Buzzwords and fuzzwords: deconstructing development discourse

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements I would like to thank Deborah Eade, Ian Scoones, Fiona Wilson, and Karen Brock for their contributions to the arguments developed here, and Robert Chambers for all the conversations we have had about our shared interest in development language over the years. Notes 1. For further information about anti-poverty policies in Elizabethan England, see www.victorianweb.org/history/poorlaw/elizpl.html. 2. Although internet searches failed to track down a site dedicated to development's buzzwords, there are numerous others devoted to the management-speak that is becoming pervasive in development institutions. See, for example, the Official Bullshit Generator at www.erikandanna.com/Humor/bullshit_generator.htm and the Systematic Buzz Phrase Projector at www.acronymfinder.com/buzzgen.asp?Num = 111&DoIt = Again. My personal favourite is the Elizabethan Buzzword Generator at www.red-bean.com/kfogel/hypespeare.html And you can send your most reviled buzzword to www.buzzwordhell.com. La langue de bois, the language of evasion, has its own generator: www.presidentielle-2007.net/generateur-de-langue-de-bois.php. 3. To take an example, in a major 2003 report on inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean, senior bank staff – including the Vice-President and Chief Economist for the region – conclude that ‘breaking with the long history of inequality in Latin America’ depends on ‘strong leadership and broad coalitions’ … to mobilise ‘the political agency of progressive governments and the poor’. See http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/LAC/LAC.nsf/PrintView/4112F1114F594B4B85256DB3005DB262?Opendocument.