Cultivating Development: An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice (Anthropology, Culture and Society)

Mosse, David

ISBN 10: 0745317987 / ISBN 13: 9780745317984

Published by Pluto Press, New York, 2005

About this Item

Book is in pristine condition. Spine tight with no creases. Pages clean and unmarked.

Development agencies and researchers are preoccupied with policy; with exerting influence over policy, linking research to policy and with implementing policy around the world. But what if development practice is 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.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1761151059529

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Cultivating Development: An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice (Anthropology, Culture and Society)
• Publisher: Pluto Press, New York
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0745317987
• ISBN 13: 9780745317984
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: As New
• Dimensions: 2.134W x 13.335H x 21.59D centimeters 2.134 centimeters width by 13.335 centimeters height by 21.59 centimeters depth
• Weight: 2 pounds

About this title

Synopsis

Development agencies and researchers are preoccupied with policy; with exerting influence over policy, linking research to policy and with implementing policy around the world.

But what if development practice is 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.

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).