What is hegemonic discourse?Discussed frequently in my anth of development class

In order to understand what hegemonic discourse is, you first
have to understand the term "hegemony." This is a term that is typically used by people who are
influenced by Marxist ideas.

Marx (and others like Gramsci) believed
that the dominant classes in a society have many ways to keep the other classes and groups down.
The best of these is hegemony. Hegemony is a means of maintaining social order without using
force. If hegemony is achieved, the oppressed classes obey the dominant classes not because they
are forced to, but because they believe that it is right to do so. In this way, the oppressed
classes "participate in their own oppression" because they believe that they deserve to have less
power than the dominant classes.

Hegemonic discourse, then, is a way
of talking about things that supports hegemony and makes it seem as if the current social order
is inevitable and natural. In the context of anthropology of development, a hegemonic discourse
would be one that makes it sound as if the developed nations inevitably and naturally should be
on top and that any development in other parts of the world must proceed along lines that are
acceptable to the developed world.