Cultivating Development: An Ethnography Of Aid Policy And Practice

What if development agencies and researchers are not driven by policy? Suppose that the things that make for 'good policy' - policy that legitimises and mobilises political support - in reality make it impossible to implement? By focusing in detail on the unfolding activities of a development project in western India over more than ten years, as it falls under different policy regimes, this book takes a close look at the relationship between policy and practice in development. David Mosse shows how the actions of development workers are shaped by the exigencies of organisations and the need to maintain relationships rather than by policy; but also that development actors work hardest of all to maintain coherent representations of their actions as instances of authorised policy. Raising unfamiliar questions, Mosse provides a rare self-critical reflection on practice, while refusing to endorse current post-modern dismissal of development.

Author: David Mosse
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
Published: 12/01/2004
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.89lbs
Size: 7.84h x 5.72w x 0.68d
ISBN: 9780745317984

About the Author
David Mosse is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is author of The Rule of Water: Statecraft, Ecology and Collective Action in South India (Oxford University Press, 2003).

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