Participatory action research into donor–recipient relations: a case study

Abstract

This article describes the exploratory and preparatory phase of a research project designed to use co-operative enquiry as a method for transformative and participatory action research into relations between donors and recipients in two developing countries, Bolivia and Bangladesh. It describes the origins of the idea, the conceptual challenges that the authors faced in seeking funding, and what they learned from this first phase. The authors analyse why the researchers, as well as the potential subjects of the research, were uncomfortable with the proposed methodology, including the challenges arising from their own positions and the highly sensitive nature of the topic. They explain why they decided to abandon the project, and they reach some tentative conclusions concerning the options for participatory action learning and research in development practice.

Keywords:

• Aid
• Civil Society
• Gender and Diversity
• Methods
• Latin America/Caribbean
• South Asia

Acknowledgements

The research that this article describes was funded by the UK Department for International Development (SSR Project R8248). DFID supports policies, programmes, and projects to promote international development. DFID provided funds for this study as part of that objective, but the views and opinions expressed are those of the authors alone. Rosalind Eyben is grateful to Andrea Cornwall, Jethro Pettit, and an anonymous reviewer for commenting on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

1. We hoped to contribute to this change process by being the first social-science research project funded by DFID in which the project management and the administration of the funds were the responsibility of the Southern partner, namely CERES.

2. Four key elements of complexity theory are most relevant for a relationships-based approach to aid:

• (a) Change commonly occurs by self-organisation of elements in the system through interaction with each other: this understanding privileges relationships, processes, and networks rather than structures.

• (b) There are multiple causes, multiple effects, and multiple solutions, for example to poverty reduction.

• (c) Anyone's diagnosis of the problem and its solution(s) is necessarily partial, because the information that any individual possesses about the complex system will be limited, and his or her understanding will be influenced by prior conceptions of how change happens.

• (d) In unbounded problems (where there is no clear agreement about exactly what the problem is), there may be non-proportionality of cause and effect, there is ambiguity as to how improvements might be made, and there are no limits on the time and resources that the problem could absorb (Eyben 2006: 48–9).

3. The following section draws on unpublished research reports into donor–recipient relations in Bangladesh and Bolivia by Hossain and León respectively.

4. For excellent commentaries on the significance of race in development, see Crewe and Harrison (1998) and White (2002).