ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 explores the ways that discourses and rhetorics of development exceptionalism serve as an anchor in the pursuit of distinction. The pursuit of distinction serves an important frame for the presentation of the collective self in public and organisational domains. There is an enormous investment in situating development as distinct from other social actions. A key point of distinction articulated by development actors is that it is exceptional in the way of engaging and acting on the world and experiencing extraordinary circumstances and contexts. Irrespective of whether it is about what is known to be different from those within the sector or the differentiation attributed to them by outsiders, development subjectivity is shaped by the mission of serving humanity in which the praxeological imperative is at the forefront of authenticity and legitimacy. The modes of symbolic reproduction of exceptionalism can be seen across individual and organisational domains, notable when development comes under fire by outsiders, criticised for wrongdoings or evoked by development actors such as the crisis talk amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
