Abstract

Despite the increase in awareness of the plight of the third world and NGOs attempting to deal with poverty, international development projects continue to be alarmingly hit and miss. The problematic effectiveness of international development has led to an intense theoretical debate seeking to examine what exactly leads some projects awry. These criticisms often focus on the fundamental assumptions that underlie international development projects and occasionally relate them to the epistemological and ontological assumptions of modernity. In this thesis, I use Heidegger and Nietzsche to deepen the criticism of the epistemological and ontological assumptions of modernity that in turn support the most common approaches to international development. Often these assumptions are so fundamental to western, scientific thinking that they are not apparent and left unarticulated. By making the water the fish swims in more transparent to the fish, I encourage a more flexible, even "fuzzy" approach. The thesis thus seeks to undermine the confidence in the methods developed in modernity in order to replace the abstract models and harmful universal approaches with sensitive, local oriented development projects.

Degree

MS

College and Department

Family, Home, and Social Sciences; Sociology

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2009-03-13

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd2822

Keywords

international development, Heidegger, Nietzsche, modernity

Language

English

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