The techniques used by the development industry’s sophisticated propaganda machine have been analyzed by the anthropologist A F Robertson. He highlights the language the industry uses to sell it’s policies, and stresses that much of it’s value rests in “its impression of meaning”. He points out that the buzzwords it uses can be ‘combined into almost infinite permutations and still “mean” something’.
Robertson illustrates his point by listing the 56 words that occured the most frequently in a planner’s lexicon. These are arranged below in four different columns of 14 words. One word can be selected at random from each column to compose a typical four-word development phrase.
For example:
A3, B6, C9 and D12 make “systematically balanced cooperative action”
A12, B9, C6 and D3 construct another fine sounding phrase: “comprehensively mobilised rural participation”
None of these phrases mean anything, yet they are typical of the seductive language that fills the countless speeches, plans, project proposals and glossy pamphlets of the development industry.
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