Search Result

Srl

Item

ID: 116862

Is the non-unitary subject a plausible and productive way to un / Tamas, Peter A; Sato, Chizu

Tamas, Peter A	Journal Article
	0 Rating(s) & 0 Review(s)

Publication

2012.

Summary/Abstract

Development bureaucrats are the human instruments of the policies that mobilise funds, create organisations and underwrite interventions. For their home audiences development organisations need to present bureaucrats who are reliable instruments. In the field these same organisations need staff who can do what makes sense. This arrangement works until what makes sense in head office does not work in the field. At that point staff have to 'marry off' these two worlds. How these staff are understood shapes both how they can be approached by locals and how they should be supported by their organisations. This paper draws on research done in a donor organisation headquarters, in a military unit tasked with conducting development activities and at a field-level donor mission in a failed state. It explores the relevance, methods to research, the plausibility and the productivity of understanding the development bureaucrats who do this 'marrying off' as non-unitary subjects.

Key Words

Understand Development Bureaucrats ; Human Instruments ; Non - Unitary Subject

Links

'Full Text'

In Basket

Export

ID: 078936

Spoken moments of a pernicious discourse? Querying Foucauldian / Tamas, Peter A

Tamas, Peter A	Journal Article
	0 Rating(s) & 0 Review(s)

Publication

2007.

Summary/Abstract

Critics influenced by Foucault understand development professionals to be determined by the official knowledge produced within their discourse to actions that harm their putative beneficiaries. This discourages these authors from looking more closely at development professionals and limits their value as allies for the social movements they champion. Through a series of interviews this paper finds that development professionals have a range of understandings of their knowledge, that each suggests distinct ranges of permissible action and that these offer terrains for the formation of alliances that are not anticipated by Foucauldian critics. It also finds that the practices required to exploit these opportunities perversely reinforce the status of official knowledge and that this status may ultimately constrain development in ways that are neither anticipated by Foucauldian critics nor operationally acceptable.

Key Words

Globalization ; Development ; International Development

In Basket

Export