ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book argues that the correctness assumed by development practitioners is a function of the development agency subculture and can be traced to the modernisation model of development. It describes that perpetuation of myths identified here can be traced to blind-spots and assumptions in the dominant development paradigm. The book suggests that aspects of the third paradigm and, in particular, ideas borrowed from peasant studies, populism, people-centred development and post-modernism can provide a model and begin to generate a new theory. Finally, it concludes that there can be a theoretical basis that can underpin the third paradigm/people-centred collection of ideas that has, until now, floundered, unable to call itself a theory but having a moral force that could not be disputed.
