Development: What’s in a name?

The article looks into the process of the creation of development discourse in Turkey and its consequences on the field. In the first section of the article, amusing anectodes are given from 1990s during which this process unfolded and gave way to a “project industry” with the EU accession period in Turkey. The focus of the second part is on the evaluation of paradigm shift towards “human development”. Evaulation methods of development projects, numbers, statistics, indexes in this paradigm are critically interpreted. In the last part, field cases from Kavar Region, east of Turkey, are given in order to find answers to questions like what development means for Kavar and the relationship between happiness, dignity and development.