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Keeping it Vague : Discourses and practices of participation in Rural Mozambique
Get PDFSince the 1980s, considerable changes have taken place in thinking about development interventions. Many donors, host governments and development organisations embraced the concepts and the related methods of participatory approaches. In an attempt to move away from an era of more directive and top-down interventions, the project proposals in the 1990s were dominated by concepts such as participation, decentralisation, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), empowerment, community-based development. In other words, the language of policy makers and practitioners in the field of development changed considerably. More significantly, the discourse of development changed. The discourse concept emphasises that language is not neutral. Discourse determines what can be said and written in a certain social group in a particular epoch. Discourse is not static; it changes as a result of its constant interplay with everyday practices and in social interaction. Framing is another important concept in this study. Framing refers to the process of filtering and selection of elements in the discourse that leads to new text and talk, new meanings and/or new social practices. In chapter two, a summary is given of ideas and thoughts of some important authors who have been influential in setting participatory approaches on the development agenda. The popularity of participatory approaches during the 1990s did, however, generate criticism. Chapter three gives an overview of contemporary critical thoughts on these approaches. The advocates themselves, such as Robert Chambers, expressed concern over 'bad practices', which he regarded as a consequence of rapid up-scaling, insufficient training and 'use of the label without the substance'. In other words, the argument was that the ideas were good but that these ideas were not properly implemented in practice. More fundamental criticism was voiced by authors such as Mosse,Leeuwis, Cooke andKothari. They pointed out the inherent contradictions and philosophical shortcomings of participatory approaches. The definitions of participation and empowerment are often vague, and the language used around these concepts tends to have a 'positive' connotation. This makes is easy to use these concepts in a rhetorical and populist way. In the discourse around participatory approaches, very little attention is paid to political dimensions of development interventions and existing social organisation. This study buildsfurtheron these critical reflections with the help of the concepts discourse and framing that are elaborated in chapter four. The objective of the study is to describe and compare the discourses and everyday practices of five development projects in rural Mozambique. In doing this, the study hopes to contribute to the understanding of everyday dynamics of participatory development interventions. The following research questions were formulated at the end of chapter four; 1)Whatwas the project context like? 2) What were the project discourses around the concepts participation and empowerment? 3) What were the everyday project practices? 4) How did PRA project practices compare with principles of 'good' PRA practices? 5) How did project discourses compare with project practices? 6) How can gaps between discourses and practices be explained? Two major case studies and three minor ones were selected. The approach of the study is explained in chapter five. The methodology consisted mainly of participant observation and interviews. The involvement of the researcher in these projects either as an advisor, trainer or evaluator gave a good opportunity to have access to observations from within the project. For the two major cases, the researcher also had the opportunity to do research as an outsider, acting independently of any project involvement.Chapter six provides important contextual information by describing the recent history ofMozambique. It specifically explores the events and facts that are important for the understanding of rural development inMozambiquein the 1990s.The empirical chapters, chapters seven through nine, have the following structure: first the project context is described, then the project discourses, and finally some critical incidents and observations, thus answering the first three research questions. The other three research questions are dealt with in the concluding chapters ten and eleven.The first major case study deals with various interventions in the most southern district of Mozambique, Matutuíne, inMaputoprovince. The aim of this project was to involve local people in the management of natural resources. The main focus was an initiative by the Swiss NGO Helvetas. The project was geared towards empowering the inhabitants of the district to confront commercial investors with interests in the area. In chapter seven, some of their activities—such as a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), community land delimitation and seminars—are described. This chapter also reflects on the relations of the project with various other actors in the district.The other major case study is a project that promoted decentralised district planning in 14 districts ofNampulaProvincein the North of Mozambique. This project was a joint initiative of two UN organizations (UNDP and UNCDF), the Government of theNetherlandsand the Mozambican Ministry of Planning and Finance. District administration was encouraged to write district plans. PRAs, the establishment of District Consultative Councils (DCCs) and Local Development Committees (LDCs) were the vehicles implemented to involve rural people in the development planning of the district. This project is described in chapter eight.The three minor case studies, all based on projects run by NGOs, are presented in chapter nine. The first minor case was an initiative in the area of land rights and took place in Nicoadala district inZambeziaprovince. The project attempted to delimit land for communities, a possibility provided for through the land law of 1997. The second minor case took place in Machaze district inManicaprovince and is similar to the project in Nampula since its aim was decentralised district planning. The difference is that this project in Machaze placed more emphasis on the local level and started with the establishment of a Local Development Committee and a series of PRAs. The third minor case is about a PRA that was planned by an NGO to take place inMorrumbaladistrict,Zambeziaprovince, but in fact never took place. All projects made use of PRA. In chapter ten, I first take a closer look at how PRAs were perceived and how the PRAs were conducted by project staff. I compare this with the supposed principles of 'good' PRA practice. Project staff largely regarded PRA as a tool for data collection or as a way to obtain a ranking of a wish-list or other information. The way in which data were collected and the way in which problems were analysed revealed a rather extractive and uncritical way of working. The level of probing and triangulation was minimal. There was little space for sharing, joint analysis or critique. The role of PRA in the intervention or in the envisaged development process was seldom made explicit in project documents. Chapter ten continues to synthesize three gaps between project discourses and project practices. Firstly, project discourses tend to picture the intervention as rather a-political and its methods as neutral, while in practice many different interests and several conflicts surfaced as a result of the intervention. It became apparent how different power-holders try to either control or even block the interventions. In turn, project staff do all they can to appease all actors and keep their project running.Secondly, all projects have empowerment as an objective. It is however apparent that, in the project discourses, this concept is not further elaborated and it is not clear who should be empowered in relation to whom, or how this could be achieved. Since the PRAs were rather extractive and uncritical, and as the interests of project staff differed often from the empowerment of local people, these exercises offered little scope for local learning or mobilisation. Projects tended to create new institutions rather than trying to change existing local institutions. Little or no attention was paid to intra-community inequalities and, as time went by, projects tended to water down their empowerment objectives.The third gap that was identified is that whereas, according to the discourse of participatory development, processes should be bottom-up and local, observations showed that most interventions were largely imposed by donors and development agencies and their staff. The philosophies of the project rationale and approach are rather foreign. The influence of expatriates on project formulation and implementation was obvious. Moreover, agenda setting of everyday activities or determining the next step during a PRA was in the hands of project staff, with local people having virtually no say in the matter. New organisations such as Local Development Committees and District Development Councils were equally largely imposed by project staff and their durability is therefore questioned.In chapter eleven an attempt is made to explain these gaps. The concepts of discourse and framing were very useful for doing so. We can talk of a discourse of participatory development; a dominant system of representation that governed the way policy makers and practitioners talked and wrote about development during the 1990s. This discourse was shared in trans-national discourse coalitions and often had rather optimist and positive connotations. When it came to putting this discourse into practice, formulating the project document, andoperationalisingthis document in activities in the field, the discourse had to be actively framed or translated. The various actors do this in several ways so as to fit the discourse into their wants and needs. One and the same actor can also frame the discourse in different ways, depending on the audience and context. Project discourses were characterised by vagueness, thus allowing the many different actors to select only that which they regarded as being useful.Several contextual factors may contribute towards explaining the gaps between discourses and practices. The following are distinguished; the brutal history of colonial and post-colonial top-down interventions in rural Mozambique, the consequent distrust towards outsiders, the lack of training and experience of project staff, party-political tensions, expectations of local people, and a lack of commitment towards the empowerment of local people on the part of project staff and local power-holders.In addition, discourses of participatory development exhibit a number of conceptual and philosophical shortcomings that also contribute to the divide between formal discourses and everyday project practices. The most important (and most known) criticism is that participatory approaches are quite naïve since they often ignore power relations. It generally assumes that people are willing and able to collaborate, and are able to overcome conflict via mutual learning. Furthermore, the fact that certain concepts are not further specified, being kept vague, makes the approach difficult to criticise.In the last section I turn my attention specifically to project managers who have to deal in everyday practice with: 1) the inherent contradictions of the approach, 2) framing the laudable but naïve ideas into activities and 3) the different actors with their various interests. Good project managers inMozambiquehave to be highly politically sensitive and strategic. They often have to adopt a strategy what I have called 'juggle and muddle'. Keeping the discourse vague is not only an observation of this study; at particular moments it can also be a recommendable strategy in running a project effectively
Matching demand and supply in the Dutch agricultural knowledge infrastructure : the emergence and embedding of new intermediaries in an agricultural innovation system in transition
Get PDFDe overgang naar een markt voor agrarisch onderzoek en kennisintensieve dienstverlening brengt verschillende uitdagingen met zich mee voor actoren in de agrarische kennisinfrastructuur, aan zowel de vraagkant (eindgebruikers van innovaties zoals boeren, en de overheid) en de aanbodzijde (aanbieders van onderzoek en kennisintensieve dienstverlening). Nieuwe organisatorische arrangementen proberen vraag en aanbod in de agrarische kennisinfrastructuur bij elkaar te brengen. Dit proefschrift gaat over dergelijke nieuwe organisatorische arrangementen
Barriers and bottlenecks : a case study of the implementation of extension policy for enabling sustainable natural resource management in Queensland, Australia
No full textInternationally, extension has been a support instrument used by governments and commercial interests for improving agricultural production for hundreds, if not thousands of years. The application of extension theory and practice for natural resource management (NRM) is a more recent undertaking. However, over the last 20+ years, agencies sponsoring extension services appear to have lost confidence in extension’s ability to achieve desired outcomes. In Australia, Greg Leach’s PhD research has sought to understand the barriers and bottlenecks which have prevented the implementation of extension policy by the Queensland State Government. His research enquired into the institutionalisation of extension in Queensland, as well as approaches and mechanisms for negotiating extension policy at the national scale from 2000 to 2010. Learnings from the author’s involvement in operationalising a network of extension leaders from across Australia, underpin broader recommendations on institutionalising extension policy, and advice for extension policy to aid achievement of NRM outcomes
Dialogue and revolution: fostering legitimate stakeholder agency in natural resource governance
No full textThis thesis explores how people exert their agency in policy processes that pertain to natural resource governance, and how they construct the required sense of legitimacy for such actions. It also examines the manner in which facilitated multi-stakeholder processes foster legitimate stakeholder agency, and reflects on how they may ensure the rigour of research interventions in situations characterised by intractable uncertainty and controvers
Illusions, hunger and vices: smallholders, environmentalism and the green agrarian question in Chiapas' biofuel rush
No full textLearning from Carchi: agricultural modernisation and the production of decline
No full textProvided its natural endowments, generally educated rural population, infrastructure and market access to two countries, the Province of Carchi, located in the northernmost highlands of Ecuador, is potentially one of the most productive agriculture regions in the Andes. In the 1960s development experts and the government targeted the region as a model for agricultural modernisation. Following land reform and rapid organisation around industrial era technologies, potato farming in Carchi boomed during the 1970s, evolving to dominate the landscape and become the major source of livelihoods in the province. By the early 1980s, Carchi came to produce nearly half the national potato harvest on less than a quarter of the country’s area dedicated to the crop. In the early1990s, however, production and productivity began to fall off, leading a growing number of rural families in Carchi to fall into debt and abandon potato farming. The research reported here is the outcome of the author’s ten years of research and development practice in Carchi with the International Potato Center, the FAO’s Global IPM Facility, and World Neighbors. It reflects unfolding experience with different phases of hope, discovery, and ambition. Many aspects of the experience have been published elsewhere (see Appendix A). The resulting dissertation is not a case study in the sense of a case that tests a hypothesis. It is a monograph that attempts to produce a single coherent story over seemingly unrelated events, focusing on a second-generation problem: despite a decade of highly rigorous, scientific research on the pathologies of Carchi and multiple public demonstrations of feasible alternatives, little significant change was achieved
Organising trade : a practice-oriented analysis of cooperatives and networks trading cereals in South Mali
No full textAbstract Farmer organisations have become the centrepiece of pro-poor market development strategies in Africa. Assumed to facilitate scale, quality of produce and professionalism they are regarded as a solution for farmers that are hampered from economic opportunities. In Mali public as well as private actors encourage farmers to trade through one specific organisational form, namely cooperatives. Nevertheless, in reality the landscape is much more diverse. A wide array of organisations can be observed and the models stimulated by external actors do not always succeed in improving the position of farmers. Considering the gap in knowledge, this dissertation poses the following question: How and in what ways do people organise trading of cereals in South Mali? The central aim of this thesis is to contribute to a better understanding of organisation of food trade in rural markets, by examining how and in what ways people in South Mali organise trade in cereals and sesame. Trading includes the procurement of cereals or sesame, organisation of finance, information gathering, bargaining, the organisation of transport and selling. Organisation of trade has been studied from different angles. Studies taking a structural approach explain organisation as emerging from context. Studies that approach organisations from an instrumental perspective regard organisation as a means for efficiently solving a shared problem. Both strands provide insights for understanding organisational functioning and performance but leave open questions regarding how people organise to realise trading and why this results in organisational diversity. This thesis examines organising trade by adopting a practice-oriented approach, which has as entry point that organisation takes shape in the realization of everyday practice. Focus is on what people actually do to realise trading. Two case study organisations are central to the study. Both are typical for how trade in rural Mali is organised. The first is a cooperative engaged in the trading of sesame in Miena, South-East Mali. The second is a cereal trading network in N’golobougou, in the centre of South Mali. Both provide an example of people collaborating and coordinating to perform trading and as such are excellent cases for tracing the formation of organisational traits that explain performance and diversity in trading cereals in South Mali. Empirical Chapters Chapter 2 presents a historical overview of how the organisation of trade of cereals and cotton at farmer level developed in Mali on extensive literature research. It focuses on the efforts of the Malian state to organise rural society, how producers responded, and how the interaction between the two shaped organisation. The analysis starts in the 18th century, in which cotton and cereal trade was intertwined and likewise organised. From the colonial period onwards, organisation dynamics in food and export crops evolved distinctly. For both sectors the most important events and changes are detailed. The chapter found that the political economy at stake influences the set of organisational options people can choose from and that imposed models rarely get adopted in practice. Chapter 3 traces the emergence and development of the sesame cooperative in Miena. It builds on two strands of literature that emphasize the specific socio-historical context of an organisation. The first body highlights the resilience of existing relations and institutions by showing how these get reproduced in new organisations. The second body of literature claims that individuals involved in collective action have the capacity to influence which institutions get reproduced and which new ones get adopted, also called ‘blended’. To collect the data 35 in depth interviews with cooperative members, (ex) officials from the cotton company CMDT, local officers and NGO-workers active in the research location were collected over a period of three months. Time was spent at the weekly market, in village meetings and at peoples’ homes. Moreover 20 informal talks with villagers and traders on the market were afterwards noted down. Three distinct processes - the historical organisation of cotton farmers, the interaction between state and society and the local trade practices - are found to underlie the current functioning of the cooperative. This chapter shows how both the reproduction and blending happen purposively; in order to (continue) performance in trading. Chapter 4 addresses the question: How do traders in Mali perform collectively? Following the methodological orientation, labelled as technography, the chapter zooms in on the use of skills and know-how by a group of people coordinating the collection and trade of cereals. Data were collected through 24 in-depth interviews with traders and 37 semi-structured interviews with pisteurs and interviews with key resource persons. Moreover, trade practices were observed during 10 market days in a row. The analysis shows that the success of the traders’ network can be explained by: (i) the use of skills and know-how for adapting to changing economic, social and environmental contexts; (ii) the network’s ability to select capable people and distribute the many trading tasks; and (iii) the network’s effective governance, based on a strict code of conduct specific to each role. The chapter shows how rules steering the distribution of tasks and collaboration in the traders’ network emerge out of the daily practice of trading. Chapter 5 uses evidence from a network of cereal traders in the market of N’golobougou to examine how the characteristics of traders, their positions within different networks, and different kinds of relationships between traders influence performance in trading. 26 traders were extensively interviewed on the history, functioning and the size of their business. Semi-structured interviews focused on their relations in trading. A social network analysis (SNA) is applied to describe the positions of individual traders in the networks and the type of relations that link them. Qualitative analysis is used to understand the motivations underlying their position and collaboration. The findings demonstrate that trading is a complex and multifaceted activity. Within the network distinct networks have emerged to organise the collection of cereals, to arrange finance and to acquire information. Pre-existing social relations facilitate trading but do not guarantee individual success. Proven ability and reputation are equally important in cooperation and relate to the way powerful members of the network acquire a central position, which goes stepwise and takes time. Conclusions Collaboration is crucial for trading under the circumstances of rural Mali. Both case studies highlight the role of key individuals who spotted opportunities and mobilised others to collaborate. Different trading activities require specific skills, know-how and tools and people tend to specialise. Most skills are acquired in practice; few of them can be taught by instruction. Accordingly to what is present in terms of capacities, people’s availability and know-how, and tools, groups will distribute tasks among their members. People also need to coordinate how skills, know-how and tools are distributed over time and space. Trading in South Mali requires bridging of long distances, adaptation to seasonality, securing finance and transport, and finding buyers. The temporal dimension of trading is visible in how traders adapt to seasonality and to how it is adjusted to people’s availability in time. Trading is also spatially situated. Poor infrastructure and long travel distances are characteristic of rural South Mali. Both the cooperative as well as the trading network therefore have a layered structure of actors close to the field, actors in the central village or market where the sesame or cereals are collected, and actors in the city to which the sesame or cereals are transported. People do not organise in a random constellation. The range of options they can choose from are importantly influenced by the institutions active in decision-making at village level, the relationship between state and rural communities, the social networks people operate in, and the historically developed rules and regulations in market transactions. Also, previous ways of organising play a role in today’s way of organising. The empirical analyses demonstrate that organising trade is ‘path dependent’. Nevertheless, people only reproduce those procedures, habits and actions that are deemed necessary to perform. They blend old and new ways of coordination and collaboration to allow the practice of trade to continue. The findings in this thesis show that collaboration does not rely on social relations only. Cooperating to achieve a practical end, i.e. to trade, is also skill and competence based. Organisational sustainability depends on how grouped or networked actors coordinate actions in response to changing circumstances and opportunities. Hence, organisational diversity can be understood from the fact that organisation emerges from a situated practice. Recommendations Organisation in trade emerges gradually and adaptively from what is present in terms of skills, capacities, know-how and experience in trading. As this is situation specific it is essential to recognize the uniqueness of each organisational form and suggests reconsidering the one-size-fit-all approaches often promoted in development interventions. Imposed organisational structures may be enabling to some extent but they leave little room for exploring the range of possible ways to achieve trading. For understanding how people organise trade it is important to understand the way they perform the actual practice in the specific social and material circumstances. The empirical chapters argue in favour of tutor–apprentice relations between experienced actors and new members, leaving decision-making power and rule setting in the hands of the most experienced traders. Current development projects supporting links between farmers and buyers often aim to be ‘inclusive’ and ‘pro-poor’, meaning that they should be accessible to anyone. The field research shows that organisations in trade in Mali are very selective in membership to assure the group achieves its objectives. Governments and other development actors should be aware of the trade-offs between inclusive, democratic organisational models, and effectiveness and performance in trading.</p
Adaptive collaborative governance of Nepal's community forests: shifting power, strenghtening livelihoods
No full text<strong>Short Summary</strong> <strong>Cynthia McDougall--PhD Dissertation</strong> Knowledge, Technology, &Innovation Chairgroup (WASS) <strong>Adaptive collaborative governance of Nepal’s community forests: Shifting power, strengthening livelihoods</strong> Community-based natural resource governance has taken root around the globe. And, yet, as demonstrated by community forestry in Nepal, such programmes have generally not yet lived up to their goals and expectations. After decades of implementation, community forestry in Nepal faces several key challenges. Central to these challenges are: the need to increase equity in community forest user group decision making and benefit sharing; and, to increase the livelihood benefits from community forestry overall. The research project on which this study is based sought to address these challenges at the community forest user group scale. The research objective was to contribute empirically-based insights regarding if and how adaptive collaborative governance of community forests in Nepal can constructively influence engagement, livelihoods, social capital and conflict—especially in regard to women and the poor. Further, the research aimed to elucidate the underlying issue of power in community-based natural resource governance. In particular, it sought to contribute deeper, theoretically-based understanding of the persistence of power imbalances in community forestry, and of the potential of adaptive collaborative governance to shift such imbalances.  
Who cares about research?! : a study on the role of research in policy processes in competing claims contexts
No full textA study on the role of research in policy processes in competing claims context
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