Dylan Kerrigan
  • Home
  • About
  • Academic Writings
    • Consultancy Summaries
  • Books
  • Opeds/Blogs
  • Other Writings
  • Teaching
    • Graduate Supervision
  • Therapeutic Cultures
  • In the Press
  • Presentations
  • Videos
  • Research
    • Data Visualisations
    • Past
    • Current
    • Future
  • Blog

Storm smashing through paradise

3/6/2013

0 Comments

 
_Development and progress. The winners and losers in the THA's development of Charlotteville, Tobago.
Picture
The Angel of History is an insightful inscription written by Walter Benjamin to describe a Paul Klee painting. The painting inspired Benjamin to describe the inequality that accompanies progress, how progress for some is often a series of defeats and oppression for others.

Benjamin’s observation fits well into anthropological discussions about development. This is because for all the grandiose, top-down talk of development and its benefits given by international agencies, governments and local authorities, there are many bottom-up accounts illustrating development to be a Trojan horse of exploitation, dependency and destruction.

Reading about the THA’s refusal to halt construction in Charlotteville following a recent court order is a useful place to weigh up the issue of development and progress locally and ask who wins from the THA’s vision of “progress” in Charlotteville. Now, top-down organisations will often try to discredit those with a bottom-up view of progress.

The standard argument, and it is one the Charlotteville Beachfront Movement has faced in its questioning of the THA’s motives, is that those opposed to development are opposed to progress. 

Yet what those opposed are actually saying is they want progress to be appropriate and supportive to existing stakeholders and ask, why did the THA ignore the other suggestions put forward for development?  For those who don’t know the THA’s plans for the Charlotteville Beachfront, plans already under way include demolishing all the existing vending huts and replacing them with a massive concrete and glass structure extending across the current beachfront. 

In order to do this they needed to move vendors, some who had been there for more than 30 years. By some local accounts, the THA went about this in problematic ways. For example, lacking any legal authority to evict the vendors, the Deputy Chief Secretary allegedly approached local vendors and told them they should accept keys to temporary premises, should immediately vacate their existing premises, and if they did not vacate, would be removed from their existing premises.

Furthermore, the Chief Secretary is on record as saying the development was a done deal not up for debate. He also claimed to have the consensus of the villagers with him, yet, speaking to villagers, there are many not in favour of this particular development.

Pressured, many vendors moved to the temporary spots. At the time none were given information about how long they would have to spend in the temporary accommodation, what their tenancy terms might be, whether they would be tenants in the new beachfront structure, what would be the terms of their contract, and what was the evaluation of the environmental and other impact on Charlotteville. 

In what seemed like an olive branch from the THA, vendors were later told the first two years in the new structure were rent-free. This gesture did not disclose what the rent might be in two years’ time or that if rents become too high, vendors would be easy to evict in favour of higher-paying tenants. Nor that the vendors previously paid no rent on their huts, or that they’ve developed certain legal rights by virtue of their long and extensive occupation of the lands.

As their lawyer pointed out: “My clients are being invited under threat of eviction to surrender their rights, earned over two decades or more, in return for nothing more than unenforceable promises. Furthermore, the promises are undefined and at the whim of the THA.” The THA has also perhaps bent the rules. Legally, EMA approvals were required before the THA could start work on the beachfront. Yet such approvals were never granted and the THA, after evicting the majority of vendors, began construction work regardless.

The court order against it now is to reinforce a previous government instruction to secure such approvals before any work began. Even in the face of this recent order, the THA refused to comply immediately and it was a number of days before construction stopped. Now, some might suggest that Charlotteville’s days as one of the last unspoilt fishing villages in the Caribbean are no longer tenable, that those sorts of idyllic havens for relaxation and protecting wildlife are no more. 

But why should they get to decide what happens to Charlotteville? Why should local economies and cultures like Charlotteville, with its small-scale eco-tourism, for which it is known around the world, be destroyed in order to “progress”? Can’t progress in Charlotteville be slower, more small-scale and locally determined? Sadly, not according to Benjamin’s Angel of History. It describes progress in tragic terms, as storm after storm, smashing through paradise. 

http://guardian.co.tt/columnist/2013-06-03/storm-smashing-through-paradise
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Academia
    Amerindian
    Bias
    Capitalism
    Carnival
    Census
    Change
    Charlotteville
    Christmas
    Cipriani
    Citizenship
    Class
    Clico
    Colonialism
    Comedy
    Community
    Conspiracy
    Corruption
    Crime
    Critical Thinking
    Cultural Logic
    Cultural Logic
    Cultural Myth
    Culture
    Degradation
    Development
    Differences
    Disabilities
    Discourse
    Discrimination
    Diversity
    Division
    Drugs
    Economic
    Economics
    Economy
    Education
    Emancipation
    Emigration
    Employment
    Environment
    Equality
    Ethnicity
    Ethnocentrism
    Ethnology
    Family
    Gang
    Gender
    Governance
    Government
    Grenada
    Hcu
    History
    Homophobia
    Identity
    Imperialism
    Inequality
    Institutions
    Intellectualism
    Justice
    Language
    Legislation
    Marriage
    Mas
    Militarism
    Military
    Morality
    Multiculturalism
    National Security
    Nepotism
    Opportunity
    Patriarchy
    Policy
    Politics
    Poverty
    Power
    Precolonial
    Prejudice
    Prisons
    Privatisation
    Privilege
    Progress
    Propaganda
    Prostitution
    Race
    Reflexivity
    Relationships
    Religion
    Rights
    Science
    Security
    Segregation
    Sexism
    Sexuality
    Sex Work
    Slavery
    (small-goal) Football
    Social Media
    Soe
    Solidarity
    Speed
    State
    Status
    Success
    Taboo
    Teaching
    Technology
    Tobago
    Tourism
    Trade
    Transparency
    University
    Violence
    War
    White Collar
    White-collar

    Archives

    December 2022
    October 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    August 2020
    June 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    February 2019
    November 2017
    October 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012

    RSS Feed