DISP: Rethinking Development's Archives Main Menu Deconstructing Development Introduction This collection of works explores the idea and practice of "development", seeking to challenge what has been taught in the Western canon by bringing forth scholarship from the Middle East, mainly written by women I. Gender "The ungendered body does not exist" II. Modernization "Thinking otherwise" on modernity and progress III. Sovereignty Practicing culture, community, and self without domination IV. Dignity Holding onto inherent self-worth Review of Imagine Otherwise Podcast "Lila Sharif on the Settler Colonial Politics of Food" Afterword Musings about the research process and situating this work in a broader agenda to "decolonize the curriculum"

Why Women’s Traditional Knowledge Matters in the Production Processes of Natural Product Development: The Case of the Green Morocco Plan

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This piece provides a unique case study of how development agendas in Morocco are seeking out the “traditional knowledge” of sustainable agriculture by Moroccan women for the implementation of the Green Morocco Plan. It both challenges the mainstream agenda of replacing traditional indigenous land practices with the mass production agricultural practices that are often at the forefront of development programs in the Global South, while also reproducing many of the dominant narratives regarding what constitutes women’s work and what the objectives of development are. The authors of this plan are two white women, neither are Moroccan, which brings into question: who is defining “traditional knowledge”? Ultimately, this project may be a double-edged sword. On one hand, the production process is attempting to maintain so-called “traditional knowledge” practices that have sustained indigenous Moroccan communities for generations; however, in doing so, this program may commodify these practices in an economizing way. This would render the alternative production process complicit in valorizing Western ideals of development and improving the status of women solely through economic empowerment.

Montanari, Bernadette, and Sylvia I. Bergh. “Why Women’s Traditional Knowledge Matters in the Production Processes of Natural Product Development: The Case of the Green Morocco Plan.” Women’s Studies International Forum 77 (2019): 1-11. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2019.102275.

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  1. I. Gender Jamila Beesley