PART I Word Play

Introduction: words and concepts

'When I use a word' Humpty Dumpty said, 'in a rather scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master – that's all.'

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, 1871 Winnie-the-Pooh sat down at the foot of the tree, put his head between his paws, and began to think. First of all he said to himself: 'That buzzing noise means something. You don't get a buzzing noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something.'

A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh, 19261

The words used in development continuously change. Some do become hardy perennials – poverty, gender, sustainability, livelihood – long-term survivors, year on year. Others influence policy, thinking and practice and then are used less and less, perhaps in part because their job is done – basic needs, for instance, and feminism (somewhat surprisingly). Others like coordination and integration have their day, fade away and then revive. Yet others gestate for years and then their moment comes and they are almost everywhere – sustainable livelihoods, social capital, civil society, good governance.

Words can feed cynicism and at the same time be a source of fun. To mock fashions in the lexicon of development we use expressions like buzz words, development-speak, flavours of the month, and PC (politically correct); and we describe acronyms as alphabet soup. Current development-speak words can be used for Development Bingo (aka tombola or houseyhousey), a diverting game that can be played by students during lectures on development and more generally by members of the audience in political fora.

Words, bingo and reflexivity introduces the Development Bingo game in which the columns can list the latest and most used fashionable words, including nowadays acronyms such as MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) and RBM (results-based management) and words like harmonization, capacity development, deliverables, social protection, evidence-based, empowerment, accountability and fragile states. These are ticked as they are mentioned. Development bingo brings triple benefits: it mitigates the ordeal of the listener; it enhances critical awareness; and it startles speakers with suppressed laughter or cries of 'development' when a column is complete. This includes an invitation to list and reflect on your own favourite words.

The Cornwall and Eade book Deconstructing Development Discourse is at once entertaining, enlightening and erudite on the subject of words in development and says almost all that needs to be said. For our purposes here let me underline two points. First, the vagueness of the meanings attributed to the same words by different actors – empowerment and participation are notorious cases – can lead to misunderstanding but is not all bad: for it can also sometimes allow action to go ahead, with the word as a Trojan horse. Second, in contrast, defining what you are going to mean by words, in a talk, lecture, or writing, sharpens thinking and helps communication. These two points are in tension, and it is a matter of tactics and judgement, which should be master when and for whom.

For all the cynicism, critiques, whimsy and fun to which development-speak gives rise, words do matter. In my view they matter hugely. They express concepts. They raise issues. Their choice and meanings reveal and express mindsets. Reflexivity, meaning critical reflection on one's own mindset, and warning readers about this, is fundamental. Then the usages and meanings of words evolve. Identifying new ones that have come into use can show us how thinking and practice have changed and are changing. Development Bingo is in the spirit of serious fun, a source of learning as the listener or reader lists words and checks them off as they are used. Such words and their combinations frame and form our perceptions and thought, structure our mindsets, and influence our actions. As Fritjof Capra (1996: 47) put it:

As humans, we exist in language and we continually weave the linguistic web in...