Paper short abstract:

As a discipline focused on directing the present to acheive a particular future, development studies has traditionally favoured linear and generalisable narratives. While forays into anthropology and archaeology have been made, local understandings of time and space remain inadequately understood.

Paper long abstract:

(Mis)understandings of local histories--whether acknowledged or not--have always been central to development studies. As a discipline focused on directing the present to acheive a particular future, development has traditionally favoured linear and generalisable narratives of the past in understanding the problems observed by its practitioners.

As the discipline moved its focus from general wealth generation to a reduction of poverty, the primary site of interest moved from the national to a more local level.

In large part thanks to critiques from anthropology, the field of development gradually became aware of the suppression of local voices by understanding problems through specific Western and neo-liberal discourses. Techniques such as Participatory Rural Appraisal were developed as a way of countering this, taking much from the domain of social anthropology.

However development studies remains couched in the discourses of its major sponsors, and as such has been unwilling or unable to gain and apply a fuller understanding of time and place for local people.