Week 8: Who wins and who loses in a war on poverty?

Week 8: Who wins and who loses in a war on poverty?

DVST 6901: The global politics of development (Semester 2, 2026)
September 21, 2026

Development policy and practice will inevitably lead to a clash between cultures and distinct ways of imagining the individual’s place in a larger social order. For this reason intervention leads to unintended consequences.

Main reading: Ansell (2014), intro. and chaps. 4-5

Notes

Notes to be added later.

Keywords

intimate hierarchies, nostalgia

Learning outcomes

• Be able to identify examples of social forces that create the conditions for political conflicts around development initiatives
• Be able to explain the unqiue qualities of ethnographic description and interpretation and be able to formulate a view on its relevance for understanding development practice