People Defining Development (Chapter 13)

1. People Defining Development(Chapter 13)

2. The BIG Questions • What is development and the approaches to achieving it? • How is development related to indigenous people and women? • What are urgent issues in development?

3. What is Development? • Development is directed change to improve human welfare through poverty reduction • Development anthropology is the subfield of anthropology that studies how culture and development interact • Has a strong applied component

4. Development and Culture Change • Development is a major driver of cultural change in contemporary times • Culture change can be intentional or accidental, forward- or backward-looking, rapid or gradual, obvious or nearly invisible, beneficial or harmful

5. Development and Culture Change • Culture change occurs through… • Invention& Diffusion

6. Development and Culture Change • Invention • Culture change driven within a culture through experimentation and accumulation of knowledge

7. Development and Cultural Change • Diffusion – culture change driven by cultural contact; the spread of culture through contact • Can occur… • Between cultures of roughly equal power • A more powerful culture appropriating aspects of a less powerful culture • Transfer from a dominant culture to a less powerful one – through force, education, “marketing” • Acculturation – Form of cultural change in which a minority culture becomes more like the dominant culture • Assimilation – Form of culture change in which a culture is thoroughly acculturated and is no longer distinguishable as having a separate identity

8. Development and Cultural Change • Diffusion

9. Models of Development • No single view of how to achieve development exists • They differ in terms of… • Goals • Process • Measurement • Attention to environmental and financial sustainability

10. Models of Development • Five major models… • Modernization • Growth-oriented development • Distributional development • Human development • Sustainable development • Some of the models overlap and are not mutually exclusive

11. Modernization Growth-oriented development Distributional development Human development Sustainable development Models of Development

12. Modernization • Modernization is a form of change marked by economic growth through industrialization and market expansion

13. Modernization • Western model – belief that other cultures can develop in the same way that the West did • Goals: Industrialization, technological progress • Process: Belief that science and technology are the pathways to progress; material progress will lead to individual betterment • Problems: ??

14. Modernization • Problems: Little regard for the environment, brings about social inequality, trying to assimilate cultures to a Western way of thinking

15. Growth-Oriented Development • Is similar to modernization in its goals • Key emphasis on economic growth • Belief that economic growth will trickle-down, leading to improved human welfare among the less well-off • Goals: economic growth, industrialization, technological progress • Measurement of development: Rate of growth of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP)

16. Growth-Oriented Development • Process: Structural adjustment • 1. Increasing economic productivity and trade through modernized agriculture and manufacturing and participation in world markets. • 2. Reducing government expenditures on public services such as schools and health in order to reduce debt and reallocate resources to increase productivity.

17. Growth-Oriented Development • Problems: ??

18. Growth-Oriented Development • Problems: Will the wealth trickle-down? Or will the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? • Green revolution – rich got richer and the poor got poorer

19. Distributional Development • Goal: Emphasizes social equality in benefits, especially in terms of increased income, literacy, and health • Process: • Rejects the trickle-down process as ineffective in reaching less well-off people • Opposes structural adjustment policies because structural adjustment undermines the welfare of the poor by removing the few entitlements they had in the form of services • Advocates need for benevolent government to ensure equitable access of resources for the poor to provide for their own needs – government investment in schools, health care, land redistribution, etc.

20. Distributional Development • Measurement of development: Health status, literacy, social equality • Problems: • May have difficulty implementing • “Socialism” and “big government” are seen as having negative connotations among some areas of the West

21. Kerala, a state in South India, hasfollowed a distributive path to development and, though the “poorest” state in India, it has the highest social indicators in health and education

22. Human Development • Based on the belief that people are the real wealth of nations • Investments in improving human welfare will lead to economic development, not vice versa = WEALTH

23. Human Development • Goal: Invest in human welfare rather than economic growth • Process: Invest in health, education, personal security, and safety (may involve redistribution) • Measurement of development: Human development index (HDI) – measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, standard of living, and GDP per capita (strives to measure overall well-being, not just economic well-being)

24. Human Development • Problems: ??

25. Human Development • Problems: well-being is subjective – e.g. measuring quality of life, human development, and human welfare are tricky • Gross International Happiness (GIH) or Gross National Happiness (GNH) • http://www.tve.org/earthreport/archive/doc.cfm?aid=1717

26. Sustainable Development • Sustainable development refers to forms of improvement that do not destroy nonrenewable resources and are financially supportable over time • Based on the belief that the economic growth of wealthy countries has been and still is costly in terms of the natural environment and people whose lives depend on these ecosystems

27. Sustainable Development • Goal: Non-environmentally destructive development • Measurement of development: environmental indicators and other social and economic indicators

28. Institutional Approaches to Development • There are a wide variety of institutions, organizations, and specialists involved in development policy making, programs, and projects • Cultural anthropologists examine the organizations involved in international development • Behavior within the institutions • Institutional discourse • Social interactions with the “client population”

29. Institutional Approaches to Development • Large-scale development institutions • Multilateral institutions – those that include several countries as “donor” members • United Nations • World Bank

30. Institutional Approaches to Development • World Bank • Founded in 1944 • Dedicated to promoting the concept of economic growth worldwide • Is supported by contributions from over 150 member countries – economic superpowers dominate it • Main strategy is to promote international investment through loans • Most loans support large infrastructure projects such as roads and dams • Most loans charge interest and are tied to certain conditions

32. Institutional Approaches to Development • Large-scale development institutions • Bilateral institutions – those that involve only two countries: a “donor” and a “recipient” • United States Agency for International Development (USAID) • Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) • Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID) • Differ in amount of grants versus loans, countries to which they lend to, etc. depending on each “donor” country’s interests and political goals

33. Institutional Approaches to Development • Small-scale organizations • Grassroots approach – locally initiated projects • More likely to be culturally appropriate, supported through local participation, and successful • Often utilize social capital – intangible resources of social ties, trust, and cooperation • Often can use social capital to provide basic social and economic needs • May be faith-based organizations

34. Example of grassroots development among the peyizan yo of Haiti

35. The Development Project • Development institutions, whether they are large or small, implement their goals through the development project • The development project is a set of activities designed to put development policies into action

36. The Project Cycle • All development projects have a project cycle, or the full process of a project from initial planning to completion • The project cycle includes 5 basic steps from beginning to end

37. Project identification Project design Project appraisal Project implementation Project evaluation The Development Project Cycle

39. History of Anthropologists and the Project Cycle • Most individuals that work in large-scale development institutions are economists • Since the 1970s applied anthropologists have been involved in development projects • Anthropologists were first hired to be project evaluations • Found a variety of problems with development projects

40. Problems with Development Projects • The project was inappropriate for the cultural and environmental context • The target group, such as the poor and women, had not been reached, but instead project benefits had gone to some other group • The intended beneficiaries were actually worse off after the project than before it

41. Why these problems? • Poor project design • Projects designed by people-distant and culturally uninformed bureaucrats, usually Western economists who lived in cities far from the project site with no firsthand experience of the lives of the target population

42. Why these problems? • Lack of a sociocultural fit • Sociocultural fit is taking the local culture into account in project design • e.g. giving milk to a community that is lactose intolerant • Tree project in Haiti • “Experts” applied a universal formula (“one size fits all”) to all situations

43. Why these problems? • Development aggression – the imposition of development projects and policies without the free, prior, and informed consent of the affected people • Some scholars argue that many development projects are a form of neocolonialism

44. Anthropologists and the Project Cycle Today • Today anthropologists are involved in earlier aspects of the project cycle as well • Recognition among development institutions for the people-close, culturally informed perspective that anthropologists begin

45. Anthropologists and the Project Cycle Today • Anthropologists may engage in traditional development anthropology (TDA) • When an anthropologist takes on a role of helping to make development policies and programs work better • Anthropologist asks: What can I do to make this project successful?

46. Anthropologists and the Project Cycle Today • Anthropologists may engage in critical development anthropology (CDA) • When an anthropologist takes on a critical-thinking role • Anthropologist asks: Is this a good project from the perspective of the local people and their environment?

47. Anthropologists and the Project Cycle Today • Anthropologists may be considered a bit of a nuisance because their involvement may slow the process of implementing projects • But hopefully the tradeoff is a more successful project!

48. Social Impact Assessment • Social impact assessments are studies that gauge the potential social costs and benefits of particular innovations before change is undertaken • Anthropologists are often involved in these assessments • The studies may allow communities that are confronting the adoption of new technology the chance to weigh evidence on the pros and cons and make an informed judgment

49. Development and Minority Groups • Indigenous people and women are often the ones most negatively affected by development projects

50. Indigenous people have been subjected to loss of rights, land, and culture they once had Through indigenous claims and pressure, some states have begun to resolve land issues Many indigenous people have formed their own organizations to promote “development from within” Some organizations link separate indigenous groups to increase their power Indigenous People & Development