Post-colonial, post-modern and feminist thinking have focused on the power structures embedded in global development, challenging the ways in which development is conceived and practised and questioning its meaning. These essays explore development discourse as an interwoven set of languages and practices, analysing the texts of development without abandoning the power-laden local and international context out of which they arose and to which they speak.

By conceptualizing development as a discourse, the authors argue that it cannot simply be reduced to the structures and logic of economics; development has its own logic, internal coherence and effects. Three main questions are addressed. How and why does the language of development change over time? What is the role of the spatial in the language and practices of development? Is it possible to imagine a world in which development has no redeeming features or power?

Combining analyses of development discourse with concrete examples of how that discourse is constructed and operates in particular times and places, the contributors stake out the terrain for a grounded development studies in a post-marxian world.