Development from below? Local Actors and Social Transformations In Comparative Perspective

Development is often portrayed as a universal and technical process in which states, donors, international organisations, and markets are the main drivers. Yet, very often, social transformation takes place closer to the ground. NGOs, local social movements, community groups, and local public authorities play a crucial role in this process. Studies have shown that these actors translate, contest, redirect, or even refuse developmentalist agendas (Mosse, 2005; Alvarez, 2009) to fit local political and moral economies (Bebbington, Hickey & Mitlin, 2008). It raises then a broader sociological question about agency, power, legitimacy, institutional mediation, social transformation, and the production of development from below.

This session invites papers on the role of development actors worldwide and the political worlds they inhabit. We welcome contributions that examine how local actors navigate donor power, state authority, and community claims, thereby complicating neoliberal models of bureaucratic developmentalist vision. The session is calling for papers that take both the promise and the limits of development from below and its capacity to transform social life.

We particularly encourage comparative and multi-sited contributions, as well as submissions from early-career researchers and scholars from the Global South.