Exchanging Culture For Politics: Stratagems Of Recourse To Tribe And Tradition In Development Discourse

Abstract

The general subject of this paper (1) is the exploration of some common elements in utterance patterns in commentary on, and analysis of, public affairs and development. In brief: spoken or written recourse to a mode or style of cultural discourse is examined. Specifically the focus is on a development discourse, which turns heavily on 'culture exchanged for politics'. Since politics is partly about economics, one could add '... and for economics'. This paper aims to examine such exchange.