Surplus possibilities : postdevelopment and community economies

Postdevelopment discourse is aligned with the long leftist tradition of critical analyses that accompanied the global consolidation, immediately after World War II, of a hegemonic mainstream development project. But while sharing a dissatisfaction with mainstream development, this emerging postdevelopment discourse effects a radical rupture with a style of thinking that underpins much of the critique of development. In this paper we aim to give a taste of how we are broaching the practice of post development thinking in a linked set of projects: a language project of representing the economy as diverse; a collaboration with a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that is involved in what we see as post development interventions in the global trade in labour; and an action research project negotiating postdevelopment pathways in place in a Philippines Municipality.