The Materiality of Development

• In Event: 3167 - Section on Sociology of Development Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 5. Theoretical Perspectives on Developmental Processes and Relationships

Abstract

Development and aid efforts tout goals of increasing human rights, improving education, spreading gender equality, reducing voter fraud, and increasing happiness. While these goals are often ideal in nature--the changing of hearts and minds--the interventions put in place are often material. Agencies design and build new infrastructure, circulating new objects, devising new technologies. Despite the centrality of these material dimensions, we lack a thorough accounting of how materiality affects the success and failure of development interventions. In this paper we 1) advocate for increased consideration of materiality in development interventions, 2) offer a framework for considering the consequences of materiality in development work, and 3) consider the unintended consequences of material interventions. Central to our argument is how the materiality of development interventions often create insufficiently considered, if not unforeseen, collective action problems.

Authors

• Erin Metz McDonnell, Notre Dame

• Terence Emmett McDonnell, University of Notre Dame