Participation--From Tyranny to Transformation? Exploring New Approaches to Participation in Development

by Hickey, Samuel; Mohan, Giles

• ISBN13: 9781842774618
• ISBN10: 1842774611
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-03-02
• Publisher: Zed Books

Summary

Participatory techniques have established themselves in both project implementation in developing countries and community interventions in industrial countries. Recently, participation has been fashionably dismissed as more rhetoric than substance, and subject to manipulation by agents pursuing their own agendas under cover of community consent. In this important new volume, development and other social policy scholars and practitioners seek to rebut this simplistic conclusion. They show how participation can help produce genuine transformation for marginalized communities. This volume is the first comprehensive attempt to evaluate the state of participatory approaches in the aftermath of the "Tyranny" critique. It captures the recent convergence between participatory development and participatory governance. It revisits the question of popular agency, as well as spanning the range of institutional actors involved--the state, civil society and donor agencies. The volume embeds participation within contemporary advances in development theory.

Author Biography

Samuel Hickey is a lecturer in Social Development at the Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester.

Giles Mohan is a lecturer in Development Studies in the Development Policy and Practice discipline of the Open University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	x
From tyranny to transformation?	1	(56)
Towards participation as transformation: critical themes and challenges	3	(22)
Sam Hickey
Giles Mohan
Setting the scene	3	(2)
A brief history of participation in development	5	(4)
Participation and development theory	9	(2)
Reframing participation: towards citizenship	11	(2)
Transformation	13	(2)
The temporal aspects of participation	15	(1)
Space	16	(3)
Representation	19	(1)
Conclusion	20	(5)
Towards participatory governance: assessing the transformative possibilities	25	(17)
John Gaventa
Relating people and institutions	25	(2)
Working both sides of the equation	27	(1)
Reconceptualizing participation and citizenship	28	(2)
New forms of citizen-state engagement	30	(1)
The need for more evidence	31	(3)
Assessing power relations in participatory spaces	34	(1)
Spaces for participation	35	(2)
The visibility of power relationships	37	(2)
Conclusion	39	(3)
Rules of thumb for participatory change agents	42	(15)
Bill Cooke
Rule I: Don't work for the World Bank	43	(2)
Rule II: Remember: co-optation, co-optation, co-optation	45	(2)
Rule III: Data belong to those from whom they were taken	47	(1)
Rule IV: Work only in languages you understand as well as your first	48	(1)
Rule V: Always work for local rates, or for free	49	(1)
Rule VI: Have it done to yourself	50	(1)
Rule VII: Historicize theory and practice	51	(1)
Conclusion	52	(5)
Rethinking participation	57	(52)
Relocating participation within a radical politics of development: critical modernism and citizenship	59	(16)
Giles Mohan
Sam Hickey
Of theory and analysis: relocating and politicizing participatory thinking	60	(1)
Relocating participation in a radical theoretical home	60	(2)
Critical modernism and the left: between political economy and populism	62	(3)
Reconceptualizing participation as citizenship	65	(4)
Realizing a project of radical citizenship and critical modernism	69	(1)
Conclusion	70	(5)
Spaces for transformation? reflections on issues of power and difference in participation in development	75	(17)
Andrea Cornwall
Spaces for change?	75	(2)
Of spaces and places	77	(1)
Making spaces	78	(2)
Situating participation	80	(1)
Contestation and resistance	81	(2)
Spatial practices, agency and voice	83	(2)
Making a difference: towards more transformative participation	85	(7)
Towards a repoliticization of participatory development: political capabilities and spaces of empowerment	92	(17)
Glyn Williams
Mainstreaming participation, depoliticizing development	92	(3)
Re-evaluating participation: institutional analysis and political capabilities	95	(3)
Learning from participation: `success' and `failure' in South Asia	98	(2)
Towards the repoliticization of participation	100	(3)
Conclusions	103	(6)
Participation as popular agency: reconnecting with underlying processes of development	109	(48)
Participation, resistance and problems with the `local' in Peru: towards a new political contract?	111	(14)
Susan Vincent
Development and participatory practice	112	(2)
`Been there, done that': a history of participatory development and translocal livelihood in Matachico, Peru	114	(5)
Ways forward: towards a new political contract?	119	(6)
The `transformative' unfolding of `tyrannical' participation: the corvee tradition and ongoing local politics in Western Nepal	125	(15)
Katsuhiko Masaki
Setting the context: Majuwa and the corvee tradition	126	(1)
Ongoing local politics in Majuwa	127	(1)
Local patterns of participation in flood control projects	128	(2)
Renegotiations of the begaari norm	130	(2)
Non-linear progression of `participatory' processes	132	(2)
Towards `transformation'? Participation in the 2001 flood control project	134	(2)
Conclusions: rethinking `tyranny' and `transformation'	136	(4)
Morality, citizenship and participatory development in an indigenous development association: the case of GPSDO and the Sebat Bet Gurage of Ethiopia	140	(17)
Leroi Henry
Citizenship and participation	141	(2)
The Sebat Bet Gurage and GPSDO	143	(1)
Gurage migration and citizenship discourses	144	(3)
The process of participation	147	(2)
Sanctions underpinning participation	149	(2)
Volunteerism and leadership	151	(1)
Conclusions	152	(5)
Realizing transformative participation in practice: state and civil responses	157	(78)
Relocating participation within a radical politics of development: insights from political action and practice	159	(16)
Sam Hickey
Giles Mohan
The pinnacle of participation? PPAs and PRSs	159	(2)
Participatory governance and democratic decentralization	161	(2)
NGOs and participatory development	163	(1)
Reflect: Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community Techniques	164	(1)
NGOs and rights-based approaches	164	(1)
NGO advocacy	165	(1)
Social movements	166	(2)
Identifying the politics of participation as transformation	168	(2)
Conclusion	170	(5)
Securing voice and transforming practice in local government: the role of federating in grassroots development	175	(15)
Diana Mitlin
Beyond developmental NGOs: the power of federating	175	(2)
Transforming models of urban development: Victoria Falls 1999--2002	177	(2)
Land development in Victoria Falls	179	(5)
Reflecting on achievements and emerging lessons	184	(3)
Conclusion	187	(3)
Participatory municipal development plans in Brazil: divergent partners constructing common futures	190	(15)
Glauco Regis Florisbelo
Irene Guijt
Local development plans as social innovation in Brazil	191	(4)
The origins of the LDP idea	195	(1)
Comparing Araponga and Tombos	196	(6)
Conclusions	202	(3)
Confrontations with power: moving beyond `the tyranny of safety' in participation	205	(14)
Ute Kelly
`The tyranny of safety'	206	(1)
The School for Peace approach	207	(3)
The Commission on Poverty, Participation and Power	210	(3)
`Non-phoney' participation: some pointers	213	(1)
Remaining questions	214	(5)
Failing forward: going beyond PRA and imposed forms of participation	219	(16)
Mark Waddington
Giles Mohan
The disappointments of participation and PRA	219	(3)
Rights, citizenship-building and `deep' political literacy	222	(2)
Adapting Reflect: Village AiD's experience of Arizama in Northern Ghana	224	(6)
Deep political literacy and transformation: Ekanak in Sierra Leone	230	(1)
Conclusion	231	(4)
Donors and participation: caught between tyranny and transformation	235	(34)
Participation in poverty reduction strategies: democracy strengthened or democracy undermined?	237	(15)
David Brown
The theoretical basis for participation in PRSP development	237	(2)
The World Bank's PRSP Sourcebook	239	(7)
The PRSP process in Cameroon	246	(3)
Conclusion	249	(3)
Beyond the technical fix? participation in donor approaches to rights-based development	252	(17)
Jeremy Holland
Mary Ann Brocklesby
Charles Abugre
Rights, participation and institutional change	253	(1)
Rights-based development and `genuine' participation	254	(1)
Operationalizing the discourse: participatory rights-based assessment	255	(3)
Scoping the institutional context for rights-based assessment	258	(1)
Discussion: can donors drive institutional change?	259	(4)
Conclusion: beyond technical fixes?	263	(6)
Broader perspectives on `from tyranny to transformation'	269	(15)
The social embeddedness of agency and decision-making	271	(7)
Frances Cleaver
Citizenship, agency and culture	271	(3)
Collective action, governance and institutionalizing participation	274	(2)
Conclusion: the partiality of agency, the inequality of structure	276	(2)
Theorizing participation and institutional change: ethnography and political economy	278	(6)
Anthony Bebbington
Contributors	284	(4)
Index	288