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 anthropological 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 are intended 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.
0 有用 小羊战 2010-05-29 06:23:41
老书了,不过能把福柯用到这种程度,还是相当牛。
0 有用 多汁多 2023-02-06 20:02:18 辽宁
这个可以说是给遭遇发展补了一个田野了。
0 有用 泊濤 2023-12-14 12:35:53 美国
本学期最好的书之一。对发展的话语的犀利解构,简单化和清晰化的发展计划将复杂的社会文化脉络简化为地理和技术问题,不对症的技术治理实际上最终服务于官僚机构的再生产,并且持续制造依附。有关牛的迷思的民族志极尽精彩,另外全书也可以和斯科特国家的视角遥相呼应
0 有用 M 2011-05-18 03:17:57
sick of cultural relativism
0 有用 化城 2012-03-24 23:56:36
boring, 亮点在conclusion. development as the entry of power, the state as a point of power relation, demote intentionality, no biopower in Africa, discourse as part of a "machine," an unacknowledged stru... boring, 亮点在conclusion. development as the entry of power, the state as a point of power relation, demote intentionality, no biopower in Africa, discourse as part of a "machine," an unacknowledged structure (don't really like this, falls into the same old trap of structuralism). governmentality, used a lot of Foucault. (展开)
0 有用 泊濤 2023-12-14 12:35:53 美国
本学期最好的书之一。对发展的话语的犀利解构,简单化和清晰化的发展计划将复杂的社会文化脉络简化为地理和技术问题,不对症的技术治理实际上最终服务于官僚机构的再生产,并且持续制造依附。有关牛的迷思的民族志极尽精彩,另外全书也可以和斯科特国家的视角遥相呼应
0 有用 多汁多 2023-02-06 20:02:18 辽宁
这个可以说是给遭遇发展补了一个田野了。
0 有用 过客人 2022-11-20 17:33:51 江苏
这本书翻译是不可能翻译的
0 有用 奔波尔灞 2022-10-11 13:06:53 美国
DEVENG 202 week 5
0 有用 mading 2021-11-08 10:33:57
非常值得一读和好好思考,更加佩服毛主席,很多问题意识和革命实践远远走在了当代资本主义社会里知识分子左派反思的前面。