Delivery included to the United States

A Bit Too Simple

A Bit Too Simple Narratives of Development, Sustainability and Climate Change - Elements of Sustainability: Science, Policy, Practice

Paperback (31 Oct 2025)

  • $24.43
Pre-order

Includes delivery to the United States

Other formats & editions

New
Hardback (31 Oct 2025) $74.65

Publisher's Synopsis

Narratives like those portraying development workers as heroes and local populations as victims needing to be saved from their own unsustainable practices have led to problematic policies and interventions. Based on fieldwork across four continents, this Element critically analyzes such metanarratives. First, it demonstrates the ways their simplifying, universalistic narrative plots fail to capture more complex lived realities. Second, it argues that such metanarratives on development are converging with influential metanarratives on climate change and sustainability, thereby strengthening hierarchical geopolitical mindsets. Third, it uncovers how the emergence of for-profit sustainability superhero metanarratives reinforces universalistic development logics by combining these logics with global business management logics. The Element concludes that a multiplicity of locally grounded stories and related forms of agency must be mobilized and recognized so that policy and practice are premised upon lived realities, not abstract and unrealistic global imaginaries. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

About the Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press dates from 1534 and is part of the University of Cambridge. We further the University's mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

Book information

ISBN: 9781009344913
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Pub date:
Language: English
Number of pages: 75
Weight: -1g