Search

Much of the literature on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and development suggests that a top-down process is underway which leads to the dispersal of neoliberal ideals. Drawing on 2 years of ethnographic research in Rajasthan, India, this paper examines how a poverty alleviation project “fits” into competitive and co-operative socio-economic relations already operating on the ground. It argues that in contradiction to neoliberal notions of empowerment espoused by project policies, both NGOs and their constituents have an interest in establishing and maintaining patronage networks that stabilize relationships of dependency. The paper concludes that neoliberal development projects serve to enable patron–client relationships between NGOs and villagers, and enroll the state in the continuing provision of benefits beyond those planned by the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract It can be argued that development geography has left few traces either on the broader canvas of development theory or on the thought and practices of social actors engaging with material processes of change typically framed within the language of development. This paper argues that this is because the sub-field has been somewhat too case study oriented, and because its prac-titioners have, with some exceptions, kept themselves – or at least their identities – at the margins of debates within and among development actors. Yet development geography has much to con-tribute to on-going reflections on the nature of development. The paper explores themes that might be at the centre of an empirically grounded but theoretically oriented development geography that might speak to contemporary processes of globalisation and local change. It suggests that comparative case study work exploring the ways in which the development of capitalism and processes of intervention are both linked and vary across space still offers fruitful terrain for theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we draw on the concept of governmentality to examine the relationships between donors and northern non-governmental organisations (NGOs) during moments of policy change. Our case study comes from New Zealand/Aotearoa where a change in government has seen aid policy shift from poverty alleviation to sustainable economic development. We detail three mechanisms through which the government sought to normalise this change: changes in language and fields of visibility; institutional reform; and funding delays and cuts. Far from being complete, however, we also trace how some NGOs contested the new agenda through engaging in the practice of politics and how, at least temporarily, new more politicised development subjectivities were created. While our study raises awkward questions about the autonomy of NGOs within current funding environments, we also emphasise the productive possibilities and openings that emerge as one set of development ideas and techniques, or developmentalities, shifts to another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses life history narratives to explore the multiple and overlapping scales and sites through which the cosmopolitan subjectivities of activists in local Indian NGOs are constituted. We particularly emphasise the 'intermediate' status of the activists, and the ways their positioning shapes their subjectivities in diverse ways over time and place. We draw on the idea of a strategic cosmopolitanism to consider the multiple ways their cosmopolitanism shapes the negotiation of development from their intermediate position, and to reflect on the normative and political possibilities that emerge from this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]