The book Revolutionizing Development: Reflections on the work of Robert Chambers, edited By Andrea Cornwall and Ian Scoones has now been made fully open access and can be read for free from the publisher’s website.
This new edition has been made open access to coincide with Revolutionising Development week – a series of events and workshops to celebrate the work of renowned development scholar Professor Robert Chambers – which runs from 26 to 28 April.
About the book
This book tells the story of development studies in practice over the last 50 years through the work of one remarkable individual – Robert Chambers. His work has taken him from being a colonial officer in Kenya through training and managing large rural development projects to a fundamental critique of top-down development and the championing of participatory approaches.
The contributors eloquently demonstrate how he has been at the centre of major shifts in development thinking and practice over this period, popularising terms that are now at the centre of the development lexicon such as vulnerability, multi-dimensional poverty, sustainable livelihoods and “farmer first”. Robert Chambers played a major role in the massive growth in participatory approaches to development, and particularly the application of participatory methods in development research and appraisal.
This has led to fundamental challenges to development practice, ranging from approaches to monitoring and evaluation to institutional learning and professional training. There is probably no-one who has had more influence on approaches to development in the past decades.
Revolutionizing Development offers a unique overview of these contributions in 32 concise chapters from authors who have been intimately involved as collaborators, critics and colleagues of Robert Chambers.
New foreword by Melissa Leach
IDS Director, Melissa Leach has written a new foreword for the book. She says, ‘The book Revolutionizing Development: Reflections on the work of Robert Chambers was first published in 2011. Just over a decade later it is now being re-launched in fully open access form, providing the opportunity for a wider range of readers around the world to understand Robert’s contributions and legacy at this key moment for development, and build on these for the future. This re-publication has been made possible through kind support of the publishers, Routledge/Taylor and Francis, and of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), where we are privileged that Robert has based most of his incredible career, and where he remains a deeply loved and valued colleague’.
Book launch
The book will be re-launched at the public event Revolutionising and Recasting Development – Building forward from the work of Robert Chambers in which editors and contributors to the book will discuss its implications for the future of development and development studies. The event takes place on Wednesday 27 April at 12:30 at IDS and online.
Key contacts
