Bonn Juego
Chair of the Finnish Society for Development Research, Co-Chair of Development Days 2026, and Senior Lecturer in International Development Studies at the University of Jyväskylä
[Opening remarks and Introduction to the Development Days 2026 / FSDR@40 international conference with the theme “Development in Ruins, Hope in the Cracks: A Time for Reckoning, Reclaiming, and Reawakening”, 26 February 2026, Helsinki]
Hello everyone! Good morning from Helsinki, Finland to all of you here in the hall and those following us online via Zoom! On behalf of the Finnish Society for Development Research, I warmly welcome you to the Development Days 2026 conference, the biggest assembly we have had so far with more than 300 people altogether contributing and participating in our events and activities. For this year, when we are also celebrating FSDR@40 or the 40th anniversary of our association, we have chosen a theme befitting our milestone occasion, suggesting the overarching aim of our three-day gathering: “Development in Ruins, Hope in the Cracks: A Time for Reckoning, Reclaiming, and Reawakening”.
We can be optimistic looking forward to our association’s golden anniversary, yet we should admit that the so-called ‘golden age’ of the international development profession is over. Development – as a function of international cooperation, as a professional activity, and as an academic subject – no longer enjoys popular legitimacy and support, not least from governments and citizens of traditional donor countries, including here in Finland. While imperfect and problematic from the point of view of critical scholarship, it is a fact that there used to be general acceptance – since the UN Development Decades beginning in the 1960s until around the declaration of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals – when the value and necessity of development policy, development practitioners, development NGOs, and development studies were popularly appreciated as virtuous endeavors. While the glory decades are gone, we must not let current headwinds force us to give up on the life-affirming power of good development.
That conviction has not been without its own tests. Two years ago, the first time I served as Chair of our annual conference, I proposed to regard development studies as a “discipline of conscience.” While some of you commended me for delivering a ‘brave’ message, I was very anxious before going to the stage. As a precarious university worker and an immigrant, I had worries speaking out about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly the genocide in Gaza. I concluded then saying that we cannot make sense of our performative discursive activity and our work in global development research, without talking and thinking about the injustice, sufferings, and barbarism being experienced in the occupied lands of Palestine. Recent opinions—sadly, after more than 70,000 have died—validated this stance bravely taken by many of us. Looking back, what has given me courage for truth-seeking and truth-telling at that juncture when our morality is being tested, amid the mental anxiety and emotional fear, are some of the good values and virtues of ‘development’ instilled in us: that is, to be normatively clear on the question “Whose side are we on?,” and to value the principles of social justice, care, wellbeing, human dignity, and—above all—life.
In our conference last year, as Donald Trump resumed the US presidency, wielding supra-state powers and limitless monetary wealth with his super-rich, Big Tech, and ultra-conservative allies, I opined that it was a “time of monsters” for us in development. While we share the critique of the USAID and understand the history of its geopolitical economy as an imperialist and colonialist tool of the US empire during and after the Cold War, we suffer from cognitive dissonance when Trump virtually dismantled it. In a post-colonial context, where development problems, processes and effects have become convoluted, Trump’s assault on development agencies and aid would cause tremendous, if not irreparable, harm to vulnerable populations, as well as to our development profession. More concerning for us as scholars is that Trump has not only attacked the institutions of development but the very ideas of good development.
I remember a classroom lesson when I was an undergraduate student in political sociology of our Keynote Speaker for this conference, Professor Walden Bello, regarding the dynamics of hegemony and legitimation. Contrary to the Maoist dictum and in agreement with Gramscian analysis, for us in the tradition of critical scholarship: In the end, political power grows out not from the barrel of a gun, but from ideas. The tenure of Trump in the White House is fleeting, but we can sense that its after-effects are long-lasting. Under this Trumpian zeitgeist, we as development scholars should heed Keynes’ warning in order to re-strategize our approach to development communication: “Soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.” Trump and several ruling parties in the European Union are imposing on the development community a serious existential crisis. Therefore, while we still have some space and voice, we must guard against the popularization and ideological agenda of the anti-development discourse.
This early 2026, we have witnessed another viciousness of Trump’s interventionism, rhetorical and military, encroaching on the sovereignty of countries from Latin America to the Middle East. On top of this, the significant withdrawal of the US from financing for development and from representation in development-related intergovernmental initiatives implies not its total disengagement from multilateralism, but a forceful attempt to reorient international relations towards a bifurcated and anti-developmental world. Trump’s new foreign and security strategy emphasizes a reorientation of USA’s capitalist paradigm from liberal-democratic internationalism to conservative-authoritarian nationalism, furthering the ongoing securitization of development policy and privatization of development finance. While US funding and partnerships are generally kept for the Global North, anything good that has to do with the Global South is cut off, particularly relating to human rights, civil liberties, gender, healthcare, education, climate and ecology.
What is more, Trump has appropriated the name and strategy of peace—which is a foundational concept in development. Whereas peace for us in development studies is a precondition for good living and the good life, Trump’s Board of Peace has been established as his narcissistic bid for a Nobel Prize. While we in the development community call for divesting from wars so as to invest in life-sustaining foundations of planetary well-being, Trump invests in imperialist wars, the ultimate waster of nature and human life, accelerating us closer to the doomsday clock.
The rise and popularity of megalomaniacs and fascists must be boldly opposed. Their life-shortening priorities—from the warmongering of security apparatuses to the economic policies of austerity—should be resisted at all fronts. At 40 years old, our network, the Finnish Society for Development Research, may be undergoing a midlife crisis. At this historic moment, however, the tradition of critical development studies is not merely experiencing a transitory midlife crisis, but we are already facing an existential threat from the powers-that-be. Thus, we seem to have come to a breaking point where it is not anymore enough to simply “resist to exist,” but to “rebel against extinction.”
Trump’s assertive projection of US military and financial power amid the long-running decline of American techno-economic and socio-cultural hegemony signals considerable rupture in the postwar liberal order and the postcolonial developmental relations. These changes challenge the very historical junctures from which the institutions, practice, and study of mainstream development emerged. For us, these are signs of the times to reckon with, reclaim, or reawaken the past, present, and future of development.
Through twenty insightful and thought-provoking working groups, we are gathered here with the aims to discuss our research endeavors, reflect on our current conditions, and strategize action plans. We are privileged to welcome distinguished scholar-activists from the Global South who will join us in this reflection as Keynote Speakers by leading discussions on pressing issues.
- Walden Bello, whom the University of Helsinki has recently awarded an honorary doctorate, its highest recognition, will offer an analysis of deglobalization, a concept he introduced in the early 2000s, as it unfolds in the era of new geopolitical competition.
- Robtel Neajai Pailey, an award-winning emerging scholar, will explore alternative development, or alternatives to development, in a post-aid world.
Tomorrow, we will dedicate significant time to discuss “The State of Development Research” with outstanding thinkers and researchers – Anja Nygren, Eleanor Fisher, Alfredo Saad-Filho, and David Barkin. Among other purposes, in search of meaning in our lives and after-lives in development, we need to acknowledge that: “An unexamined life is not worth living.” And part of that examination must turn inward, toward our own scholarly practice.
In our attempt at making conscious the conditions for emancipatory development studies — amid grand theorizing, metanarrative making, and novel research methodology designing, all in academia’s rat race for endless publications sustaining the billion-dollar publishing industries — what Engels called an ‘overgrowth of ideology’ seems to have taken hold. To the extent that we have forgotten the basics of development, or what Marx called the law of development of human history: “that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.”
Despite attaining important progress in social relations and impressive advances of technology, we continue to live in a world with much cruelty and gross forms of exploitation. In an era of dire need and privation, where development’s supposed constituencies – the poor, the victims, and the marginalized – are captured by populist demagogues, the most radical, transformative, revolutionary, and utopian aspiration with far-reaching perspective is actually the most basic that development studies have taught us. Addressing this cruelty requires more than analysis — it requires organized collective action.
The process and objective change are also central to the ideals of good development. We know very well that bringing about genuine global social change is a collective action endeavor – as such, we cannot be changemakers individually, we must belong to an active, progressive organization like the Finnish Society for Development Research.
Finally, I conclude with a personal remark. Having served my third term as Chair of FSDR – Kehitystutkimuksen seura, I would like to express my gratitude to all of you, dear colleagues, for your support and collegiality through the years. It has been a great honor of my life to contribute to leading a unique platform in the service of our development community. Thank you for giving me this memorable learning experience, the opportunity to lead and do my best for you.
Let’s have an enjoyable, engaging, fruitful, and meaningful time together as we give development a good fight.
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