Lie, J: Discursive Development Order and Local Informal Prac

To what extent does development discourses shape development practice? Drawing on post-structural approaches to development, this monograph provides an ethnographic account of a development projects in Northern Ethiopia. Grounded in empirical research, it analyses the discrepancy between a donor‘‘s rhetorical claims of a participatory and bottom-up approach and the practices of how recipients relate to external knowledge-power formations. This study shows how a small development project is embedded in a global development discourse which has profound effects of inversing attempts of a bottom-up approach. Recipients are, however, not powerless victims. Combining post-development theory s discursive approach with a focus on actors everyday practices yields a more nuanced picture of development discourse s formative power. In the interface between donor and recipient, actors not only adopt but also translate, contest and manipulate external knowledge. As such, this book is both a substantive contribution to the ethnography of aid as well as an important input to the theoretical debate on the interrelationship of discourse and agency.