Synopses & Reviews
Over the past fifteen years, ideas in the field of development studies have been highly contested. During this time, most countries from the South have come under the iron heel of the IMF and World Bank, who have imposed structural adjustment programmes wherever they have provided loan capital to governments. However, these programmes have had little success, and development studies has suffered accordingly. Many development theorists turned to postmodernist theory to try to move on from this impasse, which in the 1990s led to a new line of critical thought that heralded 'the end of development'. They argued that development studies should be replaced by new strategies of emancipation, or 'new social movements' theory, originating in groups such as the Zapatistas of Mexico. This book summarises the contested ideas of development studies and new social movements theory while rejecting calls for the end of development. Using postmodern theory to demonstrate that forms of development can be complementary to emancipatory social movement projects, Trevor Parfitt develops an alternative model of development which incorporates the needs of peoples both South and North.
Review
'For scholars and practitioners of development, this book is an excellent tour of contemporary theory. For theorists, it illuminates and encourages the making of hard decisions. Anyone who wants to help but is concerned about their own efforts should read this important book.' --Ricardo Blaug, University of Leeds 'Consistently thoughtful and quietly persuasive.' --Tony Payne, University of Sheffield
Synopsis
Outlines a radical new approach to development studies in the light of the policies imposed by the IMF and World Bank
Synopsis
A critical account of the politics of aid-giving.
About the Author
Emma Guest was communications manager for the Samaritans a helpline for the suicidal until she moved to South Africa in 1998. Since then she has been a freelance writer on AIDS-related matters for companies, charities and the South African government. She now lives in London.
Table of Contents
1: Introduction
2: From Post-Modernity to Post-Development
2.1: Introduction
2.2: From Modernity to Post-Modernity
2.3: Post-Development and its Discontents
2.4: Conclusions
3: Discourse of Power or Truth?
3.1: Introduction
3.2: Archeologies and Genealogies
3.3: Discourse Ethics and the Problems of Application
4: Towards a Development of Least Violence?
4.1: Introduction
4.2: Deconstruction at First Sight
4.3: Ethics as First Philosophy
4.4: A Philosophy of the Least Violence
4.5: Undecidability and the Dec