Disrupting Development? A Situated Perspective on Technology and Innovation in Global Development

Abstract

This article analyses the growing ubiquity of radical technologies and disruptive methodologies in global development. Accelerated by the broad nature of the Sustainable Development Goals, disruption and its related notions of innovation and technology have gradually made it to the centre of attention in development, shaping public and private actors and interventions alike. The article employs a situated analysis of disruption in development to show that as the concept is moving into the field of global development, its meaning and practice is continually—and even contradictorily—reconstructed in constant negotiation with its possible effects. We argue that, beyond a simple buzzword, disruption is employed strategically by different by actors to pursue certain political goals, revealing current movements and lines of discord in the field of global development. While emerging actors use it to challenge the legitimacy of existing donors, more traditional or established actors employ it with a view to remaining relevant in the field, pushing back against the challenge from emerging ones. These interpretative struggles thus are not just isolated ones determining the legitimacy of individual actors but are important for the way they set markers for what development is today, who can legitimately contribute to it and the purposes for which development is pursued.