ANTH 320/DEVS 321 PEOPLE AND DEVELOPMENT Fall 2018
I acknowledge that St FX is in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People.
Oct. 31, Nov, 5: Getting people involved
READ: Malin Hasselskog, Malin (2016) Participation or what? Local
experiences and perceptions of household performance contracting in
Rwanda. Forum for Development Studies, 43(2):177-199.
Boesten, Jelke, Anna Mdee and Frances Cleaver (2011) Service delivery
on the cheap? Community-based workers in development interventions.
Development in Practice, 21(1): 41-58, DOI: 10.1080/09614524.2011.530230
Themes: accountability, effectiveness, whose responsibility, power/inequality, the heterogeneity of community
- resonates with ideas already presented by, especially, Crewe,
Budabin et al, Sandri, Kimanthi and Hebinck, Vincent
Are participatory approaches to development “bottom- up” or “top-down”?
What is the history of “participation” in development practice?
- Freire, Robert Chambers, neoliberal, alternative development
- critiques of participatory practice:
- who is involved?
- who decides on the process?
- “tyranny”: invited and claimed/created spaces
Hasselskog
- focus is on what part of this state-driven process people participate in, and what this participation consists of
- what is the Rwandan imihigo system? link
- how are targets established?
- what is the role of the households?
- what difficulties do people face to achieve targets?
- what happens to them if they do not?
- is this effective in achieving goals?
- is this empowering to citizens and responsive to their needs?
- is this a good system?
Boesten et al.
- note placement of community-driven development (CDD) and community based workers (CBW) within participatory approaches
- what is a CBW?
- why are CBWs being instituted?
- what do the authors say about the training of CBWs, or the balance between volunteerism/professionalism?
- is it adequate or available?
- what do they say about accountability?
- to whom?
- why do people get involved?
- what are the compensations/rewards? What are the altruistic reasons?
- what are the forms of inequality within communities that may intersect with this strategy?
- is this model sustainable and effective?
Is participation a good idea, and how should it be defined, if so?