Development Economics on Trial: The Anthropological Case for a Prosecution - Softcover

Hill, Polly

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521310962 ISBN 13: 9780521310963

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1986

Synopsis

Polly Hill's provocative book examines the disastrous gulf that separates development economics from its sister discipline, economic anthropology. Working with material from the rural tropical world, much of it collected at first hand in West Africa and South India, Dr Hill demonstrates in the first, polemical part of her book, how unreliable and western-biased assumptions most development economists base their theoretical work. She shows in particular that misleading official statistics are handled uncritically, that the significance of innate rural inequality is consistently ignored and the revered concepts such as the 'population explosion' are in anthropological terms largely meaningless. The longer, second part of the book illustrates the enormous relevance and potential of economic anthropology for economists by looking in turn at the true complexity of farming households, labour and inheritance; at debt, social stratification and economic inequality, and at problems connected with the sale of land, the role of women and migration. Taken overall, Development Economics on Trial represents a powerful and urgent plea for co-operation.

About this title

Book Description:

Polly Hill's provocative book examines the disastrous gulf that separates development economics and economic anthropology. She explores this rift in terms of how each examine statistical data and other factors that leads her to conclude that economic anthropologists have a better grasp of the complexity of economy that development economists could benefit from.

Synopsis:

Polly Hill's provocative new book examines the disastrous gulf that currently separates development economics from its sister discipline, economic anthropology. Working with material from the rural tropical world, much of it collected at first hand in West Africa and South India, Dr Hill demonstrates in the first, polemical part of her book how very unreliable and western-biased are the assumptions on which most development economists base their theoretical work. She shows in particular that misleading official statistics are handled uncritically, that the significance of innate rural inequality is consistently ignored and the revered concepts such as the 'population explosion' are in anthropological terms largely meaningless. The longer second part of the book illustrates the enormous relevance and potential of economic anthropology for economists by looking in turn at the true complexity of farming households, labour and inheritance; at debt, social stratification and economic inequality, and at problems connected with the sale of land, the role of women and migration. Taken overall, Development Economics on Trial represents a powerful and urgent plea for co-operation.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0521310962
• ISBN 13: 9780521310963
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216