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The Anti-Politics Machine "Development", Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho James Ferguson |
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Development, it is generally assumed, is good and necessary, and in its name the West has intervened, implementing all manner of projects in the impoverished regions of the world. When these projects fail, as they do with astonishing regularity, they nonetheless produce a host of regular and unacknowledged effects, including the expansion of bureaucratic state power and the translation of the political realities of poverty and powerlessness into "technical" problems awaiting solution by "development" agencies and experts. It is the political intelligibility of these effects, along with the process that produces them, that this book seeks to illuminate through a detailed case study of the workings of the "development" industry in one country, Lesotho, and in one "development" project. Using an anthropological approach grounded in the work of Foucault, James Ferguson analyzes the institutional framework within which such projects are crafted and the nature of "development discourse," revealing how it is that, despite all the "expertise" that goes into formulating development projects, they nonetheless often demonstrate a startling ignorance of the historical and political realities of the locale they are intended to help. In a close examination of the attempted implementation of the Thaba-Tseka project in Lesotho, Ferguson shows how such a misguided approach plays out, how, in fact, the "development" apparatus in Lesotho acts as an "anti-politics machine," everywhere whisking political realities out of sight and all the while performing, almost unnoticed, its own pre-eminently political operation of strengthening the state presence in the local region. "James Ferguson has given the critique of conventional development theory a new and imaginative dimension. Ferguson's book is an original contribution to the literature that tries to understand the development problematic. His argument is a breath of fresh air in an environment where conformity with conceptual 'fads' is the norm. He strips the development community of its conceptual attire and leaves it naked for all to see." —American Political Science Review "This is one of the most innovative and stimulating books I have read in recent years. James Ferguson has studied the development industry as it goes about its work, and he presents an incisive analysis at several levels. Theoretically, he transcends the unnecessary and frequently tedious disputes between advocates of Foucaultian discourse analysis and analysis of political economy. Methodologically, he weaves together literary criticism's approach to written texts—with their claims to universality—and the view of the microcosm of the participant-observer of classical ethnography. His book points the way not only to as yet unexplored topics for investigation, but to new ways of thinking about issues of fundmental importance." —Frederic Cooper, Journal of Southern African Studies James Ferguson is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California at Irvine. 336 pages | 2 maps, 24 line drawings, 12 tables | 6 x 9 | 1994 |
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$22.50 Paper