Colonial continuities and impossible attempts: Critical engagements in development

Based on ethnographic research at The Centre of Early Childhood and Health, Jakarta, this article shows that although development actors are aware of colonial legacies in development, their efforts to transcend colonial continuities may see them implicated in other unexpected ways. At the same time, I claim the necessity of engaging in development as an ‘impossible task’: to relentlessly interrogate it without ‘undermining the entire legitimacy of such work’ (Harrison 2013: 270).