Village and Its NGOs

In rural Northern Malawi, villagers co-construct meanings for NGOs' projects and resources. NGOs and their staff are invoked within, yet simultaneously influence, intra-community debates. This book explores NGO presence through detailing relationships, personhoods and social changes within a rural community. It argues that NGOs' projects have less impact on many Malawians' lives than the ways their presence encourages villagers to re-image development and renegotiate intra-community obligations and entitlements. The book examines moral economies and discourses of development by detailing how development narratives are built around the symbols development actors emit. It also investigates the intra-village social lives of development brokers.