Sustainable Development: A Failed (Failing) Project?

There are many definitions of sustainable development, but the most commonly utilized comes from the Bruntland Report of 1987 (also known as Our Common Future), which defines sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”[1] Though it has been over twenty years since this term was first popularized, it is arguably the case that sustainable development has yet to be realized. Much like ARAMIS, and many other projects, sustainable development has shifted between the worlds of ideas to being manifest in a multitude of projects, never really coming into full life. It has managed to enroll many actors, and has lost many more along the way. Being coopted by many, it has been shaped and reformed profusely.

Mosse (2005) argues that “‘development success’ is not objectively verifiable but socially produced” (172) and that “there are no objective meters, only interpretations” (157) that create failure and success in development projects.[2] At first, this seems in line with ANT thought about the life of projects, and for many projects it might still be the case, yet when it comes to sustainable development I am not so sure this is the case.

Keeping with (in my opinion the most important) principle of ANT, one must consider all of the actors involved in a project symmetrically. Sustainable development as a project must enroll human and non-human actors including but not limited to the trees, the ocean, children, fish, air, mothers, minerals, bicycles, and the sun. The principle of symmetry insists that we do not give more weight to humans than to non-humans. In this flattened world, can we really say that sustainable development is a success or failure based solely on the interpretations of human actors?  Without vocal chords from which to be vocal, will the ocean nevertheless “speak” to us about the failure or success of our project when it can no longer support life? Will the air we breathe not communicate the failure of our ambitious, but imperative project, as the last tree falls to make room for a new shopping mall? 

Is sustainable development a failed (failing) project? Who and/or what, in the end, will decide?


_____________
[1] World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). Our common future. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987 p. 43.


[2] Mosse, David. 2005. Cultivating Development: An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice. London ; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press.