Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970103130612.525I-100000@dante> Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 13:53:44 -0700 From: JC WANDEMBERG <mailto:juwandem@NMSU.EDU> Subject: Re: pushing development--or pushing the status quo? To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Definately pushing satus quo and dependency is what I consider most of the development efforts initiated by government agencies (mostly western).On Thu, 2 Jan 1997 mailto:EUNSteve@aol.com wrote:
snip..> > <<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?
Yes indeed.
> <<> 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?
They have implemented changes (e.g., participatory terms) which have only address the "phenotype" of their approach, but their "genotype" remains the same (i.e., bureaucratic!).
> Aren' t you telling us that is the story your research documents: fiasco?
My research documents the fiasco of the development approaches from the beneficiaries point of view!
> > Isn't there some evidence that the "liberatory" and indigenous development
> > movements have brought hardship and death as often as development?
Again my answer below explains why this might be true : > Perhaps only as a consequence given by the environmental affordances, but
> not as a purposeful objective of systems effectivities.>>
and still these are rather the exception not the rule! Again, take a look a the COMUNIDEC projects, for instance.
> 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.
I would like to hear that too!
> 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.
Here I find appropriate to simply ask: Have these "underdeveloped beneficiaries" turned into self-relying people? Well, I guess that answers that question pretty clearly.
> 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?
I find a tint of synisism here, and the answer is no, of course most "underdeveloped" prefer foreign stuff, that was *precisely* the idea that the so called developers had in mind. But this is slowly beginning to change.
> 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?
I would say all of the above are possible. It all depends by whom and how the "development" is brought about, this is what is going to make the whole difference.
> In any event, I do apprecite your williingness to state your convictions
> clearly and candidly.
Likewise, that's what we're here for, isn't it?
Best regards, ************************************************************ |J.C. Wandemberg |
|Ph.D Graduate Researcher |
| |
| |
|INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR NATURAL, ENVIRONMENTAL |
|& CULTURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT (IIRM) |
|College of Agriculture & Home Economics (NMSU) |
|Box 30003, Dept. 3169, Las Cruces, NM 88003-003 USA |
|URL:http://www.nmsu.edu/~iirm E-Mail:mailto:juwandem@nmsu.edu |
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