How Development Projects Persist

"Erin Beck's extraordinary book is a major contribution to both development policy and development scholarship. It reminds readers that development projects don't just appear, intervene, and leave, but rather are themselves part of long, complex trajectories. Important, accessible, and setting a provocative agenda for development studies, How Development Projects Persist is a highly effective teaching tool for both undergraduate and graduate students and should be required reading for development workers and all scholars of NGOs, humanitarianism, and development." - Jocelyn Viterna, author of Women in War: The Micro-processes of Mobilization in El Salvador

"By highlighting the ways people animate and transform NGO interventions, Erin Beck challenges accounts of NGOs that imply that development is merely something that happens to people. Demonstrating the need to embrace the frequently observed gap between the intentions and outcomes of development projects, Beck's excellent book offers us a rich set of insights into women's lives, identities, and agency as well as an understanding of the everyday working lives of NGO workers." - David Lewis, London School of Economics & Political Science

"Beck’s work is a great contribution to international development literature." - Deo Zihindula Namwira, Review of Social Studies

“How Development Projects Persist adds to an important theoretic discussion in the field of nonprofits and is an interesting read. . . . A good book for those who are interested in microfinance and development nonprofit organizations, as well as those who are interested in how beneficiaries influence organizational programming.” - Seth J. Meyer, Voluntas

“How Development Projects Persist provides valuable thick data that is recommended for all students and practitioners of international development.” - Lazar Konforti, Journal of Latin American Studies

"Erin Beck has made a lasting contribution to the field of development studies in theorising development as a social interaction while also raising important issues for policy and practice. How Development Projects Persist is a call to contemplate, assess and study development not simply according to the goals of policymakers and organisations, but according to the larger vision and life goals of the people that interventions hope to serve."

"The strength of Why Development Projects Persist is the quality of Beck’s data. . . . Beck writes her ethnographic data with completeness and clarity, which allows the reader to understand the intentions of these organizations, the worldviews of participants, and the ways these clashed as the NGOs’ visions of development were put into practice." - Laura J. Heideman, American Journal of Sociology

"The text’s strength lies in its conceptual breadth and accessibility. . . . An easy, yet enlightening read. . . . Beck effectively shows rather than just tells what development encounters look like and how they are interpreted by the actors involved." - Monica DeHart, Anthropological Quarterly

"Erin Beck presents a useful, rigorous, and interesting analysis of the internal workings of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Guatemala." - Glenn Wright, Latin American Politics and Society

“This book. . . is useful to those interested in international studies, development studies, as well as development practitioners. . . . Further, Beck’s detailed analysis is well-written and jargon-free, and presents us with a balanced and longitudinal view of NGO development projects in Guatemala.”