Resetting our goals?

     The word “development” indeed has many different meanings depending on the context. Gilbert Rist highlighted the point that it is also usually in fact a negative word instead of a positive idea, given that something is wasted or transformed in exchange of the development of something else. I had never before thought about this word in this way.

     My first thought was that I believe my host country, France, is considered as “developed” as the United States of America in terms of resources and politics. However according to Gilbert Rist in his article Development as a Buzzword, “a country is the more ‘developed’ the more limited the number of free things that are available: to spend an afternoon on the beach, to go fishing, or enjoy cross-country skiing is nowadays impossible unless one is prepared to pay for it” (488). With my experiences, and if this is considered true, then I would say that the United States of America is more “developed” than France because a lot more activities like this are more often capitalized in America. The French really enjoy spending a lot of time outside while doing sports, socializing, or relaxing a lot more than the average American. It would be ridiculous to pay for these types of things in France. Gilbert Rist touches upon another very interesting point. He says that “since everyone has to earn a living, expensive day nurseries have replaced grandparents in looking after small children, marriage bureaux have replaced village dances as opportunities for those in quest of marriage partners, and the tedious chore of walking the dog twice a day can be contracted out to a jobless person keen to make a little money. Such is life in a fully ‘developed’ country…” (489). In my opinion it is true that this is often the case in the United States; I say that with confidence because I do know a lot of people who actually live this way. In France, I live with a loving and very traditional host family, who has introduced me to a lot of other French families in the area. They are “traditional” in the way that Rist would consider less “developed”. Most people in France hang their clothes up to dry instead of using a dryer, grandparents still often look after their grandchildren for free instead of letting the family invest in day care, and most people consider walking their dogs a very relaxing and natural thing to do (some consider it the best part of their day). This also applies to the friends that I have made here because they all live a very traditional “French” life, which Gilbert Rist would consider less “developed” than America.

Myself walking on the beach

      In the light of Gilbert Rist’s first point, there is widespread usage for the word “development”. When I think of this word in a personal manner after spending a few months in France, the meaning definitely changes. For me, it returns back to the vague meaning, “tending to refer to a set of beliefs and assumptions about the nature of social progress rather than to anything more precise.” I am obviously here to “develop” my ability to speak French, which has without a doubt tremendously improved since my arrival. I speak French every day while doing daily activities, like going to the store or ordering food. I speak French much more often than English. I like joke with my friends, saying that being in France has made me forget English as my native language. I say this because now it sometimes takes me a bit longer to think of a word in English than in French. In Rist’s point of view, this is very fitting to the idea that there is always something lost when development is gained. I am not one to judge if that is a good or bad thing to happen, but these examples are nonetheless good ways to look at the many different contexts of development.


Rist, Gilbert. "Development as a Buzzword." Development in Practice: Stimulating Thought for Action 17 (2007): 485-91. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.