RETHINKING (POST)MODERNISM, POSTCOLONIALISM, AND POSTTRADITIONALISM -SOUTH-NORTH PERSPECTIVES

Many social scientists and development experts working in the South ha ve dismissed postmodernism and related perspectives as irrelevant in t he context of continued poverty and struggles for modernisation. Conve rsely, Northern authors on postmodernism frequently imply the global s alience of the paradigm in a universalising manner redolent of moderni st discourse, whereas critics of conventional development(alism) tend to base their arguments on caricatures in which the diversity of real- world experiences and some important improvements in the quality of li fe over the last 30 years are ignored. Neither approach is tenable, an d in this paper the author explores the scope and basis for more fruit ful engagements with postmodernism, postcolonialism, and related persp ectives, including Southern notions of posttraditionalism, in the cont ext of current developments and popular aspirations in the South. A cr itical reading of the literature is combined with examples drawn from different regions. In the analysis a pathway is offered through these often confusing fields and the relationships between globalisation, mo dernisation, and postmodernism, the changing roles and abilities of st ate and nonstate actors, and the complex ways in which local communiti es engage with such dynamics in pursuit of a better life, are encompas sed.