The Development Trap: How Thinking Big Fails the Poor - Hardcover

Kiš, Adam D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1138574546 ISBN 13: 9781138574540

Publisher: Routledge, 2018

Synopsis

A wave of optimism is sweeping through the international aid and development industry, championed by leaders such as Jeffrey Sachs and Jim Yong Kim, who believe that poverty eradication could be within our grasp. Yet in stark opposition come those who believe that all international development intervention is hegemonic, paternalistic, and neocolonialist and must be done away with. In this book, the author argues for a middle ground. Poverty is an entrenched, intractable problem that will never be entirely eradicated. However, if we reorientate our objectives in line with realistic goals that improve the way that poverty is confronted on a smaller scale, we can still continue the fight for meaningful change.

Using rigorous scholarship illustrated with vivid storytelling and personal anecdotes from fighting against poverty in the field, The Development Trap argues that we need to make progress against poverty on the micro, rather than the macro scale. Instead of shooting for a single overarching end of poverty, our goals must be modest and reachable.

About this title

About the Author

Adam D. Kiš is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the International Studies Program at Burman University in Canada. He holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of Florida, USA. He has lived and worked in the United States, Benin, Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Madagascar, the Philippines and Canada.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1138574546
• ISBN 13: 9781138574540
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 190