Barbarian hordes: the overpopulation scapegoat in international development discourse

@article{Fletcher2014BarbarianHT,
  title={Barbarian hordes: the overpopulation scapegoat in international development discourse},
  author={Robert Fletcher and Jan Breitling and Valerie Puleo},
  journal={Third World Quarterly},
  year={2014},
  volume={35},
  pages={1195 - 1215}
}
Despite sustained critique of a neo-Malthusian focus on ‘overpopulation’, the issue continues to resurface regularly within international development discourse, particularly with respect to ‘sustainable’ development in relation to growing environmental security concerns. This suggests that the issue defies purely rational evaluation, operating on a deeper psychodynamic register. In this paper we therefore analyse the population question as a ‘scapegoat’, in the psychoanalytic sense of a… 
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