When Participation Meets Empowerment: The WWF and the Politics of Invitation in the Chimalapas, Mexico

Abstract

Emerging out of radical theories about the uneven nature of power and underwriting practices that assist marginalized peoples in constructing their own development strategies, “participation” has recently come under fire for being co-opted and mainstreamed by governmental and nongovernmental agencies, part of a new development “tyranny” that betrays the concept's populist roots. The issues surrounding participation are nowhere more hotly debated than in the area of conservation, where the requirements of ecological sustainability often collide with the demands of indigenous people seeking to control their own natural resources. As we show in this article, the issues become even more complex when the ideals and practices of participation circulating within a nongovernmental organization (NGO) are met by indigenous forms of empowerment, based not only on the resources of a remote and biologically diverse forest, but also on a pool of knowledge about development discourses themselves, including those of participation. Our case study examines interactions between an affiliate of the World Wildlife Fund operating out of Oaxaca, a state capital in southern Mexico, and a group of indigenous Zoque-speakers living in that state's Chimalapas forest. We interpret the collision between the NGO's “participation” and the Zoques' “empowerment” by employing “progressive contextualization,” an approach that leads us to identify and analyze the wider sets of conditions underpinning the encounter. We find that the Zoques invert a generic and aspatial politics of participation by insisting on a territorially-based, and thus intensely spatial, “politics of invitation” as they negotiate the complexities of participation within contemporary development.

Key Words:

• empowerment
• NGOs
• Oaxaca
• Mexico
• participation
• World Wildlife Fund

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under the auspices of research grant SBE-GRS # 024329-5, “Transnational Networks of NGOs.” We thank other members of the research team whose work has been integral to the larger project: Sarah Moore, Laurel Smith, Margath Walker, and Jamie Winders. The assistance of staff at WWF-UK and WWF-Bosques, particularly David Ortega, is appreciated, as are the contributions of several interviewees from San Miguel Chimalapa and Santa María Chimalapa, particularly Cuauhtémoc Martinez Gutierrez. We also thank Thomas Bassett, Katherine Gibson, Richard Gilbreath, Andrew Grimes, Dorothea Kleine, Diana Liverman, Katharine McKinnon, Tad Mutersbaugh, Wolfgang Natter, Phil O'Neill, Jeffrey Popke, Patricia Price, Sarah Radcliffe, and Paul Robbins for their comments and assistance.

Notes

1. A few methodological comments are in order. This work is part of a larger project (Roberts, Jones, and Fröhling 2005) aimed at tracing the discourses and practices of modern managerialism (e.g., accountability, transparency, participation, entrepreneurship) as they circulate through NGO networks in and beyond Oaxaca. The project's aim is to understand the effects of managerialism upon NGOs' spatial strategies, organizational culture, and project design and implementation. The methodology involves organizational ethnographies to trace managerialism's flow through and impact on NGOs (for a parallel approach aimed at capturing the impact of product-certification standards as they move through transnational networks, see Mutersbaugh 2004). The case reported here is based on DW's daily work within the Oaxaca offices of Bosques. As part of his WWF-approved participant observation as a researcher, DW was permitted to attend meetings, conduct interviews, and shadow staff as they went about their tasks. He was also given access to numerous written reports. During the course of his work within the office, participation emerged as a key aspect of managerialism facing the Bosques staff. The empirical materials reported here are based on field notes and interviews collected during 2004 and 2005. Because of the sensitivity of some of the materials, and to comply with confidentiality assurances made to interviewees, we do not in most cases disclose their names or positions, nor do we reveal the precise dates on which the interviews occurred.

2. Even prior to its publication, Chapin's essay was being circulated and discussed in the offices of NGOs worldwide, including Bosques. As noted by Worldwatch Institute President Chris Flavin in the January/February issue of World Watch Magazine (2005, 5), Chapin's article attracted an “overwhelming” response, more than any other article since the magazine's inception in 1988.

3. One stake in the discussions is the extent to which researchers in political ecology should privilege political over ecological forces in explaining environmental change (Walker 2005). In our particular case this debate is a moot issue, for the case study at hand concerns not ecological transformations but social interactions, here between NGO staff and indigenous peoples. The “events” in question are therefore inherently political.

4. Some of PPP's ambitious Mexican projects have stalled in the wake of indigenous opposition, internal political squabbling, and financial constraints, but other parts, such as highway construction from Oaxaca City to the Isthmus, are being implemented piece by piece.

5. The agencies represented were the State Development Panning Committee (COPLADE), the Secretariat for Agricultural and Forest Development (SEDAF), the Secretariat for Social Development (SEDESOL), the Transportation Ministry (SCT), the Secretariat for Agriculture (SAGARPA) and its Extension Service (FIRCO), CONADEPI, and SEMARNAT. In addition to Bosques, there was also a representative from another Mexican NGO, the National Wildlife Council (CNF).

6. While not emanating directly from the Chimalapas forest, the 2006 political uprising in Oaxaca City shows that this commentator was not wrong in making pointed reference to the volatility of the region.

7. As Bruno Barras, a leader of the Yshiro-Ebitoso people of the Paraguayan Chaco, has noted, “The problem is that most NGOs treat us [indigenous and traditional people] as if we are babies still drinking from feeding bottles. They speak for us and design projects for us. Most times they are the main beneficiaries of the ‘projects for the communities’” (Barras 2004, 49). Barras also raises the issue of who actually receives the resources NGOs obtain in the name of indigenous people, just as the Zoques had done in the case of MPS in the 1990s.

8. Thanks to Jeffrey Popke for pointing us toward this aspect of Derrida's formulation.