ABSTRACT
Foucault (1990: 135-142) contends that since the 18th century a transformation of power has been under way. This started when the exercise of sovereign power began to shift from a “right of death” centred in the exaction of tribute (or in last instance of life) to “a power that exerts a positive infl uence on life, that endeavours to administer, optimise, and multiply it, subjecting it to precise controls and comprehensive regulations” (Foucault, ibid.: 137). Certainly, this exercise of the sovereign’s power is very well encapsulated in the idea of development. Precisely, it has been argued that the term development, understood as transformation that moves towards an ever perfect form, was transferred as a metaphor from the biological order to the social sphere in the 18th century (Esteva 1996: 8). With the term also came the idea of “mastering of nature” now transformed into the mastery of society, a mastery that was endowed in the fi gure of the sovereign state.
