The idea of development in Africa : a history
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The idea of development in Africa : a history
(New approaches to African history, 16)
Cambridge University Press, 2021 [i.e. 2020]
- : hardback
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 289-317) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The Idea of Development in Africa challenges prevailing international development discourses about the continent, by tracing the history of ideas, practices, and 'problems' of development used in Africa. In doing so, it offers an innovative approach to examining the history and culture of development through the lens of the development episteme, which has been foundational to the 'idea of Africa' in western discourses since the early 1800s. The study weaves together an historical narrative of how the idea of development emerged with an account of the policies and practices of development in colonial and postcolonial Africa. The book highlights four enduring themes in African development, including their present-day ramifications: domesticity, education, health, and industrialization. Offering a balance between historical overview and analysis of past and present case studies, Elisabeth McMahon and Corrie Decker demonstrate that Africans have always co-opted, challenged, and reformed the idea of development, even as the western-centric development episteme presumes a one-way flow of ideas and funding from the West to Africa.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Part I. Origins of the Development Episteme: 1. From Progress to Development
- 2. Knowledge and the Development Episteme
- 3. Eugenics and Racism in the Development Episteme
- 4. Decolonizing the Idea of Development
- Part II. Implementation of the Development Episteme: 5. The Salvation of Science
- 6. Challenges to Development
- 7. From Modernization to Structural Adjustment
- 8. The New Missionaries
- Part III. Development 'Problems': 9. Reshaping Huts and Homes
- 10. Lessons in Separate Development
- 11. Capitalizing on Dis-Ease
- 12. Manufacturing Modernization
- 13. African Critiques of the Development Episteme.
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