Development and Change
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Dismantling the Divide Between Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge ABSTRACT In the past few years scholarly discussions have characterized indigenous knowledge as a significant resource for development. This article interrogates the concept of indigenous knowledge and the strategies its advocates present to promote development. The article suggests that both the concept of indigenous knowledge, and its role in development, are problematic issues as currently conceptualized. To productively engage indigenous knowledge in development, we must go beyond the dichotomy of indigenous vs. scientific, and work towards greater autonomy for ‘indigenous’ peoples.
Development and Change - Tập 26 Số 3 - Trang 413-439 - 1995
Unofficial Road Building in the Amazon: Socioeconomic and Biophysical Explanations ABSTRACT Roads have manifold social and environmental impacts, including regional development, social conflicts and habitat fragmentation. ‘Road ecology’ has emerged as an approach to evaluate the various ecological and hydrological impacts of roads. This article aims to complement road ecology by examining the socio‐spatial processes of road building itself. Focusing on the Brazilian Amazon, a heavily‐studied context due to forest fragmentation by roads, the authors consider non‐state social actors who build ‘unofficial roads’ for the purpose of gaining access to natural resources to support livelihoods and community development. They examine four case studies of roads with distinct histories in order to explain the socio‐spatial processes behind road building in terms of profit maximization, land tenure claims, co‐operative and conflictive political ecologies, and constraints as well as opportunities afforded by the biophysical environment. The study cases illustrate the need for a multi‐pronged theoretical approach to understanding road building, and call for more attention to the role of non‐state actors in road construction.
Development and Change - Tập 38 Số 3 - Trang 529-551 - 2007
Is Good Policy Unimplementable? Reflections on the Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice Abstract Despite the enormous energy devoted to generating the right policy models in development, strangely little attention is given to the relationship between these models and the practices and events that they are expected to generate or legitimize. Focusing on the unfolding activities of a development project over more than ten years as it falls under different policy regimes, this article challenges the assumption that development practice is driven by policy, suggesting that the things that make for ‘good policy’— policy which legitimizes and mobilizes political support — in reality make it rather unimplementable within its chosen institutions and regions. But although development practice is driven by a multi‐layered complex of relationships and the culture of organizations rather than policy, development actors work hardest of all to maintain coherent representations of their actions as instances of authorized policy, because it is always in their interest to do so. The article places these observations within the wider context of the anthropology of development and reflects on the place, method and contribution of development ethnography.
Development and Change - Tập 35 Số 4 - Trang 639-671 - 2004
The Evolutionary Theory of Land Rights as Applied to Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Critical Assessment ABSTRACT The evolutionary theory of land rights can be considered the dominant framework of analysis used by mainstream economists to assess the land tenure situation in developing countries, and to make predictions about its evolution. A central tenet of this theoryis that under the joint impact of increasing population pressure and market integration, land rights spontaneously evolve towards rising individualization and that this evolutioneventually leads rightsholders to press for the creation of duly formalized private property rights — a demand to which the state will have an incentive to respond. This article looks critically at the relevance of the evolutionary theory of land rights as currently applied to Sub‐Saharan Africa. In particular, the question of whether the establishmentof private property rights is an advisable structural reform in the present circumstancesis examined, in the light of evidence accumulated so far. It will be argued that most of the beneficial effects usually ascribed to such a reform are grossly over‐estimated and that, given its high cost, it is generally advisable to look for more appropriate solutions that rely on existing informal mechanisms at community level.
Development and Change - Tập 27 Số 1 - Trang 29-86 - 1996
The Contradictory Logic of Global Ecosystem Services Markets ABSTRACT Commodification and transnational trading of ecosystem services is the most ambitious iteration yet of the strategy of ‘selling nature to save it’. The World Bank and UN agencies contend that global carbon markets can slow climate change while generating resources for development. Consonant with ‘inclusionary’ versions of neoliberal development policy, advocates assert that international payment for ecosystem services (PES) projects, financed by carbon‐offset sales and biodiversity banking, can benefit the poor. However, the World Bank also warns that a focus on poverty reduction can undermine efficiency in conservation spending. The experience of ten years of PES illustrates how, in practice, market‐efficiency criteria clash directly with poverty‐reduction priorities. Nevertheless, the premises of market‐based PES are being extrapolated as a model for global REDD programmes financed by carbon‐offset trading. This article argues that the contradiction between development and conservation observed in PES is inevitable in projects framed by the asocial logic of neoclassical economics. Application in international conservation policy of the market model, in which profit incentives depend upon differential opportunity costs, will entail a net upward redistribution of wealth from poorer to wealthier classes and from rural regions to distant centres of capital accumulation, mainly in the global North.
Development and Change - Tập 43 Số 1 - Trang 105-131 - 2012
Nature™ Inc.: Changes and Continuities in Neoliberal Conservation and Market‐based Environmental Policy ABSTRACT Nature™ Inc. describes the increasingly dominant way of thinking about environmental policy and biodiversity conservation in the early twenty‐first century. Nature is, and of course has long been, ‘big business’, especially through the dynamics of extracting from, polluting and conserving it. As each of these dynamics seems to have become more intense and urgent, the capitalist mainstream is seeking ways to off‐set extraction and pollution and find (better) methods of conservation, while increasing opportunities for the accumulation of capital and profits. This has taken Nature™ Inc. to new levels, in turn triggering renewed attention from critical scholarship. The contributions to this Debate section all come from a critical perspective and have something important to say about the construction, workings and future of Nature™ Inc. By discussing the incorporation of trademarked nature and connecting what insights the contributions bring to the debate, we find that there might be what we call an intensifying dialectic between change and limits influencing the relations between capitalism and nature. Our conclusion briefly points to some of the issues and questions that this dialectic might lead to in future research on neoliberal conservation and market‐based environmental policy.
Development and Change - Tập 43 Số 1 - Trang 53-78 - 2012
Market Masquerades: Uncovering the Politics of Community‐level Payments for Environmental Services in Cambodia ABSTRACT A growing number of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) schemes are being implemented at the community level in developing countries, especially in the context of climate change mitigation efforts to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD). In parallel, there is vigorous commentary about the implications of market‐based or neoliberal conservation strategies, and their potential effects on communities that depend on natural resources. This article explores the political dimensions of community‐level PES in Cambodia, where contracts for ‘avoided deforestation’ and ‘biodiversity conservation’ were implemented in five communities. The research examines three aspects of the community‐level PES model that are inherently political: the engagement of communities as single homogeneous entities, capable of entering PES contracts; the simplification of land‐use practices and resource rights; and the assumption that contracts are voluntary or reflect ‘community choice’. These elements of PES work both discursively and practically to silence certain voices and claims, while privileging others. Therefore, the problematic nature of community‐level PES is not that it is a market per se , but that it is a powerful intervention masquerading as a market. This process of ‘market masquerades’ emerges as a key element in the politics of neoliberal conservation in practice.
Development and Change - Tập 43 Số 1 - Trang 133-158 - 2012
World Bank‐directed Development? Negotiating Participation in the Nam Theun 2 Hydropower Project in Laos ABSTRACT The omnipotence of the World Bank on a global scale means that it is often regarded as the most influential partner in bringing about transformations in developing countries. This article contributes to ongoing discussions of this issue by examining some effects of the Bank's participatory agenda in one of its flagship projects, the Nam Theun 2 (NT2) hydropower scheme in Laos. Critical accounts suggest that the Bank's promotion of participation in donor‐dependent countries like Laos is either a guise or an imposition. These propositions are considered in two settings where participation was debated around the time of the Bank's loan appraisal for NT2: first, an international stakeholders’ workshop held in Vientiane; and second, some international attempts to identify the concerns of villagers living near the NT2 dam site. In workshops and villages, participation is a negotiated performance whereby competing representations emerge through the interaction between village, state and international actors. More generally, this article shows that a grounded view of development can attend to the practices that constrain the hegemonic tendencies of the World Bank, even while maintaining awareness of the potency of its policies and interventions.
Development and Change - Tập 40 Số 3 - Trang 487-507 - 2009
Democratization and State Feminism: Gender Politics in Africa and Latin America This article addresses the link between state feminism and democratization in the global South. The authors use the contrasting cases of Chile and Nigeria to show some of the factors that encourage women to exploit the opportunities presented by transitions to democracy, and link the outcome of state feminism to the strategies and discourses available to women during democratization. Based on evidence from the cases analysed, the authors propose that the strategic options available to women are shaped by at least three factors: (1) the existence of a unified women’s movement capable of making political demands; (2) existing patterns of gender relations, which influence women’s access to arenas of political influence and power; and (3) the content of existing gender ideologies, and whether women can creatively deploy them to further their own interests. State feminism emerged in Chile out of the demands of a broad–based women’s movement in a context of democratic transition that provided feminists with access to political institutions. In Nigeria, attempts at creating state feminism have consistently failed due to a political transition from military to civilian rule that has not provided feminists with access to political arenas of influence, and the absence of a powerful women’s movement.
Development and Change - Tập 33 Số 3 - Trang 439-466 - 2002
Using Cities to Control the Countryside: An Alternative Assessment of the <i>China National Human Development Report 2013</i>
Development and Change - Tập 46 Số 4 - Trang 993-1009 - 2015
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