APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT: A STRUCTURATION PERSPECTIVE

ABSTRACT

Despite the increasing criticisms against the generalizations associated with empiricist research and the increasing call for the adoption of realist and structurationist approaches in social research, research works on the development process continue to be dominated by positivist philosophy, producing generalizations and recommendations which are often not based on the perceptions of the people concerned. The previous reports on the Transkei Appropriate Technology Unit (TATU) are not exceptions to this generalizing problem.

This paper seeks to break new ground on the publications on TATU by highlighting the fact that the fundamental task of the social researcher must be to understand agents through the method of participatory research. The paper also argues that individual and collective perceptions must be related to specific development structures in their historical and spatial conjunctures since social structures and perceptions are not just located in time and space but themselves reflect the societal organization of temporal and spatial resources.