A project for the improvement of cattle-holding in the province of Atakora in the Northeast of the People’s Republic of Benin serves as an illustration for an alternative analysis of a development project. Instead of concentrating on the degree of achievement of preconceived abstract goals like participation and aid for self-help it is argued that projects should be understood as a permanent process of negotiation between different strategic groups – in the present case governments, development agencies, foreign experts, local cadres, peasants and cattle-holders. In this process first a common base has to be found for rules which ought to apply to the use of language. This proved to be very difficult because each group had its own understanding of the purpose of the project depending on its interests. Therefore, the original idea that an eventually established project organization cannot be changed turns out to be untenable. What happens instead is a struggle about perspectives, interpretations and design for future life between the strategic groups. In the context of the development project the latter formulate and pursue projects of their own.
