Deconstructing Development Discourse.pptx

Understanding Development

1. Understanding Development

2. “Why do we have to bother with all these theories? Why not just let the facts speak for themselves!” Unfortunately, facts do not “speak for themselves.” Before facts can speak to us in a meaningful way , we must find relationships among them

3. When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’ (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There , 1871)

4. Wolfgang Sachs contends, ‘development is much more than just a socio-economic endeavour ; it is a erception which models reality, a myth which comforts societies, and a fantasy which unleashes passions’. The extraordinary thing about Development-speak is that it is simultaneously descriptive and normative, concrete yet aspirational, intuitive and clunkily p

5. But language does matter for development. Development’s buzzwords are not only passwords to funding and influence; and they are more than the mere specialist jargon that is characteristic of any profession. The word development itself, has become a ‘modern shibboleth, an unavoidable password’, which comes to be used ‘to convey the idea that tomorrow things will be better, or that more is necessarily better’. But, as he goes on to note, the very taken-for-granted quality of ‘development’ – and the same might be said of many of the words that are used in development discourse. A Hurrah word. A warmly persuasive quality.

6. Wolfgang Sachs notes “Like a towering lighthouse guiding sailors towards the coast, ‘development’ stood as the idea which oriented emerging nations in their journey towards post-war history. No matter whether democracies or dictatorships, the countries of the South proclaimed development as their primary aspiration, after they had been freed from colonial subordination. Four decades later, governments and citizens alike still have their eyes fixed on the light flashing just as far away as ever: every effort and every sacrifice is justified in reaching

7. An Anthropologist bought lots of candy and sweets in the city, so he put everything in a basket with a beautiful ribbon attached. He placed it under a solitary tree, and then he called the kids together. He drew a line on the ground and explained that they should wait behind the line for his signal. And that when he said "Go!" they should rush over to the basket, and the first to arrive there would win all the candies. When he said "Go!" they all unexpectedly held each other's hands and ran off towards the tree as a group. Once there, they simply shared the candy with each other and happily ate it. The anthropologist was very surprised. He asked them why they had all gone together, especially if the first one to arrive at the tree could have won everything in the basket - all the sweets. A young girl simply replied: "How can one of us be happy if all the others are sad?" Ubuntu ( oo -boon-too, n.) means, "I am because we are."