Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #217727 in Books
• Published on: 1994-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Synopsis
Development, it is generally assumed, is good and necessary, and in its name the West has intervened, implementing all manner of projects, in the impoverished regions of the world. When these projects fail, as they do with astonishing regularity, they nonetheless produce a host of regular and unacknowledged effects, including the expansion of bureaucratic state power and the translation of the political realities of poverty and powerlessness into "technical" problems awaiting solution by "development" agencies and experts. It is the political intelligibility of these effects, along with the process that produces them, that this book seeks to illuminate through a detailed case study of the workings of the "development" industry in one country, Lesotho, and in one "development" project.

Using an anthopological approach grounded in the work of Foucault, James Ferguson analyzes the institutional framework within which such projects are crafted and the nature of "development discourse", revealing how it is that, despite all the "expertise" that goes into formulating development projects, they nonetheless often demonstrate a startling ignorance of the historical and political realities of the locale they propose to help. In a close examination of the attempted implementation of the Thaba-Tseka project in Lesotho, Ferguson shows how such a misguided approach plays out, how, in fact, the "development" apparatus in Lesotho acts as an "anti-politics machine", everywhere whisking political realities out of sight and all the while performing, almost unnoticed,its own pre-eminently political operation of strengthening the state presence in the local region.

Customer Reviews

Must-read for everybody concerned with development
The anti-politics machine is an excellent case study about a development project in Lesotho. It provides an intriguing mirror for everybody concerned with development. The report of the local situation, the description of the international agencies' attitude and way of acting and especially the discourse-based analysis of the unintentional side effects which were caused by the rural development project under consideration is presented in a brilliant and fascinating way.