Villages, Women, and the Success of Dairy Cooperatives in India: ...

From the perspective of the villagers, however, the difference between the village and the city is not a “difference in consciousness” but a “difference in labor” (510). Thus,

Villagers are thus aware of the extent to which development is constructed on their “backs” (509), showing that they are not persuaded by notions of the village as “outside development.” But Pigg also found that villagers are as likely to speak of the village as a space that lacks development and, thus, as a place that needs to be brought into development. She traces this to their need to participate in development as “agents”—to find means of livelihood in the implementation of development programs, instead of merely being the “targets” of development (511). Again, villagers seem to be aware of where the benefits of development are located: not in areas which receive development but within programs which promise to produce development. Development thus proceeds through the construction of proper targets, and when local people strategically utilize such objectifications, they are also calling these objectifications into question.

In the works of both Ferguson (1994) and Pigg (1992) and in the larger concern with discourses of development, however, development remains within the framework of its official institutions. Yet, while meanings of “success” and “failure” can be traced to the development program, this does little to illuminate the actual practices that shape local livelihoods and cultures. Moreover, as mentioned in the discussion of the Anand model, criticisms of development have to guard against reading the lack of fit between development discourses and local practices as a reflection of the failure of development within local places. Recent engagements with the notion of postdevelopment are one way in which to heed this warning.