Development is the process whereby other people are dominated and their destinies are shaped according to an essentially Western way of conceiving and perceiving the world. The development discourse is part of an imperial process whereby other peoples are appropriated and turned into objects. It is an essential part of the process whereby the “developed” countries manage, control and even create the Third World economically, politically, sociologically and culturally. It is a process whereby lives of some peoples, their plans, their hopes, their imaginations, are shaped by others who frequently share neither their lifestyles, nor their hopes, nor their values. The real nature of this process is disguised by a discourse that portrays development as a necessary and desirable process, as human destiny itself.
Vincent Tucker. “The myth of development: a critique of Eurocentric discourse,” in Critical Development Theory: Contributions to a New Paradigm (R. Munck & D. O’Hearn, eds), London: Zed Books, 1999.
