ABSTRACT
This chapter makes the transition from livestock rangeland development to the broader role of development narratives in sculpting the African countryside. The development narrative of interest concerns expatriate advisors, and this narrative and its counternarrative are elaborated through the career of one such advisor, James Leach, known only for his work on livestock rangeland reform but also for his achievements in other areas of rural development. The critics’ rebuttal, of course, is to argue that the development thrusts being implemented were themselves the product of elite and expatriate interests. The most widespread development narrative about expatriate advisors is that they subvert government by bending policy to their own ends. Picard notes that a number of versions of the draft policy “had been prepared, all by expatriates” and that opposition to the Tribal Grazing Land Policy planning exercise was also led by expatriates in government administration.
