ABSTRACT
Using Foucault’s method of archaeology and genealogy, the chapter investigates how the transformation of the discourse of ‘development’ since the 1980s brought to the fore new concepts which were at odds with the original structure of the discourse. If taken seriously, participation, ownership and empowerment denied the authority and trusteeship of the ‘development’ experts, sustainability was incompatible that industrialised countries were seen as ‘developed’ and thus a model to be emulated, and the heterogeneity of the countries of the global South (sometimes referred to as the ‘end of the Third World’) cast doubt of the idea that there is a universal pattern of social change and recipes which can be applied in all societies irrespective of context.
