l can report that l found my sojourn at Queen's both stimulating and
informative. It had been nearly twenty-five years since l graduated
from McGill, where I took a degree in African Studies. l felt like l
had come full circle with the period at Queen's because l was
examining some of the same issues that l learned about at McGill.
My time at Queen's involved research for a book (current working title
"Canada in the Age of Altruism") on what l have come to
call the
"development enterprise." The development enterprise has been called
the first really intentional act of global history, an unprecedented
effort to engineer a world without hunger and disease. Since 1951
hundreds of billions of dollars in aid have been spent, hundreds of
thousands of volunteers have embarked from Canada and other
"developed" lands. Most were people who wanted to make a difference.
This book will tell the story of Canada's postwar journey across the
world stage, as it relates to the needs of the 1.3 billion people
who live in poverty's shadow. The story will emphasize the changing
ways in which we have understood development -- and how Canadians
have confronted a world broken by un-shared bread, a world that,
according to UNICEF, spends more on playing golf than on social
programs for children. The tonic of self- interest has been added to
altruism: Climate change and ozone depletion ignore borders,
affecting us all. Footloose factories migrate south.
Many Canadians worried about global inequity have tried to do
something about all of this, addressing what Michael Ignatieff calls
"the needs of strangers." l will use such people as prisms through
which issues of development are reflected. This conventional
journalistic device will allow me to take policy issues and changing
concepts and popularize them by telling people's stories.
l had this approach at the back of my mind when l started the
Michener study-leave at Queen's. It was just that, a time for study
and conversation with academics who have been following these issues
throughout their careers. Although l did not pursue a convention
course of study (ie, taking specific courses) l read widely in
political science, economic, geography, sociology and development
studies, going through dozens of volumes, many of which still sit on
my self thanks to the university's generosity in extending my
Associate status at the Stauffer Library beyond the period covered
by the Michener Fellowship.
l developed a particular interest in what bas come to be called
"globalization," and my book will attempt to place this phenomenon
in historical context as well as explaining its implications for the
Third World as well as for those Canadians who have implicated
themselves in the development enterprise. l found several books to
be particularly instructive, including Bill Greider's One World,
Ready or Not and Globalization in Question by English theorists
Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson. Eric Hobsbawm's Age of Extremes
was also very helpful.
Hirst and Thompson argue that globalization is an essentially
political phenomenon in that, once the notion of an ungovernable
world economy is accepted as gospel - as it is in many business and
political circles -- a paralysis of "radical reforming national
strategies" results. New forms of regulation or governance come to
be seen as impossible in the face of "the judgement and sanction of
international markets." Against this background, attempts by
independent nation states to chart their own courses to development
become problematic.
l have also read widely on the notion of development itself. l hope
that my book will offer the reader some insights into the way the
idea of development has evolved from its 19th century origins to
Walt Rostow's famous stages of Economic Growth and on to today's
controversies over the development puzzle: Can a country like China
"develop" along high-consumption Canadian lines, in ways that waste
energy, without destroying the global environment? How can the
environmental limits to conventional growth-as-develop-ment be
reconciled with the very real needs of poor people in poor
countries? Can we talk about development in the South without
rethinking our own development model and its heavy ecological
foot-print?
Another are a of interest has been Canada's own development
assistance program. l was able to do some background reading on the
rise (and fall) of Ottawa's official aid budgets, starting with
Keith Spicer's Samaritan State and moving up to date with a final
draft version of David Morrison's Aid at Ebb Tide, to be published
next year by Wilfred Laurier University Press. In the course of my
research l have had useful discussions with Prof. Cranford Pratt,
whose 'Canadian Development Assistance policies: An Appraisal' is,
until the Morrison volume appears, the principal recent work in the
field.
While at Queen's l had fruitful discussions with Prof. Robert
Shenton, whose book Doctrines of Development was published during
my study-leave. l was also able to help this African history
specialist with his current research on development by suggesting
Canadian angles, specifically a look at the roads-to-resources and ARDA projects of Diefenbaker idea man Alvin Hamilton.
From my base in the Geography Department l was able to provide
assistance to graduate students in Geography, History and Political
Studies. This sort of interchange is the essence of academic life,
and l found it stimulating in a way that my usual stay-at-home
freelance métier seldom is. l consulted with profs George Lovell,
Barry Riddell and Bob stock in Geography. Prof. Bruce Berman in
Political Studies was also helpful. l participated regularly in the
Seminar on National and International Development, and used my
research to make a presentation at the Seminar this past spring. l
monitored an Industrial Relations Centre graduate course on
globalization and industrial relations. l lectured in an
undergraduate Geography course. l also attended a very useful
November, 1996 colloquium/conference that was held at Queen's in
honour of Professor Colin Leys, an eminent political scientist and
theorist whose work on Kenya l had first read some twenty years ago.
l found the opportunity afforded by the Michener study-leave
particularly valuable because the books that l write have one foot
in the trade market and one in the college market. The Fellowship
will prove particularly helpful with the latter aspect of this
project. l now feel that l have enough of a theoretical
understanding of issues of development that l can approach the
interview phase (now just underway) with confidence. My interviewing
is wide-ranging.
Aside from the academics whom l have approached during my
study-leave, l have begun to speak to activists in non-governmental
organizations tram World Vision to Inter Pares. l have also
developed an extensive network of contacts with Canadians who have
spent time as volunteers and cooperants in the South over the past
fort y years. l have conducted an initial interview with Marcel
Massé, former volunteer in Senegal, twice president of CIDA, veteran
of the IMF and the World Bank and now cabinet minister. M. Massé has
assured me of his cooperation with further interviews. This phase of
my research will also take me to Canadian workplaces, where l will
interview workers who volunteer with labour-sponsored international
development funds.
l have so far not been able to secure funding to travel abroad to
research this project. It is not the sort of dramatic, newsworthy
area that prompts trade publishers to offer large advances - not
that the writing of Canadian non-fiction books on such subjects is
ever terribly lucrative.
Without the Michener Fellowship, l have no doubt that l would not
have come as far as l already have. l would like to take this
opportunity to once again thank the Foundation for its generous
support. l have every confidence that my book will be completed
within the next twelve to fourteen months (again, freelance work
slows one down) and that l shall be able once again to express my
gratitude in the acknowledgements.
Jamie Swift
October 23, 1997