ABSTRACT

In many professional domains, new understandings are quite widely accepted. The puzzle is how and why errors were so deeply entrenched in the first place in the beliefs, thinking, values, and actions of development professionals. Good conditions and good change must be sustainable – economically, socially, institutionally, and environmentally. A massive shift in priorities and thinking has been taking place, from things and infrastructure to people and capabilities. Consonant with this shift, five words, taken together, capture and express much of an emerging normative consensus. These are well-being, livelihood, capability, equity and sustainability. Errors and myths have persisted through decades, reinforced and reasserted by intelligent, highly educated people across the range of disciplines and professional occupations. Professionalism, distance and power can combine with vested interests to offer spirited resistance to new insights. Normal professionalism – the ideas, values, methods and behaviour accepted and dominant in professions or disciplines – is a means to status, power and wealth.