Encountering Development: The Making & Unmaking of the Third World

Escobar, Arturo

ISBN 10: 0691001022 / ISBN 13: 9780691001029

Published by Princeton University Press, 1995

About this Item

This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has soft covers. In fair condition, suitable as a study copy. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,550grams, ISBN:9780691001029. Seller Inventory # 4309896

Bibliographic Details

Title: Encountering Development: The Making & ...

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Publication Date: 1995

Binding: Soft cover

Condition: Fair

About this title

Synopsis:

How did the industrialized nations of North America and Europe come to be seen as the appropriate models for post-World War II societies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America? How did the postwar discourse on development actually create the so-called Third World? And what will happen when development ideology collapses? To answer these questions, Arturo Escobar shows how development policies became mechanisms of control that were just as pervasive and effective as their colonial counterparts. The development apparatus generated categories powerful enough to shape the thinking even of its occasional critics while poverty and hunger became widespread. 'Development' was not even partially 'deconstructed' until the 1980s, when new tools for analyzing the representation of social reality were applied to specific 'Third World' cases. Here Escobar deploys these new techniques in a provocative analysis of development discourse and practice in general, concluding with a discussion of alternative visions for a postdevelopment era. Escobar emphasizes the role of economists in development discourse - his case study of Colombia demonstrates that the economization of food resulted in ambitious plans, and more hunger. To depict the production of knowledge and power in other development fields, the author shows how peasants, women, and nature became objects of knowledge and targets of power under the 'gaze of experts'.

About the Author:

Arturo Escobar is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He recently taught at Smith College.