ABSTRACT
James Ferguson, Arturo Escobar, and James Fairhead and Melissa Leach all produced books between 1990 and 1996 with enormous, even revolutionary impacts on the anthropologies of development and conservation. All of these authors were influenced by Foucault’s theories of discourses and their power, which means that Foucault’s theories stimulated new ways of thinking—transformational new ways of thinking—about development and conservation. These three books also serve as ethnographies illustrating the power of knowledge in conservation and development.
