| Summary/Abstract |
Scholars exhibit a general self-reflexive tendency to purge Eurocentrism from UCD in order to strengthen the concept. Yet, unless the role of the cultural in UCD is adequately theorised, UCD cannot fully overcome Eurocentrism. This article therefore advances a non-Eurocentric cultural theory of UCD based on Althusser’s theory of ideology by positing that the ‘whip of external necessity’ and the ‘privilege of historical backwardness’ are cultural conditions specific to capitalism. I argue that in order for capitalism to reproduce itself, it relies upon a temporal ideology called ‘development.’ However, capitalism also produces a material effect I call the ‘spatialisation of unevenness’ that contradicts the ideology of development. This contradiction is, however, mediated by the ideology of nationalism. The result of this mediation is the internalisation of development as a whip of external necessity and the privilege of historical backwardness as a privilege of national culture in the ideology of nationalism.
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