Analysis Of Encounting Development By Arturo Escobar

The book Encountering development by Arturo Escobar is an opening basis of post-development theory for which the author is an affiliate. The good intention to improve the life of others according to Escobar (2011), has turned to a ‘nightmare’ and readers he said, should consider his book ‘as the history of the loss of an illusion’ (p.4). Escobar (2011) building on the ideas of Michael Foucault, Edward Said and James Ferguson suggests that, development should be viewed as a tool for exercising knowledge and power by the west over the people of the south than, a desire to improve the situation of the disadvantaged. In this paper, I will discuss how power relation undermines initiatives put in place to overcome the spread of hunger.
Escobar (2011), maintained the claim by Rist (2008) that taking up the issue of poverty in development

Though, the 1980s witness a transformation in development discourse that includes an emphasis on participation and civil society organizations, this could not be observed at the project level considering Escobar’s analysis of DRI. The participatory component of the DRI was undermined by the constant control from the national level, which ended up worsening the condition of the peasant farmers.
Their will migrate into the hands of development experts, who, coming from the outside determines the goals and wellbeing of members in the society. The policy response by these experts with capitalist background is to assist the poor to participate into the global market through the production of cash crops (Escobar 2011). While that may be valuable, it most often disregards other forms of support, policy, or broader changes within society and in turn put the peasant farmers in a position of buying products they could have