This book is a collection of anthropological perspectives on development. Having introduced the multiple agencies and actors that inhabit Development World, we described some of the most significant and influential aspects of their thinking. The world of development is full of layers, tensions and even contradictions. ‘Development’ is, at different times, used as a synonym for ‘poverty reduction’, ‘rights’, ‘science and technology’, ‘growth’ and ‘freedom’. Planned development takes place within a context of development in a broader sense – change brought about capitalistic expansion and globalisation. We need to explain why development can be so many things to so many people and how thinking is shaped by institutional practices. In this final chapter we will look at how the promoters of development create and make sense of the future and finally what anthropologists can contribute to our understanding of development.

The spaces between

Space is assumed to be unimportant and empty. But it can contain much of significance that is ignored; it is often the unexplained and unexplored between two points in time or place, between concepts or between layers of experience, within which social life is experienced. At the same time, the points or poles are not only culturally constructed, along with the space within and between them, but contested and continually so. This book has shown how anthropologists can uncover the relevance of ‘the spaces between’. A fuller understanding of Development World is revealed when attention turns to the overlooked and unconsidered within and between gaps, layers and contradictions.