Questioning the utopian image of western knowledge as a uniquely successful achievement in its application to economic and social development, this provocative volume, the latest in the EIDOS series, argues that it is unacceptable to dismiss problems encountered by development projects as the inadequate implementation of knowledge. Rather, it suggests that failures stem from the constitution of knowledge and its object.By focussing on the ways in which agency in development is attributed to experts, thereby turning previously active participants into passive subjects or ignorant objects, the contributors claim that the hidden agenda to the aims of educating and improving the lives of those in the undeveloped world falls little short of perpetuating ignorance.
Author(s): Mark Hobart
Year: 1993
Language: English
Pages: 248
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
List of figures......Page 8
Notes on contributors......Page 9
Preface......Page 11
Introduction: the growth of ignorance?......Page 14
Segmentary knowledge: a Whalsay sketch......Page 44
Processes and limitations of Dogon agricultural knowledge......Page 56
Cultivation: knowledge or performance?......Page 74
His lordship at the Cobblers' well......Page 92
Is death the same everywhere? contexts of knowing and doubting......Page 113
Scapegoat and magic charm: law in development theory and practice......Page 129
Knowledge and ignorance in the practices of development policy......Page 148
The negotiation of knowledge and ignorance in China's development strategy......Page 174
Bridging two worlds: an ethnography of bureaucrat-peasant relations in western Mexico......Page 192
Potatoes and knowledge......Page 222
Name index......Page 241
Subject index......Page 245
