The ambiguity of participation: a qualified defence of participatory development

Abstract

This paper examines some of the critiques addressed to participatory development by critics such as Cooke and Kothari. It argues that criticisms of participation's theoretical coherence and of its lapse into a routinised praxis largely arise from an unavoidable ambiguity that is inherent in the concept of participation, this being the means/end ambiguity. Participation must function as a means because any development project must produce some outputs (therefore participation is seen as a means to achieve such outputs), but it must also function as an end inasmuch as empowerment is viewed as a necessary outcome. This ambiguity becomes contradictory when emphasis is laid on participation as a means at the expense of participation as an end. The article proposes ways of re‐emphasising the element of empowerment so that participation may function as an emancipatory strategy.

Notes

Trevor Parfitt is in the Department of Political Science, American University in Cairo, 113 Kasr El Ain Street, PO Box 2511, Cairo 11511, Egypt. Email: [email protected].

H Henkel & R Stirrat, ‘Participation as spiritual duty: empowerment as secular subjection’, in B Cooke & U Kothari (eds), Participation: The New Tyranny, London: Zed Press, 2001, p 168.

All quoted in P Oakley et al, Projects with People: The Practice of Participation in Rural Development, Geneva: International Labour Office, 1991, p 6.

Ibid, pp 7–8.

Ibid, p 8.

R Chambers, Whose Reality Counts Putting the Last First, London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1997, p 183.

Oakley et al, Projects with People, p 8.

J Rietbergen‐McCracken & D Narayan, Participation and Social Assessment: Tools and Techniques, Washington DC: World Bank, 1998, p 4.

See Chambers, Whose Reality Counts?.

U Kothari, ‘Power, knowledge and social control in participatory development’, in Cooke & Kothari, Participation, p 140.

G Mohan, ‘Beyond participation: strategies for deeper empowerment’, in Cooke & Kothari, Participation, p 160.

Kothari, ‘Power, knowledge and social control’, p 145.

Chambers, Whose Reality Counts?, p 218.

Kothari, ‘Power, knowledge and social control’, p 147.

L Fortmann, ‘Women’s rendering of rights and space: reflections on feminist research methods', in R Slocum, Lori Wichart, Dianne Rocheleau & Barbara Thomas‐Slayter (eds), Power, Process and Participation—Tools for Change, London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1995, p 37.

I Kapoor, ‘The devil’s in the theory: a critical assessment of Robert Chambers' work on participatory development', Third World Quarterly, 23 (1), 2002, pp 101–117.

Oakley et al, Projects with People, pp 17–18.

G Mohan & K Stokke, ‘Participatory development and empowerment: the dangers of localism’, Third World Quarterly, 21 (2), 2000, pp 247–268.

Kapoor, ‘The devil’s in the theory', p 114.

D Mosse, ‘“People’s knowledge”, participation and patronage: operations and representations in rural development', in Cooke & Kothari, Participation, p 23.

Ibid, p 25.

N Hildyard et al, ‘Pluralism, participation and power: joint forest management in India‘, in Cooke & Kothari, Participation, pp 63–64.

F Cleaver, ‘Institutions, agency and the limitations of participatory approaches to development‘, in Cooke & Kothari, Participation, p 53.

B Cooke, ‘The social psychological limits of participation?’, in Cooke & Kothari, Participation, p120.

R Leurs, ‘Current challenges facing participatory rural appraisal’, in J Blackburn & J Holland (eds), Who Changes? Institutionalizing participation in development, London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1998, p 128.

Ibid, p 125.

A Cornwall et al, In Search of a New Impetus: Practitioners’ Reflections on pra and Participation in Kenya, IDS Working Paper 131, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, p 7.

Leurs, ‘Current challenges facing participatory rural appraisal’, p 125.

IDS Workshop, ‘Towards a learning organisation—making development agencies more participatory from the inside’, in Blackburn & Holland, Who Changes?, pp 145–152.

J Thompson, ‘Participatory approaches in government bureaucracy: facilitating institutional change’, in Blackburn & Holland, Who Changes?, pp 15–16.

Cornwall et al, ‘In search of a new impetus’, pp 28–29.

S Burkey, People First: A Guide to Self‐Reliant Participatory Rural Development, London: Zed Press, 1993, pp 61–64.

G Mohan, ‘Beyond participation: strategies for deeper empowerment’, in Cooke & Kothari, Participation, p 165.

J Hailey, ‘Beyond the formulaic: process and practice in South Asian ngos’, in Cooke & Kothari, Participation, p 101.

I. Kapoor, ‘The devil’s in the theory’, p 105.

T Parfitt, The End of Development: Modernity, Post‐Modernity and Development, London: Pluto Press, 2002, pp 155–156.

For an extended discussion of Derrida’s ideas and their developmental implications, see Parfitt, The End of Development, ch 4.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Trevor Parfitt

Trevor Parfitt is in the Department of Political Science, American University in Cairo, 113 Kasr El Ain Street, PO Box 2511, Cairo 11511, Egypt. Email: [email protected].