How Development Projects Persist Everyday Negotiations with Guatemalan NGOs

"Erin Beck has made a lasting contribution to the field of development studies in theorising development as a social interaction while also raising important issues for policy and practice. How Development Projects Persist is a call to contemplate, assess and study development not simply according to the goals of policymakers and organisations, but according to the larger vision and life goals of the people that interventions hope to serve."

- Bronwen Gillespie (Anthropology in Action) "The strength of Why Development Projects Persist is the quality of Beck's data. . . . Beck writes her ethnographic data with completeness and clarity, which allows the reader to understand the intentions of these organizations, the worldviews of participants, and the ways these clashed as the NGOs' visions of development were put into practice." - Laura J. Heideman (American Journal of Sociology) "The text's strength lies in its conceptual breadth and accessibility. . . . An easy, yet enlightening read. . . . Beck effectively shows rather than just tells what development encounters look like and how they are interpreted by the actors involved." - Monica DeHart (Anthropological Quarterly)

"This book. . . is useful to those interested in international studies, development studies, as well as development practitioners. . . . Further, Beck's detailed analysis is well-written and jargon-free, and presents us with a balanced and longitudinal view of NGO development projects in Guatemala."

- Michelle Moran-Taylor (Journal of Latin American Geography)