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In the following sentence:

They neglected the fact that development necessarily is culture and context specific and that the specificity concerns the observer as well.

What does it mean that something is “context specific”? Or did I misunderstand, and it means that development is culture? Should it be “development is culturally and contextually specific”?

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    I would always say 'culture- and context-specific' for just this reason.
    – Tim Lymington
    Commented Mar 23, 2012 at 14:24

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The meaning is that development is specific to the culture and to the context. Your paraphrase of culturally and contextually specific is accurate.

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  • Thank you..I just do not understand how development (the article relates to "development thinking" - do not know what it means) can be specific to context..context of what?
    – Pietro
    Commented Mar 23, 2012 at 14:24
  • I'm speculating, but I would say that development actually means development aid/strategies/management. So the meaning would be: if you want to help a place develop, you need to use strategies that are contextually relevant to that particular place. What works in one location may fail in another.
    – Brett Reynolds
    Commented Mar 23, 2012 at 14:41
  • @Pietro Since after all this time, the Question is still thrown up by SE for re-consideration, can you now - could you not then - say what was difficult about "context…"? Could you say how "context of what" didn't obviously mean roughly "What we're talking about here and now and using this particular wording, as opposed to anywhere else at another time using different wording"? Sorry if that's boring and the Question is being thrown up by SE.
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Jun 26, 2020 at 22:26

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