Autonomous Development : Humanizing the Landscape : An Excursion into Radical Thinking and Practice

Carmen, Raff

ISBN 10: 1856493873 / ISBN 13: 9781856493871

Published by Zed Books, 1996

About this Item

Unread book in perfect condition.

Seller Inventory # 582235

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Autonomous Development : Humanizing the Landscape : An Excursion into Radical Thinking and Practice
• Publisher: Zed Books
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1856493873
• ISBN 13: 9781856493871
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: As New

About this title

Synopsis

At a time of widespread disillusion as to what development has in practice done to the lives of hundreds of millions of marginalised people over the past 40 years, this book seeks to reclaim development as a project of people's own autonomous agency. Born out of three decades of field experience and working with 'Third World' students, it revisits the primary question of what development ought really to be about. Raff Carmen starts from the conviction that development is too important to be left to the developers. He critically examines what has gone on under its name, finding it wanting both as an epistemological category and a sound operational practice. Instead, he presents a counter-view of development as an act of creation whereby people exercise their inalienable right 'to invent their own future' as authors of an ongoing process of transforming and humanising the landscapes they inhabit.

About the Author

Raff Carmen currently coordinates the Masters and post-graduate research programmes in Adult Education, Adult Literacy and Rural Social/Community Development at the University of Manchester.