This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Unevenness and inequalities form a central fact of African economic experiences. This book challenges conventional wisdoms about economic performance and possible policies for economic development in African countries, using the striking variation in economic perform...

First published in 1986, this work challenges underdevelopment analyses of Africa’s past experiences and future prospects, and builds upon a very wide range of recent historical research to argue that the impact of Capitalism has resulted in economic progress and significant improvements in living standards. In marked contrast to the dependency approach, they propose that the important political and economic differences between the experiences of developing countries should be stressed and...

Focussing on a Fieldwork study of the West Usambaras in Tanzania, this study, first published in 1990, deals with processes of class formation and capitalist accumulation, and the dynamics of rural poverty and gender relations. Arguing that rural differentiation is systematically reinforced by the socialist state, the authors offer a critique of government intervention and discuss alternative, more effective forms of policy.

This volume analyses many of the real development challenges confronting the African continent, presenting fresh and current objective examinations, narratives, interpretations and pathways to the continent’s development. It interrogates and answers established, critical, current and pragmatic problems confronting Africa today, and provides workable pathways out of the development problems, so that scholarship, policy and practice will be positively impacted. This volume adds great depth a...

Development studies textbooks and courses have sometimes tended to avoid significant economic content. However, without an understanding of the economic aspects of international development many of the more complex issues cannot be fully comprehended. Economics and Development Studies makes the economic dimension of discourse around controversial issues in international development accessible to second and third year undergraduate students working towards degrees in development st...

The aims of and motives for development cooperation have changed significantly in recent times. Besides pursuing short- and longer-term objectives in their own economic, foreign policy and other interests, donors usually have a recognisable and genuine interest in assisting countries in their processes of development.

Street food vendors are both a symbol and a scourge of Mumbai: cheap roadside snacks are enjoyed by all, but the people who make them dance on a razor's edge of legality. While neighborhood associations want the vendors off cluttered sidewalks, many Mumbaikers appreciate the convenient bargains they offer. In The Slow Boil, Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria draws on his long-term fieldwork with these vendors to make sense of the paradoxes within the city and, thus, to create a better under...

A revealing look at the common causes of failures in randomized control experiments during field reseach—and how to avoid themAll across the social sciences, from development economics to political science departments, researchers are going into the field to collect data and learn about the world. While much has been gained from the successes of randomized controlled trials, stories of failed projects often do not get told. In Failing in the Field, Dean Ka...

Even though they are aware of the Third World in relation to their daily lives, most Canadians know little about the historical foundations and complex nature of their country's entanglements with non-Western societies.Canada and the Third World provides a long overdue introduction to Canada's historical relationship with the Third World. The book critically explores this relationship by asking four central questions: how can we understand the historical roots of Canada's ...

Aid workers commonly bemoan that the experience of working in the field sits uneasily with the goals they've signed up to: visiting project sites in air-conditioned Land Cruisers while the intended beneficiaries walk barefoot through the heat, or checking emails from within gated compounds while surrounding communities have no running water.Spaces of Aid provides the first book-length analysis of what has colloquially been referred to as Aid Land. It explores in depth two high-prof...

Walking through social development’s key theoreticalprinciples and practice strategies, this book shows how it promotes peoples’ wellbeing not only in the Global South, where it first emerged, but in the Western countries as well. It covers:Definitions and an historical evolution of social developmentKey theoretical debates around social well-being, human rights and social justiceSocial development practice such as human capital interventions, community de...

This book provides a comprehensive overview of key aspects of food insecurity, including definitional and conceptual issues, information systems and data sources, indicators, and policies. The aim is to equip readers with a sound understanding of the subject that will assist in the recognition of food insecurity and the design of suitable responses. The early chapters discuss the evolution and limitations of the concept and provide a set of conceptual frameworks for the analysis of food se...