1. An everlasting controversy: the relationship between culture and development
1.1
Culture, modernization and development
In the 1950s and the 1960s, the role of culture in develop-
Bauman (1973: 35) defined culture as “a self-contained
studies that were dominated by modernization theory. One
another”. This perspective views culture as a relatively
sets of pattern variables, which provided a simple binary
tudes and values. This understanding of culture assumes
ties. The intellectual portrayal of modernization was a poli-
has its own distinctive culture, which is an integrated totali-
wing World War II. It equated the intellectual, cultural and
European societies at the pinnacle of cultural achievement
ment received considerable attention within development influential study was Talcott Parsons’ formulation of five
model distinguishing between modern and traditional socie-
tical and economic proposition coming to the forefront follo-
system of traits which distinguishes one community from stable, homogenous, internally consistent system of attithat the world consists of separate societies. Each society ty, radically different from others. It places western
technological advances of the victorious nations as some-
and social development, ranking other societies at various
zed” peoples of the world. Samuel Huntington (1971: 285),
mitive” (Schech and Haggis, 2000). The differences bet-
thing that needed to be emulated by the “poorer, less civili-
one of the proponents of modernization theory, pointed out
that the concepts of modernity and tradition were central to
post-war modernization theory:
“These categories were, of course, the latest manifestations of a
“stages” of development down to the lowest level of the “priween modern and traditional societies were explained in
terms of deeply embedded cultural traits. Thus, the traditional traits of third-world societies were thought to dissolve through contact with modernity.
Great Dichotomy between more primitive and more advanced
The transition process from tradition to modernity was the
thought for the past one hundred years.”
concepts of sociology formulated by Weber (1922) and
societies which has been a common feature of Western social
The project of “modernity” began with the enlightenment
philosophers. By the mid-nineteenth century, the enlightenment shift from a religious to a secular view of human his-
tory had become entrenched in scientific models of human
core theme of 19th-century sociology. The fundamental Tönnies (1887) invented the analytical distinction between
gemeinschaft (community) and gesellschaft (society) as a way of considering different forms of social integration.3
These distinctions have largely been retained. “Society”
evolution, which fostered a definition of culture as the pro-
cess of social development. Against a background of European technological and industrial advancement and imperial expansion and aggrandizement, the idea of culture
as social development drew on scientific models of human
evolution to describe a hierarchy of cultural development across societies and social groups.
Durkheim’s notion that there are two different kinds of bonds between people, mechanical solidarity (solidarité mécanique) and organic solidarity (solidarité organique), is a similar line of reasoning (Durkheim, 1893).
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© AFD Working Paper N°50 • Culture and development: a review of literature - The continuing tension between modern standards and local contexts 6