The aim of this book is to reclaim development as a project of people's own autonomous agency. It starts with the conviction that development is too important to be left to the developers. The author critically examines what has gone on under its name, finding it wanting.

The aim of this book is to reclaim development as a project of people's own autonomous agency. It starts with the conviction that development is too important to be left to the developers. The author critically examines what has gone on under its name, finding it wanting both as an epistemological category and a sound operational practice. The book presents a counterview of development as an act of creation whereby people exercise their inalienable right "to invent their own future" as authors of an ongoing process of transforming and humanizing the landscapes they inhabit.

Part 1 Maldevelopment: the end of history
maldevelopment - coming to terms with terms
demystifying participation - of beneficiaries and benefactors
the ownership and creation of knowledge. Part 2 Autonomy: political autonomy - another agency
cultural autonomy - reading the word and the world
entrepreneurial autonomy and literacy
self-reliance or economics embedded in culture. Part 3 Humanizing the landscape - an ethical imperative: challenging the given - women countering masculinization of the motherland
humanizing the landscape - an ethical imperative.