Rethinking Social Development: Theory, Research and Practice

Abstract

List of tables. List of figures. Preface. Introduction. 1. Rethinking social development: an overview. Part I Rebuilding the framework - models of explanation and strategies of enquiry: 2. Reconsidering the explanadum and scope of development studies - toward a comparative sociology of state-economy relations. 3. Heterogeneity, actor and structure - towards a reconstitution of the concept of structure. 4. Post-Marxism, post-colonialism - the needs and rights of distant strangers. Part II Reconnecting theory and research - new perspectives on the struggle for development: 5. The state in late development - historical and comparative perspectives. 6. The social construction of rural development - discourses, practices and power. 7. Between econonism and post-modernism - reflections on research on agrarian change in India. Part III Linking theory, research and practice - the issue of relevance: 8. Theory and relevance in indigenous agriculture - knowledge agency and organisation. 9. On ignoring the wider picture - AIDS research and the jobbing social scientist. 10. Social development research and the third sector - NGO's as uses and subjects of social inquiry. Afterword. 11. Rethinking social development - the search for relevance. 12. How far beyond the impasse? A provisional summing-up. Notes on contributors. Index.