Volume Abstracts

This paper examines a burgeoning anthropological literature on development and debates surrounding development discourse. Some of these raise question regarding the concept of development, arguing that it is a contentious domain. Reviewing major literature on the issue, I suggest, dominant paradigms of development oversimplify the notion as if it were homogeneous. I take post modern critiques of development as an example in order to examine the nature of deconstructing development discourse. I argue some writers oversimplify the notion of development by using dichotomies- developed/ underdeveloped. By critically examining knowledge in the developmental domain in anthropology, this paper presents some ethnographic examples which raises conceptual, and practical questions regarding the nature of neoliberal development. The main thrust of this paper, therefore, is to question whether neoliberal development can be forever marked or fixed, a question central to this paper.