Arturo Escobar

Arturo Escobar is a Colombian-American anthropologist and Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. His academic research interests include political ecology, anthropology of development, social movements, anti-globalization movements, political ontology, and postdevelopment theory.

Escobar’s approach to anthropology is largely informed by the poststructuralist and postcolonialist traditions and centered around two recent developments: subaltern studies and the idea of a World Anthropologies Network (WAN). His research interests are related to political ecology; the anthropology of development, social movements; Latin American development and politics. Escobar’s research uses critical techniques in his provocative analysis of development discourse and practice in general. He also explores possibilities for alternative visions for a postdevelopment era.

He is a major figure in the post-development academic discourse, and a serious critic of development practices championed by western industrialized societies. According to Escobar, the problem with development is that it is external and based on the model of the industrialized world; instead, what is needed instead are more “endogenous discourses”(Pieterse, 2010).

His last books include: 

2020. Pluriversal Politics: The Real and the Possible. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

2018. Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

2016. Territorios de diferencia. Lugar, movimientos, vida, redes Popayán. Editorial Universidad del Cauca. Colombia, 2016.

2016. Autonomía y diseño. La realización de lo comunal Popayán. Editorial Universidad del Cauca. Colombia, 2016.

2014. Feel-thinking with the Earth (in Spanish: Sentipensar con la tierra). Medellin, Colombia: Ediciones Unaula, 2014.

2012. La invención del desarrollo Popayán. Editorial Universidad del Cauca. Colombia, 2012.