ABSTRACT
Glossy state-of-play reports by public service bodies are notorious for their aim of easy readability on the run. Perhaps for that very reason, powerful simplicity, currently acceptable as conventional wisdom or safe policy, is often not far from their inviting surface. An example is useful for opening the way to a discussion of the current critique of development, the changing discourse of empowerment and disempowerment, and resistance to postcolonial technocracy.
