Development Theory
Critiques and Explorations
A. H. Somjee(Author)
Palgrave Macmillan (Publisher)
Published in April 1991
Book
Hardback
180 pages
978-0-333-53646-9 (ISBN)
Description
This book is about the deep inroads which the social sciences, with their specific approaches and theories, have made into development studies, thereby preventing the latter from addressing themselves to different and, in some cases, unique problems of their own. The social sciences and their corpus of theoretical knowledge are almost entirely rooted in the historical and social experiences of a few industrialized societies of the West. Development studies, on the other hand, are all about the problems of economic growth, political development and social change in developing societies which have come through historical and cultural experiences of a different kind. Moreover, the variety of backgrounds of different developing societies have also differently influenced their own development processes. However, the existing development studies, and their corpus of theoretical knowledge which has largely come from the social sciences, show little or no sensitivity to the basic differences in development experiences of different societies. The net result of this is that we are often unable to pay sufficient attention to some of their crucial problems.
Moreover, the tendency of the social sciences to chop and slice development process, so as to suit their own specialist requirements, has prevented scholars from addressing their theoretical efforts to the understanding of the complexity of such a process in different societies, and then come up with a nuanced analysis of the unique development experience of each. Whatever exists in scholarly literature on development process is an assumed replication of what the industrialized societies of the West went through. In development studies, therefore, we need a fresh round of cognitive effort which can be focused on the perceiving, knowing and conceptualizing of the actual complexity of development process in emerging societies.
Moreover, the tendency of the social sciences to chop and slice development process, so as to suit their own specialist requirements, has prevented scholars from addressing their theoretical efforts to the understanding of the complexity of such a process in different societies, and then come up with a nuanced analysis of the unique development experience of each. Whatever exists in scholarly literature on development process is an assumed replication of what the industrialized societies of the West went through. In development studies, therefore, we need a fresh round of cognitive effort which can be focused on the perceiving, knowing and conceptualizing of the actual complexity of development process in emerging societies.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Basingstoke
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
index
Dimensions
Height: 225 mm
Width: 140 mm
Weight
380 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-333-53646-9 (9780333536469)
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Schweitzer Classification
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A.H. Somjee
Development Theory: Critiques and Explorations
E-Book
06/1991
Palgrave Macmillan
€52.99
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A.H. Somjee
Development Theory: Critiques and Explorations
Book
01/1991
Palgrave Macmillan
€53.49
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Content
Part 1 Segmented theories of development: the development purists; the development interrelationists; the development integrationists; the development expatriats; some general observations. Part 2 Variety of development experiences: Western development experience and a variety of theoretical explanations; Latin American development experience and region specific theoretical explanations; Asian development experience and unexplored theoretical explanations; some general observations. Part 3 Development process - a grassroots perspective: the development enmesh; planned development under public initiative; commercial and industrial development under private initiative; rural development under cooperative initiative; rural poverty requiring socially concerned human initiative; unequal development opportunities - unequal human responses; some general observations. Part 4 Dimensions of development theory: diversity of development experience; development complex and continuum; the development core; ethnodevelopment; back to the conceptual drawing board.