Editors’ Introduction by John Conley and Justin Richland

Once again, we begin an issue with a symposium. This one is entitled “Afterlives of Development,” and was organized by Daromir Rudnyckyj and Anke Schwittay. The collection posits a modernist “heyday of development,” when governments of many political stripes took direct action to promote and nurture all kinds of development schemes. By the 1990s, many observers had concluded that the age of development was over. As the papers in this collection demonstrate, however, the effects of the age of development continue, albeit in different and usually subtler forms. The massive development projects of the past may no longer be in vogue, but their “afterlives” continue to affect economic and social life in significant if underappreciated ways. We thank Rudnyckyj and Schwittay for conceiving the topic, assembling this provocative group of articles, and assisting us in the editorial process. [Read more]