Development and Culture

Most development policies and interventions are based on an assumption that “modernisation” in the Western sense is the ultimate goal of human societies. Culture is therefore regarded either as an impediment to progress or as something outside the economic and political spheres and consigned to areas of religion and ritual. This collection of papers, published in association with World Faiths Development Dialogue and written by a range of aid practitioners and scholars, shows the need not merely to view culture as an important dimension of development but to see development itself as a cultural expression and culture as the basis upon which societies can develop through self-renewal and growth.

Author Biography

Deborah Eade is Editor of the international journal, Development in Practice, from which the anthologies in the Development in Practice Readers series are drawn. Prior to assuming the editorship in 1991, she was for 10 years a development and humanitarian aid worker in Mexico and Central America. Deborah Eade is author of Capacity Building: An Approach to People-Centred Development (Oxfam GB, Oxford 1997) and co-author of The Oxfam Handbook of Development and Relief (Oxfam GB, Oxford 1995).