Within the framework of this paper I explicate the basic elements of colonial as well as development discourse. Although we can identify an obvious rupture line between colonialism and the era of development, I demonstrate that the colonial heritage structures development discourse in various ways. While there have been some significant changes on the rhetoric level, basic colonial concepts still prevail such as a dichotomic and hierarchical worldview, the evolutionary paradigm with the West as its benchmark, the idea of ‘white’ expertise etc. These often racialised assumptions produce unequal power relations within the development industry and structure the very idea of development itself.

The aim of this paper is to establish reasons for the inclusion of certain elements in the sustainable development discourse as well as its exclusionary systems making for the “blind spots”. The question to be answered is: What effects and implications does the order of the sustainable development discourse have on the political sphere? What perspectives open up for tackling environmental issues? Which perspectives fade away or disappear?

Microcredits – and microfinance in general – have recently been hyped as a means to overcome poverty. However, the actual outcomes of this instrument often differ from the intended ones. Moreover, the concept is a highly problematic one when looked at it from a post-development perspective. Some of its shortcomings, though, could be overcome by hybridizing microfinance with the post-development concept of a language of a diverse economy.

In the last years as a student of International Development, my naive understanding of helping ‚the others‘ and my idea of the whole development business was completely disillusioned. To be critical about development and about what people mean when they use the term ‚development‘ became natural and unavoidable. Therefore the topic of Post-Development seems somehow to be a summary of my study. Everything deconstructed – but what next? It seems important to me to look deeper at Post Development and its critique.

The reason why I have chosen this particular topic is a personal one: as a young mother, I have decided not to have my baby immunized because I have not been sufficiently convinced of a vaccination importance for diseases which have been, at least in Europe, eliminated for decades. In addition, the pediatrics’ reactions to my choice left me more than stumbled. Not only were they shocked, but more so they began to treat me and my son in an unfriendly manner.