The Field Strikes Back : Decoding Narratives of Development

Based on the author’s intensive fieldwork in rural West Bengal and the adjoining state of Jharkhand in India, the paper seeks to reveal how the field, beyond its geographical connotation, becomes an animated space for negotiating mainstream development interventions by the ordinary people who are at the receiving end of such interventions as “target groups”. The paper constructs two prime but contesting categories— the “sweet” narratives based on the highly optimistic proclamations of the policymakers, and the “sour” narratives emerging mostly from the frustrating experience of the ordinary people— to reveal how refractions take place in development interventions, which are often not taken into account by the powers that be.