Differentiating Development: Beyond an Anthropology of Critique

Published by Berghahn Books 2012

Differentiating Development

Beyond an Anthropology of Critique

Edited by: Soumhya Venkatesan and Thomas Yarrow

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780857453044

Overview
Contents

About this book

Over the last two decades, anthropological studies have highlighted the problems of ‘development’ as a discursive regime, arguing that such initiatives are paradoxically used to consolidate inequality and perpetuate poverty. This volume constitutes a timely intervention in anthropological debates about development, moving beyond the critical stance to focus on development as a mode of engagement that, like anthropology, attempts to understand, represent and work within a complex world. By setting out to elucidate both the similarities and differences between these epistemological endeavors, the book demonstrates how the ethnographic study of development challenges anthropology to rethink its own assumptions and methods. In particular, contributors focus on the important but often overlooked relationship between acting and understanding, in ways that speak to debates about the role of anthropologists and academics in the wider world. The case studies presented are from a diverse range of geographical and ethnographic contexts, from Melanesia to Africa and Latin America, and ethnographic research is combined with commentary and reflection from the foremost scholars in the field.

Author / Editor information

Soumhya Venkatesan lectures in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. She is the author of Craft Matters: Artisans, Development and the Indian Nation (Orient Blackswan 2009).

Thomas Yarrow lectures in Social Anthropology at Durham University. He is the author of Development Beyond Politics: Aid, Activism and NGOs in Ghana (Palgrave, 2011), and the co-editor of Archaeology and Anthropology: understanding similarity, exploring difference (Oxbow, 2010).

Soumhya Venkatesan lectures in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. She is the author of Craft Matters: Artisans, Development and the Indian Nation (Orient Blackswan 2009).

Reviews

“The themes and styles are refreshingly diverse but all the contributors remind us that what many development scholars and policy-makers downgrade as ‘context’ – history, ways of making meaning, political disputes – are often central to explaining development practice…[This book] not only implies the need for a classificatory rethink, which has been widely recognized for decades, but also gives us the ethnographic material to see how fruitful a more concerted anthropology of development in Europe could be.” · Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

“…offers an interesting and important read in making sense of what seems to have become a somewhat uneasy relationship between anthropology and development... [The volume] should be applauded for putting increased emphasis on ethnography and agency by showing how these constitute a critical hope that both post-development and anthropology will contribute to and be relevant for development. It seeks not only to describe and analyze but, more importantly, to revamp critically how anthropology as a discipline engages the field of development.” · Social Analysis

“This is a book whose time is overdue…It is a welcome addition to a burgeoning field of anthropological studies in which development plays a part, a book that will be widely read and appreciated…[It is]sophisticated, relevant, sufficiently up to date and interesting in the way in which it framed the new forms that anthropological engagement with development might take.” · Andrea Cornwall, University of Sussex

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Anthropology and Development: Critical Framings Thomas Yarrow and Soumhya Venkatesan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I Anthropology and Development Reconsidered
CHAPTER 1 On Text and Con-text Towards an Anthropology in Development John T. Friedman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
CHAPTER 2 Framing and Escaping: Contrasting Aspects of Knowledge Work in International Development and Anthropology Maia Green Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
CHAPTER 3 Intersection Economies of Knowledge Veena Das Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
PART II Enacting Development
CHAPTER 4 The Progress of the Project Scientific Traction in The Gambia Ann Kelly Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
CHAPTER 5 Recursive Partnerships in Global Development Aid Casper Bruun Jensen and Brit Ross Winthereik Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
CHAPTER 6 Intersection: A Gift Back – The Village and Research Annemarie Mol Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
PART III Doing and Knowing
CHAPTER 7 Beyond an Anthropology of ‘the Urban Poor’ Rethinking Peripheral Urban Social Situations in Brazil John Gledhill and Maria Gabriela Hita Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
CHAPTER 8 Extraordinary Violence and Everyday Welfare: The State and Development in Rural and Urban India Amita Baviskar Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
CHAPTER 9 Intersection: The Anthropology of Development and the Development of Anthropology Harri Englund Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
PART IV The Promise of Progress
CHAPTER 10 Development, Participation and Political Ideology in a Lebanese Town Michelle Obeid Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	151
CHAPTER 11 Kastom Ekonomi and the Subject of Self-Reliance: Differentiating Development in Vanuatu Benedicta Rousseau and John P. Taylor Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
CHAPTER 12 Intersection: Modes of Modernity Norman Long Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
PART V Forms and Effects
CHAPTER 13 Effecting Development: Bureaucratic Knowledges, Cynicism, and the Desire for Development Nayanika Mathur Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
CHAPTER 14 The Transformation of Compassion and the Ethics of Interaction within Charity Practices Catherine Trundle Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	210
CHAPTER 15 Intersection: The Art of Balance, or Else . . . Alberto Corsín Jiménez Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
CONTRIBUTORS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 258
Keywords: Development Studies; Anthropology (General)

eBook

Published: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 9780857453044