UNDERSTANDING NATURE AND UN-UNDERSTANDING ENVIRONMENT: A NON-WESTERN CONCEPTION OF SUSTAINABILITY

Arturo Escobar in his book Encountering Development (1995), draws attention of the world on the special formation of development discourse and how this formation changes the world view of third world countries towards development, sustainability and growth. Based on works of Foucault, analyzed discourse of development that how “dynamics of discourse and power in the representation of social reality, in particular, has been instrumental in unveiling the mechanisms by which certain order of discourse produces permissible modes of being and thinking while disqualifying and even making others impossible” (Escobar 1995: 15). In this context, this paper discusses how by emphasizing on the discourse of environment, the west had made the other discourse, the discourse of Nature impossible thus changing the whole worldview towards sustainability of life. This paper first discusses how the very concept of development, growth itself is unsustainable, second, how the western discourse of development has changed the concept of Nature to environment, thus changing the whole worldview towards sustainability, and finally, some recommendations that how once can by reversing the concept of Nature from environment can make the life more sustainable. My final arguments would be based on indigenous knowledge of sustainability.