Las estructuras elementales del desarrollo:

apuntes teórico-metodológico para una antropología del desarrollo Latinoamericana

Abstract

The idea / force of development still is one of the fundamental building blocks of the current processes of material production and social subjectivity. Despite its visible depletion and repeated questioning to which it has been submitted, the meta-narrative of development apparently survives and enjoys good health. Far from seeking to support or defend development, the discipline known as anthropology of development has been interested from the beginning in questioning the discourses, practices and the notion of development, from an epistemic locus assuming an ethical-political responsibility to the communities which anthropology works for. This paper proposes a theoretical and methodological framework for the development anthropological approach. From a radical critique of the idea / force of development, work is based on the theoretical perspective of the coloniality of power as an anchor and analytical research point, from which we propose a methodological approach for both the development as episteme and as praxis. Such an approach brings the analysis of the discourses and practices of development as a heterogeneous whole global reach, which can be studied through the integration of different methodological tools from different traditions.