The Will to Improve, The Vision of Future-Making, and Innovations for Development - I

Abstract

“Development projects” are still prevalent in the global South, not only carried out by international development agencies but also by different levels of local governments, different types of NGOs, and local academia. These projects are normally seen as the pilot test for further scaling-up, designed as one important channel to generate new evidence and knowledge, and promoted as technically- or socially-“innovative.” Through the analytical lens of “the will to improve” (Li 2007) and different versions of scientific imaginaries of future (Brown and Michael 2003; Jasanoff and Kim 2005; (Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten 2013; Haraway 2016; Ghimire 2018), this panel aims to explore the role of development projects as the constellation of the situated power relations in the local context, the confidence on the efficacy of various kinds of science and technology, and the imaginaries and impulse of a better future. We welcome papers focused on projects both in the global South and North, investigating different aspects of the “project world” (Li 2007), and engaging with the rationale of “the will to improve” and “the vision of future-making.” Potential topics may include the designing process of the project, the socio-technical imaginaries underlying the project, problematization of issues at stake, the implementation procedure, the role of expertise in these projects, politics around monitoring and evaluation, innovations driven by the idea of solutionism, the knowledge production and mobilization of development agencies, and different conceptualizations of "development project." We are especially interested in papers that work on projects that are facilitated by regional and local governments, NGOs, or academia.

Individual Presentations

• Engineers with a Mission: Religion, Humanitarian Engineers, and a Solar Panel Array in Haiti - Marie Stettler Kleine, Virginia Tech

• Following the “Project” Around: The Vision and Practice of SEARCA School Gardening Project in the Philippines - Shun-Nan Chiang, University of California, Santa Cruz

• From “Green Hell” to “Amazonia Legal”: Land Use Models and the Re-Imagination of the Rainforest as a New Development Frontier - Raoni Rajão, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG); Susanna Hecht, UCLA

• The Borderless World? Social Entrepreneurship and Solutions to the “Refugee Crisis” - Sreela Sarkar, Santa Clara University

Session Organizer

• Shun-Nan Chiang, University of California, Santa Cruz