Conclusion: Decentring Development in Research for Development

Abstract

In the preceding pages, I have made a case for ‘decentring’ or making peripheral the objectives, predefined questions and expected outcomes of intentional development. In this conclusion, I reflect on the value and limitations of such an exercise. Often the pressure to fit knowledge into certain ‘outputs’ that are measured against project objectives, pre-determines what is seen as useful knowledge and what is not. ‘Residual’ knowledge is not discarded as there is no opportunity to construct it in the first place. The costs of not producing such knowledge are evident in the failures of development intervention, as accounts after the fact have often demonstrated. An insufficient appreciation of context and societal processes can, at best, frustrate the ability of projects to achieve positive impacts and, at worst, may contribute to the underlying causes of the problems they are seeking to overcome. Rather than produce knowledge about a particular problem or solution, I suggest that we broaden our focus to first understand societal processes more broadly.