A case study of development in the Thaba-Tseka district of Lesotho during the period 1975 to 1984, which looks at the workings of the development industry in the country, and in particular at one development project.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
FREE Two-Day Shipping for Students. Learn more |
| ||||||||||||||||||
 Sell Back Your Copy for $8.50
Whether you buy it used on Amazon for $16.85 or somewhere else, you can sell it back through our Book Trade-In Program at the current price of $8.50.
Used Price$16.85
Trade-in Price$8.50
Price after
Trade-in$8.35 |
Book Description
Special Offers and Product Promotions
- Buy $50 in qualifying physical textbooks, get $5 in Amazon MP3 Credit. Here's how (restrictions apply)
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A dose of realism,
By A Customer
This review is from: Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Paperback)
Ferguson's study of development projects in Lesotho brings a much needed dose of reality to the subject of modernization and aid. While others might stress the need for appropriate technology or bog the reader down in economic formulae, Ferguson examines the ways in which local and global politics influence the success of even the most carefully planned and well-meaning of projects. A must-read for anyone interested in the development business.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Highly impressive critique of development,
By autopoietic (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Paperback)
Ferguson describes this book as "not principally a book about the Basotho people, or even about Lesotho; it is principally a book about the operation of the "international development" apparatus in a particular setting." His book is about the complex relation between the intentionality of planning in a development project in Lesotho and the strategic intelligibility of its outcomes, which turn out to be unintended, but instrumental in expanding state power and, at the same time, depoliticizing the power.
Against the backdrop of the swarm of development agencies in Lesotho, Africa, he employs a Foucauldian notion of discourse being a practice (to engage in a discourse is to do something). In a fascinating analysis, he shows how World Bank's country report on Lesotho summarily labels Lesotho as a subsistence-based economy with high population growth untouched by capitalism. Ferguson argues that Lesotho was, in fact, affected by capitalism as early at 1910, that the World Bank is not just wrong, but systematically wrong in its portrayal of Lesotho. He describes the case of the World-bank funded Thaba-Tseka project (1975-84), which was originally designed to convert mountainous regions into commercial livestock ranges by providing road connections and low-cost production techniques. He then details why the project failed to live up to its original goals. To do so, Ferguson traverses back and forth between discourse analysis of development and ethnographic field work in his method. Such a lens provides an understanding of the reconfigurations, causalities, and particularities of each other. Furthermore, it helps me understand the processes, practices and phenomena as occurring within a larger context of discourse production, rather than appearing to act in isolation. He could have provided a less personal epilogue, though, which is rather disappointing in highly impressive book. A must for anyone engaging with development.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Anti-Politics Machine,
This review is from: Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Paperback)
Ferguson's book is a powerful analysis of the epistemological bottlenecks that plague development policy and the World Bank's approach in Africa. World Bank's economists usually put a discount upon rigorous social research requirements in the way they explain cause-effect relationships of the African economic deficits. With commanding persuasive force Ferguson shows how the peculiarities of the African context are dissolved in a (anti-contextual) cut-and-ready, illogical analytical framework, rendered 'logical' to best accommodate World Bank's internal bureaucratic rationality. One should not wonder why the policies born out of such an 'Anti-Politics Machine' by and large remain in de-phase with the very notion of development.
By Cyril FEGUE
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
So You'd Like to...
|
|
