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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:On Prospective: Development and a Political Culture of Time
Author:Diagne, Souleymane BachirISNI
Year:2004
Periodical:Africa Development: A Quarterly Journal of CODESRIA (ISSN 0850-3907)
Volume:29
Issue:1
Pages:55-69
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs.
Geographic term:Africa
Subjects:time
development
Development and Technology
Economics and Trade
Philosophy, Psychology
development planning
culture
Development aid
philosophy
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/24482719
Abstract:This paper interprets the African development crisis as a crisis of initiative. Right after the Lagos Plan of Action was adopted in 1980, came the Berg Report (1981) on which the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) were built that African countries were soon forced to adopt. Not surprisingly, the weakened States and impoverished populations of Africa lost sight of the driving force behind the Lagos Plan of Action; a long-term perspective, a horizon for development. Along with this development perspective, what was lost was nothing less than meaning. This crisis of meaning is felt today particularly among Africa's youngest generations who perceive themselves as futureless unless they have the chance to emigrate. Because meaning flows from the future to the present, and is about shaping the future, the paper offers a philosophical reflection on time, and calls for the reconstruction of meaning through the cultivation of 'a prospective capacity' in African societies. On the basis of an analysis of this philosophical concept as it was developed by Gaston Berger, the paper argues that such a cultivation of 'prospective' amounts to fostering a political culture of time which contrasts with the ethnological approach to a so-called 'African' notion of time. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in French and English. [Journal abstract]
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