From Commodity to Capability Fetishism: Human Development as a Harmonisation of Social and Territorial Cartographies

The development discourse has been thrown into a disarray and paradigmatic quagmire by the impasse of neo-liberal transnational social cartographies. There are calls within the development discourse fraternity to deterritorise the concept of development so as to grapple with it sufficiently and effectively. Failure to adhere to this call, various development discourses have been accused of methodological territorialism. This paper uses critical hermeneutics to argue that the trajectory from Trickle Down and Basic Needs Theory to Human Rights, Capability and Functionings approaches to development is fundamentally a paradigm shift from territorial to social cartographies. This paper further argues that despite the significance of social cartographies occasioned by neo-liberal globalisation, territorial cartographies as envisaged by structuralists, post-structuralists, post-developmentalists, post-colonialists and global ethnographers are still vital because of their thorough critique of the power discourse behind structures that disadvantage individuals. The paper contends that in order to realise engendered development, it is pertinent to ultimately look at the individual who is the basic ingredient of a moral society (ethical individualism) as well as the structures and strictures that disempower and vulnerablelise individual moral agents.


Introduction
Since the later part of the 20 th Century, the development discourse has been characterized by a paradigm shift from economism to human development. This tendency ipso facto situates the negation of thing-centred development and the valorisation of person-centered development. Accordingly, human development extricates the human persons behind the statistics of orthodoxy economics and places them at the centre of the development discourse. However, the nexus of the global capitalist jungle calls for greater emphasis of the structures and strictures of inequality and inequity, the role of the conflictual interface between political and economic globalisation on state behaviour, and more prominently, the resilience of the cognitive authoritarianism of development economics in the entire development discourse. This paper argues that development cartographies are fundamentally characterised by a plethora of subtle fetishisms premised on the belief that natural objects have supernatural powers, or that something created by people has irreversible power over people. The paper deconstructs this notion and defends the view that the structures and strictures that constrain human development within both territorial (states, households, institutions, governments, etc.) and social cartographies (transnational relations, gender relations, race relations, class relations, etc.) are a product of individuals and hence are dynamic rather than static.
More so, the paper contends that both territorial and social cartographies are equally important in the understanding of human development. This paper also situates the Nussbaumean capability ethic vis-à-vis the negation of the Senean capability notion as the harmonization of territorial and social cartographies. In order to realise engendered development, this paper envisages an amalgamation of both the Human Rights Based Approach to Development (HRBAD) and capability approach to human development. Accordingly, the rights based approach to human well being makes sense only in relation to the expansion of capabilities and functionings.

Fetishism and Commodity Fetishism Clarified
Fetishism is the belief that natural objects have supernatural powers, or that something created by people has power over people. In the 19th century, Karl Marx appropriated the term to describe "commodity fetishism" as an important component of capitalism. By fetishism of commodities Marx meant that the process of producing commodities is not mastered by society but is today the master of society (Rubin, 1990, p. 5).
Society's labor appears to it in the form of elemental forces beyond its control. Forces so independent of control appear in the realm of experience, inevitably, as non-social forces indistinguishable from natural catastrophes, business failures and crimes, war and poverty appear as though by the inexorable between his efforts and rewards; he is superstitious when he plays in the stock market and wins, and equally superstitious when business prospers or fails (Marx,p. 165).
Commodities, the products of society's own efforts, rear up like monsters to overwhelm their maker.
Speaking of the fetishism of commodities, Marx says, "such reflections of the real world will not disappear until the relations between human beings in their practical everyday life have assumed the aspect of perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations as between man and man, and as between man and nature. The life process of society, will not lose its veil of mystery until it becomes a process carried on by a free association of producers, under their conscious and purposive control" (Morrow, 2008).

Critical Hermeneutics Methodology
The term hermeneutics derives from two Greek words, hermeneuein, which means to interpret, and hermeneia which means interpretation (Giddens, 1982, p. 2). Critical hermeneutics as methodology of analysis seeks to delve into a particular text in order to establish the deeper ideological distortions that might underlie such a text. It must be noted that "although the subject matter of classical hermeneutics was the texts of literature, law and religion, there has been an extension of the concept 'text' to include discourse and even action" (Kvale, 1996, p. 46).
Habermas challenged the relativistic tendency in Gadamer's hermeneutics and hence reinstated objectivism in hermeneutics. According to him, the argument that we cannot escape culture in our judgments is self-defeating because it does not accommodate the making of universal statements such as: fascism is evil, discriminations is unjust, since every judgment is nothing more than a mere expression of our cultural prejudices (Edgar, 2006, p. 61). Habermas argues that the fallacy of philosophical hermeneutics is based on the failure to distinguish between the technical, practical and emancipatory dimension of knowledge. Critical hermeneutics falls under the emancipatory dimension of knowledge and hence seeks to unveil the ideological distortions, mystifications and reifications of texts and actions (Edgar, 2006, p. 61).
In his 1968 work Erkenntnis und Interesse (Knowledge and Human Interest), Herbermas sketched the pathway of his critical hermeneutics when he delineated the three generic domains of human interest: namely, the technical, the practical and the emancipatory interests. Technical human interest makes use of empirical-analytic methods of positivism to yield the instrumental knowledge of the natural sciences, while practical human interest makes use of hermeneutic method to yield practical knowledge (Edgar, 2006, p. 62).
Habermas places critical hermeneutics one step deeper than the conventional hermeneutics in the sense that it belongs to the emancipatory domain of human interest that makes use of critical theory in order to achieve emancipatory knowledge. Like the general trend among the Frankfurt style investigations, the critical hermeneutics that Habermas is proposing is a potent concoction of theory, praxis and a 3 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 4, No. 3, 2021 program of action designed to counteract the oppressive effects of the social construction of knowledge (Demeterio, 2004).

Territorial or Social Cartographies: The Deterritorialization of the Sociology of Development
It has been argued that the emergency of global capitalism that unfolds in transnational social space entails that development must be thought of as a global process that effects social groups in certain specific ways irrespective of territorial boundaries and locations. There is thus a need for a social as opposed to a territorial cartography of development (Hoogvelt, 2001). For the sociology of development this means a shifting from territorial or geographical to a social conception of development. Development connotes a social rather than a geographic spatial or territorial processes.
This a fortiori implies that we need to preconceive development not in terms of nations but in terms of social groups in a transnational setting. Even core and periphery relations in global capitalism are social rather than territorial (Hoogvelt, 2001).
In the opinion of Williamson, modifying the reference points of macro social analysis, globalization is responsible for development studies paradigmatic quagmire. Therefore a sociology of national development is no longer tenable. Globalizing processes are bringing about changes in social hierarchies in the world capitalist system which traditional categories and frame works in development studies are unable to capture (Robinson, 2002(Robinson, , p. 1047). The way out of this impasse is to break with nation-state centered analysis by preconceiving development as based not on territory but on transnational social groups. Specifically, the way forward is a reconsideration of the relationship between space and development, and a new conception of development based not on territory but social groups (Robinson, 2002(Robinson, , p. 1047).
This notion contains fetishisms that must be deconstructed. To begin with, transnational social relations don't take place in space but rather impact upon territorial milieus. Therefore the polarities of transnational relations can only be explicated in terms of specific localities. In addition, the sociality of transnational social groups is unthinkable without a notion of territorial embodiment. It is anachronistic to think that transnational capitalism makes much sense everywhere you go. Look at the Hima and Akarimajong of Uganda for instance who own cattle privately but graze it on public land. Hence one needs to reterritorise in order to understand development in Karamoja. It is pertinent to understand the context or locality in which these ethnic group are situated (territorial cartography) as well as the theoretical and conceptual frameworks on which the sociality or social relations of the Akarimajong is epitomized.

Modernisation and Territorial Cartographies
The modernisation theory was premised on the dictums that: The past of the West is the present of the rest and that the present of the West is the future of the rest. Modernisation theory perceived development as an evolutionary, unlinear process, which took societies from their pre-modern status 4 through a series of states towards a final destination of modernity. Each state was superior to the previous one, so development was depicted as a cumulative process of improvement in living standards (Kabeer, 1994, p. 16). Development was seen as a transition from pre-industrial agrarian society to a modern consumer society.
Underdevelopment originated from an economic dualism where by there is a sharp divide between a dominant traditional sector and a restricted modern sector. Thus for development to take place, the modern sector must be unshackled. Since the root causes of underdevelopment are located within underdeveloped countries, bridges must be built between the traditional and modern sectors within countries and through trade between rich and poor countries (Martinussen, 2004).
The modernists therefore attributed the backwardness of third world countries to the absence of the values associated with rational individualism, together with the social economic institutions through which such values could flourish and be rewarded (Kabeer, 2003). The modernisation theory as a diagnosis of development was to be realised through a strategy (antidote) known as developmentalism.
Developmentalism was premised on triads of rapid industrialisation, the involvement of elites and the development estate. The period 1950-1960 has been characterised as the golden era of developmentalism.

From Trikleism to Needism: The Reconfiguration of Social Cartographies
The measures of success of modernization include; Gross National Product (GNP), income levels, employment rates, education levels, and industrial structure, and all of which emphasize the adoption of Western economic institutions, technologies, and values. The challenge is to identify barriers to self-sustaining growth. These barriers may be technological, educational, or cultural. Intervention, according to the proponents of this approach, is needed to overcome obstacles that tend to be in the country itself, rather than in the functioning of the international economy. Ways are sought to integrate developing economies into the international market (Connelly et al., 2000).
Some writers emphasize a dual economy, with coexisting traditional and modern sectors. A number of assumptions operate in modernization theory: Economic growth will benefit all members of society through trickle-down effects and other "spread" (indirect, multiplier) effects; Access to cash and markets will improve conditions for people; Macroeconomic policies are gender neutral and benefit all of society; and Modern technology is superior to traditional technologies (nonmarket processes tend to be ignored in the economic analysis) (Connelly et al., 2000).
Previously held convictions that the Gross National Product (GNP) sufficed as an adequate measure of development and that the benefits of growth would trickle down to households at the bottom of the income hierarchy had been invalidated by the experiences of the first development decade (1960)(1961)(1962)(1963)(1964)(1965)(1966)(1967)(1968)(1969)(1970)) (Kabeer, 2003). While economic growth rates of over 5 percent were documented in many Third world countries, they were frequently accompanied by increases in unemployment, inequality, and absolute poverty. Dissatisfaction with growth-dominated definitions of development led to a reformulation of 5  Vol. 4, No. 3, 2021 development goals to take greater account of poverty, distribution, and the meeting of basic needs (Kabeer, 2003).
In 1970, the UN Development strategy for the second decade categorically declared that "the ultimate objective of development must be to bring about sustained improvement in the well-being of the individual and bestow benefits to all. If undue privileges extremes of wealth and social injustices persist then development fails in its essential purposes (Kabeer, 2003, p. 17)". It was therefore no longer responsible in political terms to wait several generations for the benefits of development to trickle down until they finally reached the poorest groups.
Although the basic needs approach was a modernization phenomena, it explicitly invokes a reconfiguration of development from territorial to social cartographies. Precisely development is fundamentally a social phenomena hence the notion of social development.  (Paul Streeten et al., 1981), Planning to Meet Basic Needs (Frances Stewart, 1985) were influential publications and epitomized the new sensitivity to the links between economic and social objectives. It is important to note that the basic needs approach became wide spread because it became the driving force behind the World Bank war on poverty .It must also be noted that basic the needs approach was the first approach that made fighting poverty a goal of development policy of the bank.

Basic Needs and Commodity Fetishism
The Basic needs approach was premised on the notion that the poor need basic goods and services.
Income is a means and not an end of development. More so, the effectiveness of households depends household distribution. But how are we to know what needs are relevant, and for whom, and what is basic or not, and what is the difference between a commodity and a need (Frazer, 1989). Sen brings this question to its logical conclusion by arguing that the objective of development is not the consumption of goods (commodity fetishism) and services but to lead a decent life. Goods and services are means of development and not ends in them selves. Only ends have intrinsic value in themselves and these are the capabilities and functionings (beings and doings that people have reason to value) (Sen, 2000).

From Social to Human Development
The notion of human development is what remained of the influence of basic needs, perhaps among most donors this has translated into a focus on some "basics" such; as water, roads, education and health, or into what is often called the provision of "safety nets", yet the strength of the neo-liberal view that the market is the best way to control the inefficiency of a failed provision of public services has remained and continues to grow.
The first (written) explicit mention of "human development" was in 1986, during the Islamabad North South Roundtable (Haq & Kirdar, 1987), partly as a reaction to the increasingly obvious negative consequences of structural adjustment policies on vulnerable segments of societies. Criticisms to 6 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 4, No. 3, 2021 Structural adjustment policies came first and foremost from within the UN System, in particular UNICEF, but also UNRISD, but with much overlap with basic needs (Haq & Kirdar, 1989).
This added to the increasing perception that economic growth is a means and not an end in itself.
Increases in GDP may not translate in increased living standards for all. Human development is therefore a somehow paradigmatic: not only a shifting of "means" for "ends" (growth or economic success for what it does or does not do to people), but also a shift from quantification to the people behind the statistics which as led to a very substantial revamping of qualitative methods and ethnography of aid (Haq & Kirdar, 1988 investing to meet basic needs are not only growth-compatible but can promote economic growth (Gasper, 2002). Here they build on the perception on the centrality of "human Capital" in growth, and related lessons from the long sustained East Asian stories. They build too from the perceptions of low or declining quality of life in some rich or fast-growing countries, and redefine human development as more than human resource development (Gasper, 2002).
Economic growth is viewed as means towards human development rather than human development being a means to economic growth. The adjective "human" in "human development" thus conveys the suggestion that earlier economic development was not human-centered; and the title means in the first place "humanizing development", previously conceived as economic growth. GNP/GDP was never designed as a measure of wellbeing. It measures economic activity, much of which measures lack of or loss of wellbeing; it excludes many other aspect of or influences on well being (household work, leisure, freedom, etc.; (UNDP, 1996); and can conceal extreme deprivation for large parts of the 7 The focus on the dynamic interplay between global forces and processes of subject formation highlights the interpretations, actions, and patterns that vary with class, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, locality, and nationality. This perspective reveals not simply a cultural politics of difference and identity, but also points to the mutually informing relationships among technologies of ruling, cultivation of selves, and regimes of rationality. Globalizing tendencies suggest processes of reterritorialization, not deterritorialization. This implies that relationships among identities, polities, and communities are being radically reconfigured, not eclipsed (Aihwa & Moore, 2002).

Human Development, Capability Fetishism and the Harmonisation of Social and Territorial Cartographies
The so called superior "capability approach" to human development by Nobel laureate in economics Amartya Sen poses a major challenge to the dominant paradigm of neo-classical economics. According to Sen, human well-being does not depend on the consumption of commodities (commodity fetishism) but on the freedoms human beings have reason to choose and value (Sen, 1990). Sen's approach has been credited for its ability to capture market and non-market scenarios, the domestic and public sphere as well the informal and formal sector.
The capability approach however, has frequently been criticized for a lack of attention to the ways in which unjust social, political and economic structures restrict human capabilities (Deneulin, 2006). The Senean notion of human development leads to capability fetishism in the sense that it is epitomized on the tendency to treat capabilities as magical entities which communities can consume without any conflictual repercussions.
Gasper critiques the Senean notion by stating that it is not clear whether the functionings chosen will indeed be valuable in terms of larger social well-being or even in terms of the long-term welfare of the individual. He uses the example of the Internet which may be used as much for speedy informational exchange as for the promotion of gambling and pornography, much to the detriment of the larger social whole (Mukurjee, 2004). Therefore in as much as the capabilities approach lacks a theory of human preference it appears to rely on the belief that the removal of external impediments is miraculously to bring out the best in individuals (Mukrjee, 2004).
However, the Nussbaumean Capability ethic adds some teeth to the Senean notion by categorically listing certain capabilities as entities that need constitutional justiceability. The capability approach to human development is a clear harmonization of territorial and social cartographies in human development, despite its lack of an in-depth critique of transnational social cartographies as well the structures of inequality and inequity at both national and international level.

Post-modernism/Postructuralism and the Deconstruction of Fetishism in Human Development
Post structuralism is a critique of the notion of development; it is a rejection of the precepts of political economy replacing them with "discursive analysis". In the poststructuralist view the production of signs and cultural codes replaces material production as the primary constituents of social life (Poster, 1988, p. 166). 9 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 4, No. 3, 2021 According to Jean Baudrillard: abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor survives it.
Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory-precession of simulacra-it is the map that engenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map. It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges subsist here and there, in the deserts which are no longer those of the Empire, but our own. The desert of the real itself (Poster, 1988, p. 168).
Postmodernists see development theories as "totalizing narratives". According to them, development has relied on a one knowledge system, namely, the western one. The dominance of this knowledge system has dictated the marginalization and disqualification of nonwestern knowledge systems.
Foucault's critique of the dynamics of discourse and power in the representation of social reality, in particular has been instrumental in unveiling the mechanisms by which a certain order of discourse produces permissible modes of thinking while disqualifying and even making others impossible (Escobar, 1995, p. 3).
Postmodernism negates "phallogocentricism" by emphasizing the subjective dimension of development.
Thus the western development discourse is deconstructed and subjected to scathing critique.
Accordingly, development is seen as an invention, or social construction because it has a discursive or cultural rather than material history. Since the discussion of capital accumulation or similar concepts is itself seen as "discourse/power" to be deconstructed and rejected as part of the modernist project, the poststructuralist/postmodern approach is unable to criticize the actual material reality or social system that generates the conditions they are examining (Escobar, 1995, p. 13).
The critique of capitalism as the actual social system that the western development discourse promoted and defended-is replaced by the critique of modernity, whether the modernity associated with modernization theory and neo-liberalism or that identified with neo-marxist and other radical political economy approaches (Escobar, 1995, p. 13).
Peet rhetorically asks "why might we make of sweeping condemnations, that seek to undermine the knowledge basis of all established notions about development…to denigrate the accomplishments of modern life, and construct an alternative which, in many cases, celebrates mystical rather than rational understanding (Peet, 1991, p. 153)". According to him, post developmental discourse must itself be deconstructed, not to synthesize its arguments in mild, sanitized forms into a recast conventional development model, but through critique to draw notions for use in practice that might even retain some aspects of the idea of development (Peet, 1991, p. 154).
Although the postmodernists critiques remain too theoretical to be of any material impact, they awaken development theorists from the dogmatic slumber, i.e., the tendency to fetishise development theory itself, the immanence and historicity of economic development, structures and stricture that constrain 10 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 4, No. 3, 2021 individuals and the conception of territorial and social cartographies as if they are supernatural. We ought to bear in mind that development discourse ought to be deconstructed, double deconstructed, of course bearing in mind that we don't discourse on development for the sake of it but to improve the well-being of all individuals irrespective of sex, gender, opinion, colour, age, affiliation and social status. have created new horizons of poverty and deprivation for many others (Polanyi, 1991).

The
Social structures are particular forms of irreducibly social goods which relate to the organisation of life in common. They belong to a particular historical community, provide the conditions for individual lives to flourish, but cannot be merely reduced to interpersonal relations-however much they are bound up with these (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 194). Social structures emerge from and within life in common.
The emergence of such structures constitutes the very condition under which individual human lives may flourish. Although sustained by individual action, social structures acquire a quasi-autonomous existence and cannot be reduced to the sum of the actions of the individuals living lives structured in these ways. Even apparently individual properties such as personal autonomy cannot exist without the social structures that support personal autonomy (Raz, 1986, pp. 204-206).
Structures of sin are rooted in personal sin, and thus always linked to the concrete acts of individuals who introduce these structures, consolidate them and make them difficult to remove. And thus they grow stronger, spread, and become the source of other sins, and so influence people's behavior (Deneulin & Sagoysky, 2005, p. 1). Unjust structures, or structures of sin, were said to be rooted in personal wrongdoing: such acts of personal wrongdoing cumulatively build a structure which creates a "reality" in which it becomes difficult for human beings to amend or even see their personal wrongdoings. The structure comes to represent a reality which constrains individuals' actions in ways over which they have no control, and often no insight (Deneulin & Sagoysky, 2005, p. 15).
When what is unjust is institutionalised, the danger is that the individuals who maintain these unjust structures will become blinded to the wrongdoing of their own actions. The sense of powerlessness (one could even speak of the sense of fatalism) with regard to what one can individually do to change such an unjust structure soon becomes indifference. The tragedy of structural injustice is that these 11 structures are not amenable to correction by the exercise of an individual's will-nor is the individual free to dissociate himself from these structures (Deneulin & Sagoysky, 2005, p. 24 (Deneulin & Sagoysky, 2005, p. 26).
We should, however, note that Alkire, following Sen, argues that unjust structures, such as those that produce endemic hunger in India, can be transformed if people join their efforts together. Victims can join with others in the society who are in solidarity with them, and raise an outcry against the situation (Alkire, 2002).
Those within the "unjust structures" may become responsive (whether in response to the outcry or because of their own moral markers) and organise transformation from within the "unjust structure." While, in the short run, there may seem to be no other possibility except for the perpetrators to maintain unjust structures and the victims to suffer from them, in the long run, individual victims have the power to unite and overcome structural injustice (Alkire, 2002).

Engendered Development as a Harmonization of the Rights Based Approach and Capability
Approach to Human Development Martha Nussbaum opines that the theory of human rights helps to effectively address many contemporary issues of social justice. According to her, "when governments and international agencies talk about people's basic political and economic entitlements, they standardly use the language of rights. When constitutions are written in the modern era, and the framers wish to identify a group of particularly urgent interests that deserve special protection, once again it is the language of rights that is standardly preferred. The language of rights has a moral resonance that makes it hard to avoid in contemporary political discourse (Nussbaum, 2002, p. 117)".
From the moment of its adoption in 1948 until today, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has provided inspiration and guidelines to governments, national courts, parliaments, nongovernmental organizations, professionals and social activists for effectively combating atrocities and unjust social practices in different parts of the world (Nussbaum, 2002, p. 117).
Its principles have empowered marginalized groups and minorities, such as the Black Americans in America, the Dalits and tribal groups in India, indigenous groups in Australia, Mexico and Latin America and ethnic groups in most African countries to gain space in the social and political mainstream. Its provisions and mechanisms have enabled women suffering from domestic violence, social exclusion and economic deprivation to unequivocally articulate their aspirations for equal dignity and respect at home and in society (Alexander, 2007, p. 151 Vol. 4, No. 3, 2021 towards which every society should progress, Nussbaum thinks that human rights should be seen as side-constraints that serve as benchmarks in international standard-setting and national public policy debates. Rights, without doubt, have a longer and more influential history than Sen's concept of capabilities (Alexander, 2007, p. 453).
They have come to occupy an important place in contemporary moral and political discussions. When non-governmental organizations and people's movements want to make visible people's deprived conditions and secure for them some basic social, economic and political claims, they regularly use the language of rights. When international agencies such as the United Nations Organisation (UNO) wish to point out the failure of governments to respect and promote people's basic entitlements, it is the rhetoric of rights that they prefer to employ. In addition, when the governments themselves are reviewing their performances or proposing certain constitutional changes, it is, again, a set of fundamental rights that serves as a checklist (Alexander, 2007, p. 454).
Therefore despite the lacunas in the various human rights frame works at international, regional and domestic or national level, there is no doubt that the rights discourse epitomizes a superior justceable and enforcement status both at legal and policy levels than the capability framework. However, the legislative or policy protection of human rights is nuanced on the zeal to translate from potentiality to actuality or from unfulfillment to fulfillment. The actuality or fulfillment of particular rights can only be ascertained in terms of their enhancement of people's well-being irrespective of gender, class, age, affiliation and social status.
Precisely, at the end of the day ,it must be the case that people are be and do in accordance with the values they have reason to value. Thus, the human rights and capability approaches to human development are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary. It must be noted that both approaches show the efficacy of territorial and social mapping in human development. Rights and capabilities can only be effectively implemented as long as they are embodied in theoretical frameworks of particular localities; otherwise they remain too theoretical to be substantive.

Conclusion
The niche of this paper has been a critique of the notion of development deterritorialization as well the deconstruction of a variety of fetishisms in the discourse of development. Accordingly, development theory has reached the status it has today because of deconstruction and double deconstruction. Sen deconstructs the commodity fetishism explicit in the Basic needs Approach to development and welfare economics however, his theory plunges into a capability fetishism, i.e., the tendency to treat capabilities as magical entities which people consume without any conflictual reverberations. Using the Nussbaumian Capability ethic, the paper has developed a case for the harmonization of social and territorial cartographies, the synergy between the rights based and capability approaches, as well the social structural emphasis of the capability ethic.
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jrph Journal of Research in Philosophy and History Vol. 4, No. 3, 2021 The paper argues that assumption that transnational capitalism and hence transnational cartographies make sense in all possible worlds like the laws of physics is implausible. Certainly they make sense in market economies and not subsistence ones. Development should be understood in the relation to the theoretical frame works of the localities where it is situated. This ipso facto implies that development should not solely be understood in terms of social groups but also in terms of territorial cartographies as well because, it is unthinkable to discern human relations which are not constitutive of any territorial embodiment. For instance, if I say that Uganda is the center of transnational capitalism-this would be deemed laughable! Why? Because a largely peasant society cannot be the furculum of this kind of capitalism.
Of course it is true that unlike organised capitalism, transnational capitalist greed is affecting social groups irrespective of territorial embodiment, but it is also true that the nexus of this neo-liberal schema is fundamentally championed by the discourse of the so called G8 through the WTO, IMF and World Bank. The G8 countries are not in space but rather have specific territorial embodiment. More so, transnational capitalism may not affect the people in the South and North in the same way because of the different welfare systems that are epitomized on the ruse to give transnational capitalism a human face.