ABSTRACT
Today ‘development’ is encountered as one of the most frequently used concepts in the discourses between nations (Escobar 1991:658; Rabo 1992a:1). Although alternative understandings of the word, empirical and normative, are regularly discussed, we continue to employ the concept as if its content is more or less unambiguous and universally accepted. These usages have evolved in the West, and their ethnocentric base has been pointed out by many, not least by those critics seeking alternative futures for the so-called developing countries (Gule 1993:226-7; Rabo 1992a).
