ABSTRACT

This chapter engages with a wide range of literature that weaves between the disciplinary borders of social policy and practice, educa - tion, political theory, history, geography, anthropology, cultural studies and gender studies. It begins by considering the construction of education as a vehicle for ‘development’ in a variety of guises (as forms of human, social, political and economic advancement) and pays particular attention to moments where ideas about ‘the individual’, ‘development’ and ‘education’ both come together and fall apart to shape knowledge and ‘truths’ about educational means and ends. In order to gain a sense of the debates and dynamic power relations which are created when the identity work of co-operation and effects of neoliberal pedagogy compete, coexist and collide, the chapter (re)views the historical contingencies and cultural assumptions that have cultivated the current educational landscape that presents itself as the socio-political context of this enquiry. With a keen eye towards a Foucauldian reading of power-knowledge, I wander amid and beyond the linear trajectory of development suggested by pseudo-Darwinian accounts, and instead seek out the tensions and contradictions that complicate and challenge dominant assumptions about the ‘value’ of education and its relation social justice. This direction is pursued in order to reimagine how a ‘co-operative’ model of education, inspired by the historical and social ambitions of the co-operative movement, might offer the possibilities for thinking about ‘development’ other - wise. That is, as a collective, relational project that moves towards envisioning a more ‘just’ education for all.