The Post-Development Dictionary agenda: paths to the pluriverse

Abstract This article lays out both a critique of the oxymoron ‘sustainable development’, and the potential and nuances of a Post-Development agenda. We present ecological swaraj from India and Degrowth from Europe as two examples of alternatives to development. This gives a hint of the forthcoming book, provisionally titled The Post-Development Dictionary, that is meant to deepen and widen a research, dialogue and action agenda for activists, policymakers and scholars on a variety of worldviews and practices relating to our collective search for an ecologically wise and socially just world. This volume could be one base in the search for alternatives to United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in an attempt to truly transform the world. In fact, it is an agenda towards the pluriverse: ‘a world where many worlds fit’, as the Zapatista say.


Introduction
The year 2017 marks the 25th anniversary of The Development Dictionary edited by Wolfgang Sachs. 1 While the Dictionary might have fallen short of its intention to write the obituary of development, it did send shock waves through the activist, policy and scholarly worlds, and became an influential text. The relevance and impact of Sachs' book are still felt today. At the same time, there is no dearth of newly revitalised hegemonic notions, of which 'the green economy' (GE) might be best known, with the 'amoeba concept' (meaning its high malleability) of sustainable development still floating, 2 and indeed have been given new life by the global intergovernmental agreement on Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. In this context, we are working on a volume that, while emulating the spirit of the original Dictionary, brings both reincarnated worldviews and fresh alternatives to 'development' sharply into view. The starting point is the need to go beyond critique and concentrate efforts on articulating the narratives of those struggling to retain or create diverse ways of life against the homogenising forces of development. There is a need for radical Post-Development practices, ideas and worldviews to become an agenda for activists, policymakers and scholars, to help in truly 'transforming our world' , and therefore be an alternative to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 3 The concept of 'Post-Development' emerges from the confluence of four main books: first, The Development Dictionary, edited by Wolfgang Sachs; second, Encountering Development, by Arturo Escobar; third, The History of Development, by Gilbert Rist; fourth, The Post-Development Reader, edited by Rahnema and Bawtree. 4 Two decades later, our book, provisionally titled The Post-Development Dictionary, focuses more upon alternatives to, rather than the critique of, development.
Post-Development is generally meant as an era or approach in which development would no longer be the central organising principle of social life. Even as critiques of development increase in academic spaces, they are equally powerfully arising amongst indigenous peoples, other local communities, womens' rights movements, and other civil society arenas, most prominently amongst the victims of development. Across the world this is resulting in the resurfacing of ancient worldviews with current relevance, or new frameworks and visions that present systemic alternatives for human and planetary well-being. It is also forcing the decolonisation of knowledge systems and epistemologies, breaking down many of the dualisms that Western patriarchal paradigms have engendered, such as between humans and nature.
Post-Development is related to at least three other emerging imaginaries, those of post-capitalism (questioning capitalism's ability to fully and naturally occupy the economy, with the concomitant visualisation of an array of diverse economic practices), post-or de-growth (decentring growth from the definition of both the economy and social life) and post-patriarchy (challenging the primacy of masculinist approaches to political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property). The current mood is 'to search for alternatives in a deeper sense, that is, aiming to break away from the cultural and ideological bases of development, bringing forth other imaginaries, goals, and practices' . 5 Therefore, we argue that the time is ripe to deepen and widen a research, dialogue and action agenda on a variety of worldviews and practices relating to our collective search for an ecologically wise and socially just world. These should be transformative alternatives to the currently dominant processes of globalised development, including its structural roots in modernity, 6 capitalism, state domination, patriarchy, and more specific phenomena, like casteism, found in some in parts of the world. Plus, they should go beyond the false solutions that those in power are proposing in an attempt to 'greenwash' development, including variants of the GE, market remedies and technofixes. The Post-Development agenda should investigate the what, how, who and why of all that is transformative, and what is not. Equally, though, proponents of Post-Development need to go beyond a number of weaknesses in their narrative, acknowledge that development as an idea has not been buried, and sharpen their focus on the structural changes needed to deal with issues of inequity, injustice, deprivation and ecological collapse. 7 The exploration of alternatives to development already finds concrete expression in a panoply of new or re-emerging concepts and practices such as buen vivir, degrowth, ecological swaraj, radical feminisms of various kinds, ubuntu, commoning, solidarity economy, food and energy sovereignty. These are perhaps the most visible examples of an emergent post-developmentalist epistemic-political field towards a pluriverse. 8 These radical alternatives are becoming not only more visible but, increasingly, genuinely credible and viable. And yet they are still marginal in comparison to the dominant narrative and practice of development. Thus, it seems a good moment to make such alternatives more widely known, and to facilitate bridges amongst them while respecting their geopolitical and epistemic specificities. It is also critical to build bridges between constructive alternatives and peoples' movements resisting the dominant economic and political systems. 9 The article is structured as follows. First, we present a critique of development in its recent reincarnations, like 'sustainable development' and the GE, outlining the road from Stockholm 1972 to Rio+20, or the road from the critique to the defence of economic growth. Second, we introduce the origins and importance of transformative alternative worldviews and practices to development. Third, we outline the purpose and conceptualisation of the Post-Development Dictionary, with a set of questions at the core of the agenda for transformation that we are proposing.

Sustainable development, the green economy and their false solutions
'Everything must change in order to remain the same' . Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard (1963) In 1987, the United Nations (UN) World Commission on Development and the Environment presented the report Our Common Future (better known as the Brundtland report), coining the concept 'sustainable development' , then launched at the Rio Summit on Environment and Development in 1992 (Principle 12 of the Summit Declaration). Within such a framing, the push towards growth and economic liberalisation was taken further at subsequent global events relating to sustainable development, though partially concealed behind the rhetoric of environmental sustainability. Compared to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Stockholm in 1972, the later conferences involved an overall reframing of both the diagnosis and prognosis in relation to the ecological crisis (see Table 1). The focus supposedly became poverty in developing countries, instead of affluence in developed countries, along the lines of the post-materialist thesis of Inglehart (you first need to be rich, in order to be an environmentalist; critiqued by Martinez-Alier). 10 In so doing, economic growth was freed of the stigma, and reframed as a necessary step towards the solution of environmental problems. 11 This watering down of the initial debates of 1970s influenced by the Limits to Growth report 12 constitutes the core of the GE, a kind of Green Keynesianism with new millennium proposals such as a Green New Deal, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
At the UN Conference for Sustainable Development in 2012 (the so called Rio+20 Summit) the concept of GE played a key role as the guiding framework of the multilateral discussions (though resistance from many Southern nations meant it was not as central as its proponents may have wished). In preparation for the summit, The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published a report on GE, defining it 'as one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities' . 13 In consonance with the pro-growth approach of sustainable development, the report by-passed any trade-off between economic growth and environmental conservation, and conceptualised natural capital as a 'critical economic asset' opening the doors for commodification (so-called green capitalism). In fact, it clearly stated that 'the key aim for a transition to a green economy is to enable economic growth and investment while increasing environmental quality and social inclusiveness' . 14 As Gómez-Baggethun and Naredo report, in the Rio+20 final declaration, advocacy for economic growth is recalled in more than 20 articles. For example, Article 4 states that 'We also reaffirm the need to achieve sustainable development by: promoting sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth' . This approach is based on neoclassical economic theory (environmental economics), leading to the belief that economic growth will de-link (or decouple) itself from its environmental base through dematerialisation and de-pollution because of the improvement in eco-efficiency (increased resource productivity and decreased pollution). In this conceptual framework, market prices are considered the appropriate means for solving environmental issues, and exogenous rates of technological progress are expected to counterbalance the effects of resource exhaustion. However, the conflict between a growth-dominated economy and the environment cannot be solved with appeals to 'sustainable development' , 'eco-efficiency' , 'ecological modernisation' , 'geo-engineering' , 'smart agricultures' or 'cities' , 'circular' or GE. These are false solutions.
For instance, while the GE approach could be seen as an improvement over the conventional neoliberal economic model, it remains fundamentally flawed on a number of counts. For instance, the final objective for a New Green Deal is the creation of 'resilient low carbon economies, rich in jobs and based on independent sources of energy supply' . 15 While on this end there might be general agreement, controversy remains on the means to adopt. Among the flaws or weaknesses of the GE/Sustainable development (SD) approach as articulated thus far in various UN or UN-sponsored documents, including the declaration for Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 16 are the following 17 : 1. Absence of an analysis of the historical and structural roots of poverty, hunger, unsustainability and inequities, which include centralisation of state power and capitalist monopolies; 2. Inadequate focus on direct democratic governance (decision-making by citizens and communities in face-to-face settings), beyond the stress on accountability and transparency; 3. Inability to recognise the biophysical limits to economic growth; 4. Continued subservience to private capital, and inability or unwillingness to democratise the economy; 5. Modern science and technology held up as panacea, ignoring their limits and marginalising other forms of knowledge; 6. Culture, ethics and spirituality side-lined; 7. Unbridled consumerism not tackled head-on; 8. Global relations built on localisation and self-reliance missing; and, 9. No new architecture of global governance, with a continued reliance on the centrality of nation-states, denying true democratisation.
These weaknesses outline why and how we consider the solutions that emerge out of SD and GE to be false. In the next section we instead present the alternatives that go beyond development, embedding a real potential for transformation.

Critique of development and origins of alternative worldviews
A range of different and complementary notions or worldviews have emerged in various regions of the world, that seek to envision and achieve more fundamental transformation than that proposed by GE/SD approaches. Some of these are a revival of the longstanding worldviews of indigenous peoples; some have emerged from recent social and environmental movements in relation to old traditions and philosophies. Arising from different cultural and social contexts, they sometime differ on the prescription (what shall be done how), but they share the main characteristics of the diagnosis (what is the problem and who is responsible for it) as well as similar or equivalent Weltanschauungen (worldviews). The Post-Development Dictionary aims to illuminate pathways towards a synergic articulation of these alternatives to development. 18 Unlike sustainable development, which is a concept based on false consensus, 19 these alternative approaches cannot be reduced to any single one and therefore do not aspire to be adopted as a common goal by the United Nations, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) or the African Union. These ideas are born as proposals for radical change from local to global. In a post-political condition, 20 they intend to re-politicise the debate on the much-needed socio-ecological transformation, affirming dissidence with the current world representations and searching for alternative ones. Along these lines, they are a critique of the current development hegemony, meaning a critique of the homogenisation of cultures due to the widespread adoption of particular technologies and consumption and production models experienced in the Global North. 21 The Western development model is a mental construct adopted by the rest of the world that needs to be deconstructed. 22 Development might therefore be seen as a toxic term to be rejected, 23 and, thus, 'sustainable development' as an oxymoron.
Deconstructing development opens up the door for a multiplicity of new and old notions and worldviews, or else a matrix of alternatives. 24 This includes buen vivir, a culture of life with different names and varieties in various regions of South America; Ubuntu with its emphasis on human mutuality in South Africa and several equivalents in other parts of Africa; Swaraj with a focus on self-reliance and self-governance, in India; and many others. 25 What is important is that while they are ancient, they are re-emerging in original or modified forms as a part of the narrative of movements that are struggling against development and/or asserting alternative forms of well-being. Ecofeminist arguments represent a further strand in this Post-Development rainbow. 26 These worldviews are not a novelty of the twenty-first century, but they are rather part of a long search for and practice of alternative ways of living forged in the furnace of humanity's struggle for emancipation and enlightenment within (rather than outside of ) the womb of nature. What is remarkable about these alternative proposals, however, is that they often arise from traditionally marginalised groups. These worldviews are different from dominant Western ones as they emerge from non-capitalist communities, or from non-capitalist spaces such as the household sector in the Global North. 27 They are therefore independent of the anthropocentric and androcentric logic of capitalism, the dominant civilisation, as well as of the various state socialist (effectively state capitalist) models existing until now. Other approaches emerging from within industrialised countries -the belly of the beast, so to speak -can also break from the dominant logic, such as is the case with degrowth (an example of a non-occidentalist West). 28 These worldviews differ sharply from today's notion of development. It is not about applying a set of policies, instruments and indicators to exit 'underdevelopment' and reach that desired condition of 'development' . In any case, how many countries have achieved development? Decades after the notion of 'development' was spread around the world, only a handful of countries can be called 'developed' , others are struggling to emulate them, and all are doing this at enormous ecological and social cost. The problem is not in the lack of implementation, but rather in the concept of development as linear, unidirectional material and financial growth. The world experiences a widespread 'bad development' , including those countries regarded as industrialised, ie countries whose lifestyle was to serve as a reference beacon for backward countries. The functioning of the global system is itself a 'bad developer' .
In short, it is urgent to dissolve the traditional concept of progress in its productivist drift and of development (as well as its many synonyms) as a unidirectional concept, especially in its mechanistic view of economic growth. However, it is not only about dissolving it; different views are required, much richer in content as well as in complexity. As Kallis explains: Sustainable development and its more recent reincarnation 'green growth' depoliticize genuine political antagonisms between alternative visions for the future. They render environmental problems technical, promising win-win solutions and the impossible goal of perpetuating economic growth without harming the environment. 29 Therefore, these alternative approaches are necessary to challenge the ideas of GE and SD and the associated belief in economic growth as a desirable path in political agendas. They are also important in presenting to us a set of ethical values and principles that underlie positive, transformative action, such as diversity, solidarity, commons, oneness with nature, interconnectedness, simplicity, inclusiveness, equity and non-hierarchy, pluriversality and peace.
Hereafter we briefly describe two of these transformative alternatives coming from the contexts in which we, the authors, live: ecological swaraj (or Radical Ecological Democracy) from India and Degrowth from Europe.

Ecological swaraj or Radical Ecological Democracy
Emerging from the grassroots experience of communities and civil society practising or conceiving of alternatives across the range of human endeavour in India, ecological swaraj (loosely, self-rule including self-reliance), or Radical Ecological Democracy (RED) is a framework that respects the limits of the Earth and the rights of other species, while pursuing the core values of social justice and equity. With its strong democratic and egalitarian impulse, it seeks to empower every person to be a part of decision-making, and its holistic vision of human well-being encompasses physical, material, socio-cultural, intellectual and spiritual dimensions. 30 Rather than the state and the corporation, it puts collectives and communities at the centre of governance and the economy, an approach that is grounded in real-life initiatives across the Indian subcontinent (see www.alternativesindia.org).
This approach rests on the following intersecting spheres: ecological wisdom and sustainability, social well-being and justice, economic democracy, direct political democracy, and cultural diversity. Fundamental to it is a set of values that include diversity, autonomy, cooperation and solidarity, rights with responsibilities, equity and justice, inclusion, simplicity and sufficiency, respect for all life, non-violence, interconnectedness, dignity of labour, and others.
Ecological swaraj is an evolving approach, not a blueprint set in stone. In its very process of democratic grassroots evolution, it forms an alternative to top-down ideologies and formulations, even as it takes on board the relevant elements of such ideologies.

Degrowth: not less of the same, but simply different
Degrowth calls for a rejection of the obsession with economic growth as a panacea for the solution of all problems. It should not be interpreted in its literal meaning (decrease of the gross domestic product) because that phenomenon already has a name: it is called recession. Degrowth does not mean 'less of the same'; it is simply different. 31 It was born in the Global North, and it is being developed for that context, though the questioning of a one-way future consisting only of economic growth is also inspired by -and relevant for -the Global South. 32 The term was proposed by political ecologist André Gorz in 1972. In Australia, Ted Trainer was urging the public to Abandon Affluence! in 1985; in Germany, ecofeminists Maria Mies and Veronica Bennholdt-Thomsen argued The Subsistence Perspective in 1993. 33 Other European environmental activists used degrowth in 2001 as a provocative slogan or motobus, a missile word to re-politicise environmentalism. It springs from the hypothesis that we can live well with less and offers a frame that connects diverse ideas, concepts and proposals. 34 Generally, degrowth challenges the hegemony of growth and calls for a democratically led redistributive downscaling of production and consumption in industrialised countries as a means to achieve environmental sustainability, social justice and well-being. Degrowth is usually associated with the idea that smaller can be beautiful. However, the emphasis should not only be on 'less' , but also on 'different' . Degrowth signifies a society with a smaller metabolism (the energy and material throughput of the economy), but, more importantly, a society with a metabolism which has a different structure and serves new functions. In a degrowth society everything will be different from the current mainstream: activities, forms and uses of energy, relations, gender roles, allocations of time between paid and non-paid work, and relations with the non-human world.
Hereafter, we outline the purpose and conceptualisation of The Post-Development Dictionary that aims to collect and articulate the transformative alternatives to (sustainable) development.

The Post-Development Dictionary agenda: towards the pluriverse
At a time when neoliberal governments and rampant extractivism brutalise the everyday life of citizens across the world and in particular the Global South, it is crucial that oppositional voices and people's movements engage in a concentrated effort of research, outreach, dialogue and action, informed by and informing grassroots practice. Resistance is crucial, but it is not enough. We need our own narratives. Acts of resistance and regeneration offer hope in the here and now. This is what The Post-Development Dictionary is all about. It is meant to be a process of research, writing and dialogue that will culminate in a comprehensive book in early 2018. The dictionary format of the book comprises a series of keyword entries, with one or more expert scholars or practitioners writing each. The book has three main sections, provisionally titled as follows: (1)  In sum, the book aims to, first, present a rich variety of worldviews and practices relating to the collective search for an ecologically wise and socially just world, with well-known ones like eco-socialism, buen vivir or ecofeminism, but also with those rarely heard of like kyosei, minobimaatisiiwin and Nayakrishi. A vast range of approaches of indigenous peoples, peasant and pastoral communities, peoples' movements and urban communities are covered. It also offers critical essays on a number of false solutions that those in power are proposing in an attempt to 'greenwash' development, such as efficiency, techno-fixes, smart cities, lifeboat ethics, (neo)extractivism, GE and eco-modernism. The second aim is to consolidate a 25-year-long debate on the criticism of and alternatives to development, beyond the current fragmentation, presenting both its state of the art and future challenges, with contributions from influential international authors from different disciplines and continents. The third aim of the book is to be a guide to understanding the most important concepts of Post-Development for readers interested in grasping its nuances, and along the way help to clarify and overcome common misunderstandings and criticisms, and provide a basis to further advance both intellectual research and political practice of the alternatives to development. And, fourth, it aims to be a small but significant contribution to a worldwide confluence of alternative cultural, economic, social, political and ecological visions and practices.

Conclusions
This article has attempted to briefly lay out both the critique of (sustainable) development and the potential and nuances of a Post-Development agenda. The Post-Development Dictionary is meant to deepen and widen a research, dialogue and action agenda for activists, policymakers and scholars on a variety of worldviews and practices relating to our collective search for an ecologically wise and socially just world. These are meant to be truly transformative, and may be distinguished from the false solutions in a number of ways: firstly, their attempts to transform the structural roots of a problem, along political, economic, social, cultural, and ecological axes; secondly, in their explicit or implicit questioning of the core assumptions of the development discourse (eg growth, material progress, instrumental rationality, the centrality of markets and economy, universality, modernity and its binaries, and so forth); and, third, in encompassing a radically different set of ethics and values to those underpinning the current system, including diversity, solidarity, commons, oneness with nature, interconnectedness, simplicity, inclusiveness, equity, non-hierarchy, pluriversality and peace.
In conclusion, these alternatives to development practices and worldviews intend to re-politicise the debate on the much-needed socio-ecological transformation, affirming dissidence with the current world representations (ie sustainable development) and searching for alternative ones. They highlight the necessity to overcome the modern ontology of one world and expand on the multiplicity of worlds possible. As Escobar argues: The modern ontology presumes the existence of One World -a universe. This assumption is undermined by discussions in Transition Discourses, the buen vivir, and the rights of Nature. In emphasizing the profound relationality of all life, these newer tendencies show that there are indeed relational worldviews or ontologies for which the world is always multiple -a pluriverse. Relational ontologies are those that eschew the divisions between nature and culture, individual and community, and between us and them that are central to the modern ontology. Some of today's struggles could be seen as reflecting the defence and activation of relational communities and worldviews … and as such they could be read as ontological struggles; they refer to a different way of imagining life, to an other mode of existence. They point towards the pluriverse; in the successful formula of the Zapatista, the pluriverse can be described as 'a world where many worlds fit' . 35 Along these lines, The Post-Development Dictionary will hopefully be an exciting volume of essays on transformative alternatives to the currently dominant processes of globalised development, including its structural roots in modernity, capitalism, state domination, patriarchy and other forces. The book is meant to help in the steps towards an equitable, just and ecologically wise world. When the language in use is inadequate to articulate what begs to be articulated, then it is time for a new dictionary -The Post-Development Dictionary: An Agenda towards the Pluriverse.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on Contributors
Federico Demaria is a researcher in ecological economics and political ecology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. He is a member of Research & Degrowth (@R_ Degrowth) and co-editor of Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era (Routledge, 2014), a book translated into ten languages.
Ashish Kothari began working on environment and development issues in his school days in 1978-1979, as one of the founders of Kalpavriksh, an Indian environmental non-governmental organisation; he coordinates Kalpavriksh's programme on Alternatives. Ashish has served on the Indian Government's Environmental Appraisal Committee on River Valley Projects, and Expert Committees to formulate India's Biological Diversity Act and National Wildlife Action Plan. He coordinated India's National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan process, has served on the Greenpeace International and India Boards, co-leads the global ACKnowl-EJ project, and is the author or editor of more than 30 books, and more than 350 articles.