ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with an examination of globalization and its effects on efforts to eradicate poverty, and discusses the need for a reconceptualization of development. The present development paradigm is ethnocentric, largely unsuited to the realities of the developing world. A new development paradigm must be one in which all of the world's cultures can participate as equal partners. A new development paradigm would contain several key elements. They are: Place and People, Process, Sustainability, and Learning. Robert Chambers, one of the most influential thinkers in development practice, is also a poet. He has pioneered much of the rapid appraisal movement, and his writings on "rural development tourism" have been widely read. In Chambers's view, development professionals themselves are the main obstacle to the emergence of this new paradigm, and it is therefore through changes in the ways professionals think that will find development solutions.
