Lost for words: How development grapples with inclusive language

When 850 delegates from 50 “united nations” gathered in San Francisco in 1945 to draft a charter for what would become the U.N., French officials had a clear objective: Broadcast to the world that they had changed. The “French Empire” was becoming the “French Union,” and France’s colonization was now imbued with a “progressive spirit” that uplifted populations through development and welfare projects. Through public statements and backchannel negotiations, the goal was to sell a “repackaged vision of empire,” as scholar Jessica Pearson has written, more palatable to leaders and the public who were souring on imperialism — while simultaneously maintaining France’s power and reputation. Particularly mindful of how their words would play to American audiences, the French delegation’s report stated that it would be necessary to “Present our arguments and defend them in a way that would be accessible to American opinion,” and that it would be a “simple of question of vocabulary, ingenuity, and tact.” The question of vocabulary is as relevant today as it was nearly 70 years ago. In development-speak, the term “developing country,” for example, is no longer the norm, replaced by newer iterations such as low-income countries, emerging markets, or the global south — itself an increasingly polarizing term. The terms “decolonization” and “localization” have also come under fire by some. The debates feel particularly acute in the wake of Oxfam’s new inclusive language guide, released last month. The guide is part of Oxfam’s efforts to become an “anti-racist and feminist organization,” according to internal emails shared with Devex. An Oxfam America spokesperson further pointed Devex to Oxfam’s 2020 strategy document, which calls for the organization to embrace what it deems as its “radical spirit” to produce a “radically better world” — the words “radical” or “radically” are used 13 times in the 12-page document, and five times in CEO Danny Sriskandarajah’s opening letter. Taken together, the two documents paint a picture of a multimillion-dollar organization using vocabulary, ingenuity, and tact to reposition itself for a progressive donor and activist class souring on development’s colonial legacies in the wake of Black Lives Matter, George Floyd, and the COVID-19 pandemic — eerily reminiscent of the French in San Francisco in 1945. “When colonizers increasingly used the term development in the ‘40s and ‘50s, it was to prove to the broader world that empires could reform and there could be equal polities,” Pearson, a scholar of decolonization, told Devex. “We cannot separate language from development,” Pearson added. The struggle to find the right words Indeed, language has been an instrument of development from its inception. The term “development” emerged from a strategic repurposing of language at the end of World War II. In the face of decolonization movements across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, coupled with strong anti-imperial sentiment in the United States, countries such as England, France, and Belgium sought new language to reinforce old power structures. “Empire” was reconceived as going hand-in-hand with helping local populations: building schools and hospitals, making economic investments, and adopting a language of modernization that became encompassed by the term development. Corrina R. Unger, in her book “International Development: A Postwar History,” tracks the evolution of the term. During the Cold War, the U.S. and Soviet Union competed by pouring resources into “underdeveloped” countries. Meanwhile, newly independent nations formulated their own plans for a post-colonial future. Rhetoric played a crucial part in both. The rhetoric of leaders in newly independent states galvanized alliances and local populations, and the language of modernization among American social scientists and government officials “offered a lingua franca of progress,” Unger wrote. The aspirations of many decolonizing nations merged in the 1950s and 1960s into a transnational vision called the “Third World” project. Today, Third World is a term that the new Oxfam language guide explicitly says to avoid. However, the term has revolutionary origins that, on the surface, would appear to align with Oxfam’s radical re-orientation. According to historian Jason Parker in an interview with the Library of Congress in 2015, “Tiers Monde” was a term embraced by decolonizing nations, as it referenced the “tiers-etat” of the French Revolution. “The thought was that just as the peasants of 1789 were rising to claim their stake in a new organization of society,” Parker said, “So, too, were the dispossessed of the wider world now rising in the wake of empire.” The Third World project had economic development among its foundational pillars, along with racial solidarity and nonalignment in the Cold War. That, too, feels consonant with the pillars of Oxfam’s guide, which uses the word “solidarity” repeatedly and alludes to the “equal world” that it is “working in solidarity with others to create.” Yet, the term Third World is now lingua non grata, evidence of how even when sentiments and ambitions align, the terminology used to discuss them evolves. That the Third World project articulated such similar sentiments 70 years ago as Oxfam does today is, perhaps, indicative of how small a role language actually plays in solving problems such as poverty and inequality — and how stubbornly those problems persist despite the billions spent on development each year. Oxfam’s own history According to Unger’s book, the first serious criticisms of development models emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, voiced by recipient countries themselves. It was also during this period that Oxfam emerged as an important player in that landscape. Incidentally, Oxfam frowns on “recipient” or “beneficiary” countries; it prefers “program participants” and “service users.” Many multilateral banks also say “client” countries. Oxfam originated not as decolonial activists but as a Quaker organization in England in 1942 lobbying against the blockade of Greece during World War II. Its U.S. offices opened in the early 1970s in response to the highly publicized humanitarian crises in Bangladesh and Biafra, Nigeria. Since the 1970s, Oxfam has had many phases and controversies, including numerous initiatives aimed at promoting new language and new programs. In 1992, as part of Oxfam International’s celebration of its 1942 origins, the organization launched the Women’s Linking Project. The WLP sought to make global “southern gender perspectives central to development approaches,” in the words of Oxfam’s gender team at the time. The three-year initiative purported to tackle the very same issues that appear in Oxfam’s strategy 30 years later: Questions about Oxfam’s role as a “northern” funding agency and that “a profound and radical transformation of many aspects of Oxfam’s work” would be necessary. New documents resurface old questions Oxfam’s new inclusive language guide, thus, resurfaces old questions about whether the analyses of academics can make a difference on the ground in improving people’s lives, changing deeply held beliefs, and overturning repressive societal structures. Indeed, Oxfam’s most recent foray has prompted a fresh set of criticisms, including Piers Morgan asking facetiously whether “very poor people” truly care about being addressed by the “right preferred pronoun.” A recent article in The Atlantic by the author George Packer, questioned the usefulness of the numerous equity-language guides proliferating across the nonprofit landscape, including the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, the National Recreation and Park Association, the Columbia University School of Professional Studies, and the University of Washington. Whether Oxfam published its guide in response to these organizations or independent of them, Devex was not able to learn. Oxfam did not make anyone available for an interview for this article despite several requests. More broadly, though, the language of how development has been described is a constant work in progress, driven as much by mission-centric concerns as it is by politics and public relations. Language can be used to manipulate and maneuver public opinion, to galvanize support, and to deflect accountability. In the 1940s, it was used by imperial powers to soften the blow of decolonization. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was used by decolonizing nations to unify into a broader project. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was used to criticize the structures that perpetuated inequality. In the 1990s and 2000s, it was used to reform organizations from the inside. And today it is used to call for radical change in the wake of seismic global events and enduring stereotypes of the past. The Oxfam inclusive language guide shows that the language of development is a continual evolution — one made necessary by the reality that the broader conditions within which development operates remain stubbornly intractable to solve.