Journal ArticleDOI
What do buzzwords do for development policy? a critical look at ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘poverty reduction’
Andrea Cornwall,Karen Brock +1 more
TLDR
In the fast-moving world of development policy, buzzwords play an important part in framing solutions as mentioned in this paper, and today's development orthodoxies are captured in a seductive mix of such words, among which 'participation', 'empowerment' and 'poverty reduction' take a prominent place.Abstract:
In the fast-moving world of development policy, buzzwords play an important part in framing solutions. Today's development orthodoxies are captured in a seductive mix of such words, among which 'participation', 'empowerment' and 'poverty reduction' take a prominent place. This paper takes a critical look at how these three terms have come to be used in international development policy, exploring how different configurations of words frame and justify particular kinds of development interventions. It analyses their use in the context of two contemporary development policy instruments, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). We show how words that once spoke of politics and power have come to be reconfigured in the service of today's one- size-fits-all development recipes, spun into an apoliticised form that everyone can agree with. As such, we contend, their use in development policy may offer little hope of the world free of poverty that they are used to evoke. The past 10 years have witnessed a remarkable apparent confluence of positions in the international development arena. Barely any development actor could take serious issue with the way the objectives of development are currently framed. This new consensus is captured in a seductive mix of buzzwords. 'Participation' and 'empowerment', words that are 'warmly persuasive' 1 and fulsomely positive, promise an entirely different way of doing business. Harnessed in the service of 'poverty reduction' and decorated with the clamours of 'civil society' and 'the voices of the poor', they speak of an agenda for transformation that combines no-nonsense pragmatism with almost unimpeachable moral authority. It is easy enough to get caught up in the emotive calls for action, to feel that, in the midst of all the uncertainties of the day, international institutions are working together for the good, and that they have now got the story right and are really going to make a difference.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Buzzwords and fuzzwords: deconstructing development discourse
TL;DR: The authors The language of development is subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth. (Friedrich Nietzche) Words make worlds.
Journal ArticleDOI
Sport and Development: An Overview, Critique, and Reconstruction
Douglas Hartmann,Christina Kwauk +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, sport officials, policy makers, and advocates often have relatively unsophisticated understandings of sport development, and sport development has become both a watchword and a fascination in sporting circles worldwide.
Journal ArticleDOI
Participation: the ascendancy of a buzzword in the neo-liberal era
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that participation was originally conceived as part of a counter-hegemonic approach to radical social transformation and represented a challenge to the status quo and, as such, it gained legitimacy within the institutional development world to the extent of achieving buzzword status.
Journal ArticleDOI
From ‘gender equality and ‘women’s empowerment’ to global justice: reclaiming a transformative agenda for gender and development
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the fact that gender equality and women empowerment have been eviscerated of conceptual and political bite compromises their use as the primary frame through which to demand rights and justice.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World.
Susan Greenhalgh,Arturo Escobar +1 more
TL;DR: The 2012 edition of the 2012 edition vii Preface xlv as discussed by the authors is a collection of essays about development and the anthropology of modernity, with a focus on post-development.
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Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays
TL;DR: Althusser's "For Marx" (1965) and "Reading Capital" (1968) had an enormous influence on the New Left of the 1960s and continues to influence modern Marxist scholarship as mentioned in this paper.
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Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World
TL;DR: The 2012 edition of the 2012 edition vii Preface xlv as discussed by the authors is a collection of essays about development and the anthropology of modernity, with a focus on post-development.