Throughout the 1980s there have been calls, often from development organizations of global repute, for the incorporation of social science perspectives into the design and management of sustainable development programmes. is the first collection to offer first-hand critical assessments of the success and failures found within actual responses to these calls. By combining academic and practical experience from anthropology, development and aid organizations the contributors examine the processes of intervention, the methods by which this intervention can be assessed, and explain the socio-economic and political worlds within which intervention and development evolve.