Genealogy, Development, Discourse, Power, Knowledge, Resistance, Foucault

Introduction and Objectives: "Development" and terms such as unstable development, unbalanced development, underdeveloped, under development, etc. are widely used concepts in analyzing the conditions of non-western societies such as Iran and comparing them with developed societies. What is considered as certain and natural in these analyses is the necessity of the realization of "development", in such a way that it seems impossible to imagine another form of reality. The development and its indicators have become not only the point of support for many evaluations about policies and states but also a dominant criterion for judgment about non-Western people and society. Nevertheless, "development" is historical like any other social phenomenon, and its correct understanding requires adopting an approach that pays attention to this aspect. "Genealogy" as a theoretical-methodological approach studies social phenomena such as development in their historical process. This article is contemplation about the capabilities that this approach provides for "development studies".
Method: To achieve this purpose, the participation of Foucaultian genealogy, post-development and post-colonial studies of development (which are influenced by Foucault), Foucault's analysis of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, and some considerations have been used to provide an optimized version of genealogy for use in "development studies".
Results: According to this approach, the correct method in “social science” is genealogical historiography, because the existence of every social phenomenon is a historical construction. Rejecting the assumption of continuity does not mean denying the existence of any type of continuity in history, but rather it is a methodological tact. Genealogy implies a fundamental critique of modernity, because it does not consider it emancipatory. This analytical approach allows the researcher to criticize dominant narratives about “Development”. The formulation of the problem is one of the most important possibilities of genealogy for development studies. Genealogy begins its analysis with a question in the present. Therefore, the genealogical problem of development is a question of the “present”. Analyzing the descent of the idea and practice of development is not in search of a single origin. Success in this search, while paying attention to the special history of each land, requires tracing the reflection of the descent of the global development discourse, its elements, and social forces in the society that is being studied. Genealogical studies of development, while applying the concept of “Discourse”, sees a connection between representation procedures (discursive practices) and material procedures (non-discursive practices) of development, pay attention to individual and collective agency, and do not seek homogenization, theorizing and extreme generalization.
Genealogy traces power relations involved in the construction of meanings, because power is one of the factors in the historical construction of identities. While criticizing the “juridico-discursive” model of power, Foucault forms a network for the analysis of power relations by proposing the concept of “governmentality” in which the state can be examined. In this analytical framework, attention is also paid to subjectivity and individual freedom. The emergence of this subjectivity in Foucault's analysis of the Iranian Islamic Revolution is resounding. Genealogy provides the possibility of understanding how the idea and practice of development are formed by analyzing power relations in different forms and levels; from examining development projects as a means of exercising power to power relations between developed societies and non-western societies. In the analytics of power, the resistance is also analyzed at the same time. In the version of genealogy presented in this article, attention is paid to the impact of contingency events on discursive and non-discursive practices; with the explanation that at any historical period, a specific event that cannot be predicted based on the existing discourse order may create different historical conditions.
The relationship between power, knowledge, and discourse is the domain of Foucault's genealogy. Because of the relationship between power and knowledge, the analysis should include “institutions, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures” in addition to texts. This approach provides the possibility of analyzing the practical mechanisms of development discourse such as professionalization and institutionalization. By deconstructing planning, genealogy reveals the effects of power and knowledge in the spread of development. The genealogical analysis in terms of the relationship between knowledge, power, and discourse shows how the development discourse constructs the non-Western world as a subject of knowledge and what kind of interventions are organized based on this. Genealogy also pays attention to resistance or marginal discourses. In terms of methodology, “resistance analysis” is a necessity for “power analysis”. According to Foucault's analysis of the Islamic Revolution, the genealogy of development in contemporary Iran adopts a special theoretical approach regarding the relationship between this revolution and Western development. Finally, it is possible to present and think of alternatives.
Discussion and Conclusions: The genealogical approach with its conceptual toolbox, can contribute to our knowledge of the topic by highlighting aspects of the idea and practice of development so far unnoticed. Genealogical research can show that if the idea and practice of development had other forms, what discursive and non-discursive practices were involved in these changes? The genealogist, by criticizing of present, questions the “natural” and “definite” form of the existing phenomenon and presents a new picture of it. Genealogy can defamiliarize the “development discourse” in the non-western world. Genealogical studies of development have the possibility of realizing a set of exploratory, descriptive, understanding, and evaluation objectives. The possibility of adopting a post-colonial approach is one of the critical capacities of this type of study. The application of genealogy in development studies can sometimes be implemented with all its components, sometimes parts of it can be considered as an independent study. Genealogy has significant capacities for “development studies”; but being satisfied with a single theoretical approach as a sufficient explanation of the complexity of the subject under study is reductionistic.