mythology of modernization

is the idea that the story of urban africa has for so long been narrated in terms of linear progressions and optimistic teleologies, so difficulties in the last two decades look like a slipping backwards.

Ferguson (1993: 13): 'The mythology of modernization weighs heavily here. Since the story of urban Africa has for so long been narrated in terms of linear progressions and optimistic teleologies, it is hard to see the last twenty years of the Copperbelt as anything other than slipping backward: as it were, running in reverse. How else to account for life expectancies and incomes shrinking instead of growing, people becoming less educated instead of more, and migrants moving from urban centers to remote villages instead of vice-versa'

mythology of modernization, n.All

mythology of modernization