
Developed vs. Developing
First World vs. Third World
High income vs. Low income
Industrial vs. Agrarian
Modern vs. Traditional
Not only do these opposites “suggest both a hierarchy and a value judgment [i.e. which qualities are esteemed and which are belittled]” (McEwan, 2018, p. 17) they are also misleading.
For example, to say some nations are developed and others are developing, suggests that developed nations “have arrived.” However, even today, whole communities and ethnic groups in so-called developed nations are still being marginalized.
The truth is that every nation is developing on some level.
In other instances, how a term is used today gives no indication of its history.
For example, the terms First World and Third World date back to the time of the Cold World. First World was used to refer to those countries who were on the side of the US and its allies, Second World referred to those countries on the side of the Soviet and its allies, and Third World referred to those countries that sought a third way to develop their societies and economies separate from the United States and Russia. Of course, that is not what people mean when they use the term Third World today, which is often linked to images of poverty.
Furthermore using terms like Modern vs. Traditional implies that tradition cannot be modern, or that to be modern one must do away with tradition altogether.
And to say High Income vs Low Income, assumes that there are not high income families and individuals in countries with lower Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or low income families and individuals in countries with higher Gross Domestic Product.
Moreover, economic indicators alone cannot capture the complex relationships between the key issues of human development, including: life expectancy, quality education, access to opportunities, social justice, and levels of happiness and contentment.
The United States Nations’ Human Development Index, the Center for Partnership Studies’ Social Wealth Index, the concept of Embodied Economics, and the World Happiness Report are all alternate tools that were created to better capture a composite of those complex relationships related to development.
At Findlay House Global, we are decoding the loaded language of Development to ensure that the activities, discussions, and planning related to development (at all levels—local, state, national, regional and global) is accessible to everyone, especially those who have been traditionally marginalized. Everyone should be aware of “the sociocultural conditions that shape one’s life,” especially those conditions that lead to disempowerment; as well as “the possibility of their transformation” (Svensson, 2018, p. 11).
Here are few of our posts related to unpacking the loaded language of Development.
RESOURCES
Here’s Why and How Findlay House Global uses the terms Global North and Global South
What are remittances?
What is Communicating for Social Change?
REFERENCES
McEwan, C. (2018). Postcolonialism, Decoloniality and Development (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Pailey, R.N. (2020). De‐centring the ‘White Gaze’ of Development. Development and Change, 51: 729-745.
Svensson J. (2018) Empowerment as Development: An Outline of an Analytical Concept for the Study of ICTs in the Global South. In: Servaes J. (eds) Handbook of Communication for Development and Social Change. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7035-8_43-1