Deconstructing Development: The Use of Power and Pity in the International Development Discourse1

Abstract

This study examines how power operates within international development discourse and investigates its effects on development organizations and on individuals—donors and recipients of aid alike. It analyzes the narratives pertaining to Afghanistan that are (re)produced by five different types of development actors: a donor state, a recipient state, an international financial institution, an international organization, and a non-governmental organization. I argue that the operation of multiple, interrelated types of power has both ideational and material effects which manifest in development policies, programs, and projects. I demonstrate how these types of power operate discursively through a Politics of Pity which (re)creates and perpetuates hierarchical, coconstituted relationships between and among these actors, and which (re)constitutes the identities and abilities of actors.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 43 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.