This book introduces students to new ways of thinking about development. It integrates the recent scholarship of cultural studies within the existing frameworks of development studies, which have primarily focused on issues of political economy and structural transformation.

List of Figures and Tables vii Preface: The Cross-overs of Culture and Development ix 1 Investing in the Asian snake pit ix 2 Culture and development xi 3 Points of contact xii 4 Outline of the book xiii Acknowledgments xvii 1 Thinking about Culture and Development 1 1 Overview and introduction 1 2 What do we mean by development? 2 3 What do we mean by culture? 16 4 Summary 29 2 Bringing Culture and Development Together 33 1 Introduction 33 2 Third World models of development 40 3 The crisis of development and the new neo-liberal hegemony 50 4 Summary 53 3 Globalization and the Politics of Representation 57 1 Introduction 57 2 Globalization, culture, and development 58 3 Postcolonial challenges 66 4 The deconstruction of development discourse 72 5 Problems of deconstruction 77 6 Hybrid modernities and post-development discourse 79 7 Summary 81 4 Feminism, Development, and Culture 85 1 Introduction 85 2 Women, development, and feminist development theory 87 3 Postcolonial feminisms and feminist development theory 102 4 "Chucking the baby out with the bath water": counter-arguments 109 5 Building bridges 110 6 Summary 113 5 Inventing Traditions, Constructing Nations 118 1 Introduction 118 2 Fixed traditions? 121 3 Inventing traditions 128 4 Contesting traditions 136 5 Globalization and the politics of identity 142 6 Summary 150 6 Human Rights, Cultural Difference, and Globalization 154 1 Introduction 154 2 The human rights discourse and the discourse of development 158 3 Human needs and human rights -- a trade-off? 162 4 Gender, cultural difference, and the universality of human rights 171 5 Human rights of ethnic minority groups 179 6 Summary 188 7 Culture, Development, and the Information Revolution 192 1 Introduction 192 2 Media and modernity 196 3 Cultural imperialism revisited 202 4 Communication technologies, knowledge, and development discourse 206 5 Communicating modernization 208 6 Knowledge and development 210 7 Wired for change 214 8 Summary 216 Index 220

This book introduces students to new ways of thinking about culture and development. The book integrates the recent scholarship in the area of cultural studies within the existing frameworks of development studies, which have primarily focused on issues of political economy and structural transformation. Rather than viewing culture as simply an attribute of the societies undergoing development, this text critically examines how "development" itself operates as a cultural process. The authors draw on theories of modernity, poststructuralism and post-colonial studies to show how development institutions, processes and practices are inevitably caught up in a web of cultural presuppositions, values and meanings. The authors use the themes of gender, tradition and identity, human rights and new communication technologies to explore the challenges that processes of cultural change pose to conventional understandings of development. The book concludes by considering the move beyond "development" to a "post-development" paradigm. The book is made up of thematic chapters which include outlines and overviews of the specific topics, as well as case studies to illustrate the issues. The authors have designed the book specifically for students and teachers and the material included has been class-tested during their own teaching.