The Anti-Politics Machine

Posted on 20 November 2018 by James Ferguson

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 is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California at Irvine. New Read eBook The Anti-Politics Machine By James Ferguson – kino-fada.fr This is an utterly fantastic anthropological work exposing how the discourse of development turns questions of poverty that are fundamentally about politics and power structures into mere technical problems that can be solved with apolitical aid solutions Written five years before Escobar s equally cogent critique of development as discourse, Ferguson s book focuses on his fieldwork in Lesotho as a concrete example Some of Ferguson s research on why development failed to solve poverty rela This is an utterly fantastic anthropological work exposing how the discourse of development turns questions of poverty that are fundamentally about politics and power structures into me...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...Case study of 70 80 s livestock improvement scheme in Lesotho.The big anthropology critiques of development are well trodden and contestable The beauty of this book is 1 how well it nails the details the nuances of failed livestock, decentralization, and integrated rural development schemes , 2 how clear and accessible it is, 3 how seamlessly it relates theoretical arguments to concrete project developments Three takeaways 1 The principal effect of development projects is the depolit Case study of 70 80 s livestock improvement scheme in Lesotho.The big anthropology critiques of development are well trodden and contestable The beauty of this book is 1 how well it nails the details the nuances of failed livestock, decentralization, and integrated rural development schemes , 2 how clear and accessible it is, 3 how seamlessly it relates theoretical arguments to concrete project developments Three takeaways 1 The principal effect of development projects is the depoliticized extension of state bureaucratic power rather than improvements in economic growth or human well being Power here defined not as dudes with guns but as the routing of social relations through the state go to the agriculture extension office to get a permit to give cows as a funeral gift etc 2 Unwiliingness to sell ...Excellent book on the problems with development projects, especially why they always seem to fail when they, assumingly, set out to do good Especially potent for anyone thinking about working with the World Bank or the Peace Corps the book does not necessarily condemn these development organizations totally in fact Ferguson points out that the people on the ground, the volunteers, etc., are actually in many ways trying to make a difference Yet, the structure and mechanisms of the projects an Excelle...This is one of the first texts I read in my introductory international development course It immediately demonstrated the value and central nature of participatory development work in a nutshell, help is only helpful if it means something to those you are trying to help James Ferguson s study of this failed attempt to support a community in Lesotho shows the perils of assuming that aid organizations know best simply because they have funding and external knowledge He shows the value and im This is one of the first text...Probably one of the most important and refreshing books on development Publishedthan 20 years ago, but still amazingly relevant.Through the extreme case of Lesotho, James Ferguson gives a powerful analysis of how development aid is disconnected from local realities, how it is instrumentalized by politics, and why a technical neutral approach is used to justify political agendas that do not improve living conditions for the poor.Even though the author is just an observer, unwilling to ad Probably one of the most important and refreshing books on development Publishedthan 20 years ago, but still amazingly relevant.T...I specially enjoyed the depiction of social value of cattles that opposed capitalistic notions in Bovine Mystique how to some extent the cultural construct ranging from ages, gender, and patron client relations have created some sense of securities in a way that are indigestible by capitalistic values It may have sounded Marxist in sometimes...This was an intelligent and thought provoking book It is a terrific deconstruction of the institution of development The subject of the book is a development project in Lesotho It discusses how the Canadian International Development Agency Canada s USAID twisted a complex situation into a simple model so that it could apply its standard development prescriptions to the situation at hand The resulting project was a failure and the book examines exactly why it was such a failure Adapted This was an intelligent and thought provoking book It is a terrific deconstruction of the institution of development The subject of the book is a development project in Lesotho It discusses how the Canadian International Development Agency Canada s USAID twisted a complex situation into a simple model so that it could apply its standard development prescriptions to the situation at hand The resulting project was a failure and the book examines exactly why it was such a failure Adapted from the author s PHD dissertation, the book is a bit dry and plodding at times, but it is lucid and full of terrific analysis Some of my favorite passages Often, the question was put to me in the form What should they do , with the they being not very helpfully specified as Lesotho or the Ba...An absolute classic in the literature of development Ferguson s work examines the institutions, policies and practices of the development industry as a set of discourses with real world effects on the ground His work draws largely on Foucauldian insights on the power relations within discourses that claim to de politicize socially and historically rooted inequalities among the people of Lesotho Although the book could have usedethnographic information in the first chapters, by the time An absolute classic in the literature of development Ferguson s work examines the institutions, policies and practices of the development industry as a set of discourses with real world effects on the ground His work draws largely on Foucauldian ins...This was easily the best book I read for an Anthropology of Development course I took as an undergrad Lesotho is geographically, historically, and culturally a fascinating case study, and this is a good primer on how the World Bank can mess up As with most such anti development or anti globalization...

English
20 November 2018

James Ferguson