This study examines the problems outsiders have in understanding local attitudes towards development in the southern Labrador community of Cartwright. It looks at local history and the nature of community complexity. The way in which these complexities provide a context for local discourse and shifting frames of reference are reasons why outsiders rarely understand the ideological coherence underlying what local people say. / An approach is proposed for a more "humanistic" anthropology of development that takes into account local attitudes towards development. A "multi-layered" approach, it entails a more concerned interest in listening to what local people themselves have to say about their own situation and incorporates aspects of history and community life as necessary analytical perspectives. Based upon this greater understanding of local experience, this approach puts order and coherence into what are often disparate and seemingly inconsistent statements.

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