Indigenous voices and the making of the post-2015 development agenda: the recurring tyranny of participation

Abstract

This paper explores recent efforts to ensure the participation of indigenous peoples in the making of the post-2015 development agenda. It is based on an examination of the UN’s global consultation process, conducted between July 2012 and July 2013. Using discursive analysis of consultation findings and reports, we argue that the UN’s approach to participatory development represents a pretence rather than an actual shift in power from development experts to the intended beneficiaries of development. Therefore the post-2015 consultation process aptly illustrates the recurring tyranny of participation, this time at a global level, as the UN maintains control over global development goals. Recognising that it would be unjust to ignore the ability of marginalised groups to challenge the UN’s dominant narratives of development, we suggest that there is still time for indigenous voices to be heard in the build-up to the post-mdg era through ‘invited’ and ‘uninvited’ forms of participation.

Keywords:

• participatory development
• post-2015 development
• indigenous peoples
• tyranny of participation
• United Nations

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr Suzan Ilcan for comments on an earlier version of this paper and the Editor of Third World Quarterly for suggesting an important revision to the title of the paper. The authors remain responsible for any errors or omissions.

Notes

1. UN Secretary General, “Post-2015 Agenda Must Incorporate Rights,” para. 4.

2. Franklin, “Reaching the Millennium Development Goals”.

3. undesa, State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, 4.

4. Ibid.

5. Telles, “Race and Ethnicity,” 185–200.

6. Chambers, “Participation and Poverty,” 20–25; and Chambers, “So that the Poor Count More,” 243–246.

7. Cornwall, “Whose Voices? Whose Choices?”; and Cornwall, “Unpacking ‘Participation’”.

8. Cooke and Kothari, Participation.

9. Tran, “Guatemalan Activist,” para. 8.

10. Ibid.

11. undg, The Global Conversation Begins, 50.

12. undg, A New Global Partnership, 2.

13. undg, Post-2015 Development Agenda.

14. undg, The Global Conversation Begins; and undg, A Million Voices.

15. Mihlar, Voices from the Margins, 9.

16. undg, A New Global Partnership, 2.

17. Cooke and Kothari, Participation.

18. Lazar, “Citizenship Quality.”

19. Nelson and Wright, Power and Participatory Development, 51.

20. Ibid.

21. Ferguson, Global Shadows; Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity; Escobar, Encountering Development; and Escobar, “Latin America at a Crossroads.”

22. Chambers, “Participation and Poverty”; and Chambers, “So that the Poor Count More”.

23. Lazar, “A New Agenda for Development,” 335.

24. Cleaver, “Paradoxes of Participation.”

25. Lazar, “A New Agenda for Development.”

26. Williams, “Evaluating Participatory Development”; and Kapoor, “Participatory Development.”

27. Cooke and Kothari, Participation; and Hickey and Mohan, Participation.

28. Cooke and Kothari, Participation.

29. Mohan and Stokke, “Participatory Development and Empowerment,” 247.

30. Cleaver, “Paradoxes of Participation,” 608.

31. Green, “Representing Poverty and Attacking Representations.”

32. Cornwall, “Whose Voices? Whose Choices?”

33. Lazar, “A New Agenda for Development,” 335.

34. Cornwall, “Whose Voices? Whose Choices?,” 1325.

35. Vandemoortele, Advancing the UN Development Agenda, 2–3.

36. Ibid.

37. undg, A New Global Partnership.

38. undg, Post-2015 Development Agenda, 13.

39. undg, Realizing the Future We Want for All, 4.

40. undg, A Million Voices.

41. Telles, “Race and Ethnicity.”

42. undg, Post-2015 Development Agenda, 10.

43. undg, The Global Conversation Begins.

44. Cornwall and Fujita, “Ventriloquising ‘The Poor?’.”

45. undg, Post-2015 Development Agenda, 28.

46. undg, Post-2015 Development Agenda.

47. Goetz, “From Feminist Knowledge to Data for Development.”

48. undg, A New Global Partnership, 28 (emphasis added).

49. undg, A Million Voices, 68.

50. Ibid., 128.

51. undg, The Global Conversation Begins, 22.

52. Cornwall and Fujita, “Ventriloquising ‘The Poor?’,” 1751.

53. Ibid., 1761.

54. Mihlar, Voices from the Margins.

55. undg, A Million Voices, 61. The synthesis report states: “In the 10 countries with indigenous participants, quality education was also associated with content of indigenous issues or bilingual curricula in the native language.”

56. Cornwall and Fujita, “Ventriloquising ‘The Poor?’,” 1761.

57. Ibid.

58. undg, A New Global Partnership, 1–2.

59. Mihlar, Voices from the Margins, 9.

60. Ibid.

61. undg, A New Global Partnership, 2.

62. Ibid., 9.

63. Mihlar, Voices from the Margins.

64. undg, A New Global Partnership, 37.

65. Ibid., 62.

66. As cited in Mihlar, Voices from the Margins, 10.

67. undg, A New Global Partnership, 48.

68. Ibid., 48.

69. Ibid.

70. Mihlar, Voices from the Margins.

71. undg, A New Global Partnership, 63.

72. Mihlar, Voices from the Margins, 14.

73. Ibid.

74. undg, A New Global Partnership, 47 (emphasis added).

75. Cornwall, “Whose Voices? Whose Choices?”; and Cornwall, “Unpacking ‘Participation’.”

76. undg, Post-2015 Development Agenda, 13.

77. Cooke and Kothari, Participation.

78. Cornwall and Fujita, “Ventriloquising ‘The Poor?’.”

79. Lazar, “A New Agenda for Development,” 335.

80. Cornwall and Fujita, “Ventriloquising ‘The Poor?’.”

81. Cornwall, Beneficiary, Consumer, Citizen.

82. Rojas, “Governing through the Social.”

83. Williams, “Evaluating Participatory Development.”

84. Kapoor, “Participatory Development.”