Is the Geographies of Evasion hypothesis useful for explaining and predicting the fate of external interventions? The case of REDD in Cambodia

It has proved much easier to observe the stark divide between the ‘professional optimists’ in the development industry and the ‘professional pessimists’ in academic development studies than it has to disrupt these roles or to explain them in ways that prevent them remaining entrenched. This paper will present and discuss the “Geographies of Evasion” hypothesis which claims to explain how and why rights-based development interventions in particular fail. The key question addressed by the paper is whether the ‘Geographies of Evasion hypothesis’ provides a worthwhile theoretical contribution to overcoming this practitioner-academic impasse. The Geography of Evasion concept was first coined in a study of property rights interventions in Cambodia (Biddulph, 2010) and first articulated as a hypothesis as follows: If the development industry attempts to extend rights which host nation governments are not prepared to enforce, the result will not be a rejection of the industry’s programmes. Rather they will be welcomed, but channelled to places where those rights do not make a difference. This ‘geography of evasion’ will be concealed by policy facades which measure success according to outputs and do not acknowledge the process of spatial marginalisation” (Biddulph, 2011 forthcoming) This paper will present early results of the application of the ‘Geography of Evasion’ hypothesis to the case of REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). It first analyses the global climate negotiation and the implementation discourse parallel to the negotiations, and explains how this discourse invites geographies of evasion. It then presents fieldwork from a REDD pilot activity Cambodia where existing community forestry initiatives are being linked to the voluntary carbon market as a means to pilot REDD. The case of the REDD pilot northwest Cambodia provides early evidence of how deforestation is being prevented in places where the major drivers are least present suggesting that Geographies of Evasion might indeed have predictive power in explaining how REDD might fail. However, more evidence than this is required to make a convincing case for REDD as an evasive/evaded intervention internationally. Geographies of Evasion will gain more purchase in development theory-practice dialogues if it is tested in other contexts than that of rural Cambodia. However, by presenting clear, simple questions to relatively accessible data it promises to be of readier practical import than many currently prominent theorizations of development practice.

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