Message-ID: <970102064423_1558273056@emout04.mail.aol.com> Date: Thu, 2 Jan 1997 06:44:26 -0500 From: mailto:EUNSteve@AOL.COM> Subject: Re: pushing development--or pushing the status quo? To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
In a message dated 97-01-01 12:50:37 EST, mailto:juwandem@NMSU.Edu (JC WANDEMBERG) writes:<< How can you say "the story your research documents" when you haven't even seen my research? >>
I can say what I have said in complete confidence because I am only repeating what you yourself have told us is the story your research documents, and I accept your summary: the thousands of studies you have found and summarized document the sad story you repeat about Western development styles and failures.
For example, in your last message:
<<Do you know what the acronym PAC stands for in the Andean countries? in case you don't stands for Planeamiento Andino Comunitario and was derived from the PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal) method designed by the WRI. Unfortunately, even these participatory methods have not addressed the root of the problem, namely, the organizational structure of the development effort which still remains, as Fred and Merrelyn Emery would put it, DP1 (bureaucratic).>>
Isn't the above the story your studies document--Western bureaucratic approaches to development as the problem?
And this:
<<> Are these stories really true? Has , for example, USAID or CIDA or World Bank > really been doing things this way in, say, the last 25 years?
There is plenty of literature (Witcherman, 1995, IRIS, 1994, etc, etc) documenting the real fiasco of these institutions' "help">>
Aren' t you telling us that is the story your research documents: fiasco?
And this:
<<> And is there real evidence that grass roots development by indigenous, as, > say, in Tanzania, really brings genuine development?
Take a look for instance at the KASHA project in Botswana, or the hundreds of projects followed by COMUNIDEC along the Andes.
> Isn't there some evidence that the "liberatory" and indigenous development
> movements have brought hardship and death as often as development?
Perhaps only as a consequence given by the environmental affordances, but not as a purposeful objective of systems effectivities.>>
I do not quite understand your language here---"environmental affordances" and "systems effectivities" somehow elude me, for which I blame only myself and the limits of my rhetoric and vocabulary--but I think you are essentially saying that the answer to my question is "no", or "not really".
I think, sir, I hear your story and have summarized it fairly and accurately.
I am asking you and others here if that is the widely shared story of the development community, or at least the common position of those on this listserv.
And of course I am indeed implying that this story is a half truth at best, since it leaves out the many successes of Western-aided development, including successes attributable to such "imperialist" interventions as the thousands of schools and roads built by USAID, the potable water appreciated in many villages touched by imperialist Peace Corps, and even the thousands, perhaps millions, who have been taught to read because of the missionizing motives of the Christian churches.
And I would appreciate any insight I might be given here on two matters:
1. Do the "undeveloped" of the world prefer their indigenous, cashless, authentic subsistence economies and lifeworlds, or does the transistor radio introduce them to a culture they freely choose--and if they choose the market economy and jeans and rock and Big Macs, will our apostles of cashless, communitarian societies give them what they choose or try to keep them authentic, jeanless, rockless, and Macless?
2. Is there any approach to development that does not end up as creative destruction, undoing the traditions of the people who are being developed, or by definition does development bring with it all of the changes of psyche, consciousness, and values that the developers hope they can avoid introducing?
In any event, I do apprecite your williingness to state your convictions clearly and candidly.
Steve Eskow
Dr. Steve Eskow, President The Electronic University Network 288 Stone Island Road Enterprise, FL 32725 407.321.8770;Fax:407.321.4861 January 1, 1997