Development Discourses

About the Book

This collection of essays seeks to explore common lessons from political sociology and development studies and , in this process , tries to resolve the tension between the author's academic and practitioner worldviews. The author has tried to highlight one principal concern in this volume that development is more often than not a multicultural construct of everyday politics that is context-bound and predicated by statements of informed choices on the part of the stakeholders and/or beneficiaries involved. So development is more about who gets what, when, how, where and why in terms of an authoritative allocation of values that is underpinned by definitions of stakeholders or beneficiaries or affected persons. Such definitions are power statements that are scripted by agencies that generally tend to view development as an unevenness that may be restructured in terms of human and physical engineering as a level playing ground where players are equipped with uniform access to resources and similar opportunities. This is, however, a contentious issue without any simple answers. Such an interventionist approach may not always be sponsored by the mode of production or the marketplace of politics that , by definition , thrives on discrepancies and discriminations among unequally affected persons. The present work will be of interest to political sociologists, economic and social historians, development consultants, non-profit professionals, social workers, grassroots activists, urban planners, academics as well as researchers working in the development sector.