The State and the Legacies of British Colonial Development in Malawi
Confronting Poverty, 1939–1983- Authors:
- Publisher:
- 2023
Summary
What were the origins of British ideas on rural poverty, and how did they shape development practice in Malawi? How did the international development narrative influence the poverty discourse in postcolonial Malawi from the 1960s onwards? In The State and the Legacies of British Colonial Development in Malawi: Confronting Poverty, 1939–1983, Gift Wasambo Kayira addresses these questions. Although by no means rehabilitating colonialism, the book argues that the intentions of officials and agencies charged with delivering economic development programs were never as ill-informed or wicked as some theorists have contended. Raising rural populations from poverty was on the agenda before and after independence. How to reconcile the pressing demand of stabilizing the country’s economy and alleviating rural poverty within the context of limited resources proved an impossible task to achieve. Also difficult was how to reconcile the interests of outside experts influenced by international geopolitics and theories of economic development and those of local personnel and politicians. As a result, development efforts always fell short of their goals. Through a meticulous search of the archive on rural and industrial development projects, Kayira presents a development history that displays the shortfalls of existing works on development inadequately grounded in historical study.
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Bibliographic data
- Copyright year
- 2023
- ISBN-Print
- 978-1-6669-2165-6
- ISBN-Online
- 978-1-6669-2166-3
- Publisher
- Lexington, Lanham
- Language
- English
- Pages
- 272
- Product type
- Book Titles
Table of contents
- Contents No access
- List of Figures, Tables, and Maps No access
- Preface No access
- Acknowledgments No access
- List of Abbreviations No access
- Introduction No access Pages 1 - 26
- The Poor and British Development Discourse in Africa, 1909–1970s No access Pages 27 - 56
- The Land-poverty nexus in Colonial Malawi, 1930s–1965 No access Pages 57 - 88
- Whose Interests? The State, Industry, and Rural Development, 1930s–1953 No access Pages 89 - 126
- Confronting Poverty No access Pages 127 - 166
- Experts, Planners, and the Tampered Rural Development, 1960s–1981 No access Pages 167 - 200
- Malawi’s Foreign Policy and the Fruitless Search for Investment Capital, 1960s–1980 No access Pages 201 - 228
- Conclusion No access Pages 229 - 234
- Bibliography No access Pages 235 - 256
- Index No access Pages 257 - 270
- About the Author No access Pages 271 - 272





