International Development Annual Lecture: Restitution and Development

THIS IS A HYBRID EVENT.
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Abstract: Let’s start with Rockstrom’s 2023 finding that whether or not full human development can be achieved, development fails the test of physical sustainability. In each of the planet’s nine earth subsystems dangerous thresholds have been transgressed or are near these points. Extreme events have not been factored into planetary models and Hansen’s 2025 paper on shipping aerosols demonstrates the relevance and the sidelining of the precautionary principle. While the science-policy interface is littered with action-lists with ever more revolutionary implications, the corruption of the crust and atmosphere proceeds practically unhindered. In this global capitalist context and respecting the political priority of mass provisioning, I turn to the genealogy in classical political economy of restitution, mistranslated as restoration. I’ll discuss the social and physical meaning of restitution, its conditions of possibility, its implications for us as learners and teachers and the ‘next step’ paradox it generates. I will try to explain why it is no more utopian than the IPCC policy lists.