confessions of an accu(r)sed neoliberal : EVALUATING SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE AS NEOLIBERAL GOVERNANCE

Abstract: The practice of social development is situated within a broader phenomenological context known as the ―development paradigm‖—a grand milieu of institutions, policies, projects, and agents. Increasingly, social science discourses equate the development paradigm to a hegemonic project of empire epitomised by the moniker ―neoliberalism‖. As one such social development practitioner, I explore the question ―Are we all neoliberals now?‖ In the course of this investigation, I review the historical emergence and semantic associations of the term ―neoliberalism‖ and problematize its usefulness for describing complex and heterogeneous phenomenological categories like ―social development‖. The case of neoliberalism in China is invoked in the attempt to demonstrate 1) the validity of my argument that definitions of research setting a critical when deploying the term ―neoliberalism‖ in academic discourse and 2) the relevance of this argument for reconciling varied readings of social development as ―neoliberal‖.