ABSTRACT
Cultural-ideological pressures incite and fuel the demand for developmentalist accounts. While Chapter 4 discusses the status of psychoanalysis as a resource to evaluate the ‘desire for’ development, this chapter considers cultural-political contexts and associated technological and policy agendas driving desires for developmentalism. The critical features identified within psychoanalysis are shown to become eclipsed by these cultural and political reformulations. I review indicative examples, evaluating the persuasive power of ‘science’, and in particular neuroscience, attending to the cultural-political embeddedness of developmentalist discourse and its relationship to new technologies, especially brain and ultra-sonar imaging. Also noted are useful discussions prompting reinterpretation and resistance to dominant mobilisations. Holding such critiques in mind helps identify key spatio-temporal compressions at play that elide and enact prevailing cultural and political agendas. In this, narrative transpositions of the popular for the technical come to play a significant role.
