Browsing by Author "Efraimsson, Aino"

This thesis explores the way in which three development organisations conceptualise urban development in the context of Yangon, the former capital of Myanmar. This thesis uses a qualitative research approach, combining theory and method in line with Carol Bacchi’s “what is the problem represented to be” approach. It relies on data gathered through interviews carried out with representatives of the three selected organisations, but also on an analysis of key documents produced by these same organisations. The rationale for choosing this type of method has been to explore more thoroughly the way in which these organisations discuss urbanisation in the context of Myanmar, the language used and the meaning constructed. The thesis is influenced by poststructuralist thinkers who underline that language provides us not only with information about our world, but also shapes the way we see and give meaning to our world. The three organisations present three central problem ‘representations’, namely the lack of capacity, poor governance and lack of good policy, and well as failing infrastructure. These problems were conceptualised and understood in different ways by the organisations, but were intimately linked to the interventions they were carrying out and the way in which they portrayed their own role in relation to Yangon’s urban development. The material shows how the process of posing of certain issues as problems is central to the process of legitimising a development intervention and to presenting development actors as ‘experts’. The thesis explored the underlying assumptions and ‘silences’ within the policies and problem representations of the organisations through an investigation of binaries, concepts and categories. Under the overarching ‘development’ binary of developed/underdeveloped, the central binary in the material was experienced/inexperienced, which allowed the experience and expertise of international experts to be valued higher than those of the local authorities. One of the key assumptions found is that the policies and interventions of the organisations rely on a technocratic understanding of development in which modern expertise in engineering, technology and social science is believed to bring about socio-economic progress. Urban planning is presented as a process of providing rational solutions, silencing the complex socio-economic, political and cultural reality that shapes the way in which cities develop. The way that the organisations talk about and understand urban development in Yangon set limits on what is possible to think, write or speak on the subject. This leaves certain aspects, and people out of the frame, as well as reproduces power asymmetries within development.