Participatory Development

Third World Quarterly, Vol 25, No 3, pp 537–556, 2004

The ambiguity of participation: aqualified defence of participatorydevelopment

TREVOR PARFITT

ABSTRACT This paper examines some of the critiques addressed to participa-tory development by critics such as Cooke and Kothari. It argues that criticismsof participation’s theoretical coherence and of its lapse into a routinised praxislargely arise from an unavoidable ambiguity that is inherent in the concept ofparticipation, this being the means/end ambiguity. Participation must function asa means because any development project must produce some outputs (thereforeparticipation is seen as a means to achieve such outputs), but it must alsofunction as an end inasmuch as empowerment is viewed as a necessary outcome.This ambiguity becomes contradictory when emphasis is laid on participation asa means at the expense of participation as an end. The article proposes ways ofre-emphasising the element of empowerment so that participation may functionas an emancipatory strategy.

It has become commonplace in articles on participatory development to start bynoting how influential this approach has become. Henkel and Stirrat refer to itas the new orthodoxy, noting that ‘by the early 1990s every major bilateraldevelopment agency emphasised participatory policies’.1 Indeed, that mostinfluential of multilateral agencies, the World Bank, had joined them in itsadvocacy of participation by the middle of the decade. Even if participationcannot be seen as the new orthodoxy, it is clear that it has become one of thecentral influences in mainstream development thinking.

Given the increasing influence of participatory approaches, it is unsurprisingthat they have attracted an increasing amount of attention from commentators,and it is perhaps inevitable that a proportion of this should be critical. A numberof analysts have written substantial critiques of participation, including Kapoor,Mohan, Porter, and the various critics whose work has been gathered in Cookeand Kothari’s volume Participation: The New Tyranny?. As is suggested by thetitle of the Cooke and Kothari reader, many of these critiques throw some levelof doubt on the emancipatory claims of participation, arguing that, rather thanempowering those at the grass roots, it simply provides alternative methods forincorporating the poor into the projects of large agencies which remain essen-tially unaccountable to those they are supposed to serve. In other words,

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].

ISSN 0143-6597 print/ISSN 1360-2241 online/04/030537-19 2004 Third World QuarterlyDOI: 10.1080/0143659042000191429 537

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participation is simply another means of pursuing traditional top-down develop-ment agendas, while giving the impression of implementing a more inclusiveproject of empowering the poor and the excluded.

The object of this paper is to interrogate some of the central criticismsaddressed to participation with a view to assessing how far any elements of aprogressive agenda of empowerment can be retrieved from the participatoryproject. In the next section we shall examine some of the more widely accepteddefinitions of participation, placing an emphasis on a certain ambiguity that theygive rise to in the concept of participation. It will be argued that this ambiguitycan give rise to contradictions that partially undermine the coherence of theparticipatory approach in its treatment of such issues as power and the nature ofthe community. It will also be observed that many criticisms tend to focusalmost exclusively on one approach in participation, namely Participatory RuralAppraisal (PRA), when in fact other approaches to participation are also available,and examination of them might have led to different conclusions. The mainburden of this paper is to argue that, while this ambiguity may make partici-pation a problematic approach, it also gives rise to opportunities for promotionof an emancipatory agenda. In other words, participation is a problematic andcontested ground, but one with the potential to deliver real benefits to those whohave hitherto been incorporated in the project of development as objects of themanipulations of development agencies.

Participation as means or end?

A variety of definitions of participation have been offered. Oakley et al gatheredtogether the following:

(a) Participation is considered a voluntary contribution by the people in one oranother of the public programmes supposed to contribute to national devel-opment, but the people are not expected to take part in shaping theprogramme or criticizing its contents (Economic Commission for LatinAmerica, 1973).

(b) With regard to rural development…participation includes people’s involve-ment in decision-making processes, in implementing programmes, theirsharing in the benefits of development programmes and their involvement inefforts to evaluate such programmes (Cohen and Uphoff, 1977).

(c) Participation is concerned with…the organized efforts to increase controlover resources and regulative institutions in given social situations on thepart of groups and movements of those hitherto excluded from such control(Pearse and Stiefel, 1979).

(d) Community participation [is] an active process by which beneficiary orclient groups influence the direction and execution of a development projectwith a view to enhancing their well-being in terms of income, personalgrowth, self-reliance or other values they cherish (Paul, 1987).2

All these definitions share the view that development will be enhanced if peopleare actively involved in the projects that affect them. However, it would be fairto say that statement (a) on the one hand, and statements (b), (c) and (d) on the

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other hand, represent radically different perspectives on the rationale for partici-pation. The first statement is suggestive that development will be enhancedbecause people are mobilised to volunteer some work on a project withoutactually having any substantive voice in determining what it will do and how itwill do it. However, statement (c) makes it clear that people at the grass rootsare to be given a measure of control over resources and within institutions, whilestatements (b) and (d) indicate that project participants will have a say in thedesign, management and evaluation of the project. Statements (b), (c) and (d)entail empowerment, whereas (a) does not. Oakley et al observe that thisdifference is related to the question of whether participation is seen as a meansor an end.3 Statement (a) implies that participation is to be seen as a means ofbringing about development, a way of mobilising people behind the predeter-mined objectives of development agencies. By contrast, the other statements allsuggest that, to one degree or another, participation is an end in itself inasmuchas it empowers people to pursue their own development activities and projects.

All of this is suggestive of an ambiguity at the heart of the concept ofparticipation, which has clear potential to manifest itself as contradiction. Itshould be clear that participation as a means has quite different implicationsfrom participation as an end. Notably, such different understandings of partici-pation have different implications for the analysis of power relations in theparticipatory process and for the way in which the target/beneficiary communityis viewed. To the extent that participation is viewed as a means, this is indicativethat power relations between those at the grass roots, or the target community,and the aid/governmental agencies, will be left largely untouched. Project design(including definition of project goals and targets) and management will be leftlargely in the hands of the traditional authorities, while the role of thosemobilised to participate will simply be to rally around to work for the predeter-mined goals of the project. Power relations between aid donors and recipientsremain essentially the same as in traditional top-down models of development.However, the view of participation as an end suggests a transformation in powerrelations between donor and recipient, with the latter empowered and liberatedfrom a clientelist relation with the former. Whereas participation as a means ispolitically neutral insofar as it does not address such power differentials,participation as an end has an emancipatory, politically radical component in thatit seeks to redress unequal power relations.

This also has implications for the analysis of the target group or community.Oakley points out that in cases where participation is used as a means it is‘essentially a short-term exercise; the local population is mobilised, there isdirect involvement in the task at hand but the participation evaporates once thetask is completed.’4 A short-termist approach that puts its emphasis on obtainingquick and (at least implicitly) cheap results is not conducive to a nuancedanalytical approach to the community in which the project is to be implemented.It is far more likely that the project implementers will attempt to mobilise thecommunity as a whole on the assumption that their project will be of generalbenefit to the populace at large. As many critics of participation argue, this is torisk ignoring decisive power differentials within a community and, all too often,it means that any benefits accruing from a project can be largely captured by the

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more powerful members of that community. By contrast with this, participationas an end implies a more critical approach to such questions. We may cite thefollowing passage by Chambers as an example of such analysis. He notes that:

Policy documents and project proposals advocate ‘community participation’ and gono further. Visitors to villages and slums assume that those whom they meetrepresent ‘the community’. Within communities, though, there are many obviousdifferences. Following Alice Welbourn (1991), four major axes of difference can beseen: of age, gender, ethnic or social group, and poverty; and there are alwaysothers: of capability and disability, education, livelihood strategy, types of assets,and much else. Those whom outsiders meet and interact with are most likely to bemiddle-aged or youths, male, from dominant groups, and economically better off.And often their criteria, preferences and priorities are taken as those of the wholecommunity; but the community also includes those who are weaker and worseoff—children, the very old, females, social inferiors, subordinate groups, thedisabled and those who are vulnerable and poor.5

In this passage Chambers’ unequivocal advocacy of an empowerment-basedapproach (participation as an end) is conducive to a greater concern accuratelyto identify those who need to be empowered, which itself gives rise to a moreproblematised approach to analysis of communities. Participation is here seen asa process of development in its own right rather than as a tool for achievingcertain goals.

It seems clear that the question of whether participation is seen as a means oran end has quite different implications for the way in which power andcommunity are analysed. In fact the majority of projects fall somewhere betweenthese two poles. As Oakley notes, ‘often government and development agenciessee participation as the means to improving the delivery systems of the projectsthey seek to implement’.6 This means that they are more prone to regardparticipation as a means, although it should be noted that many of them still giveat least rhetorical attention to the objective of empowerment. For example, theWorld Bank (often criticised as one of the more authoritarian aid institutions)notes that participation can involve ‘mechanisms for collaboration and empower-ment that give stakeholders more influence and control’.7 By contrast, otheragencies, such as NGOs that have a specific brief to represent vulnerable groups,tend to be more directly concerned with empowerment of their target groups. Byway of example one might cite the activities of Save the Children in Egypt,many of which have been focused on women’s and children’s education with aview to empowering women and enhancing child care and protection. Neverthe-less, even if we accept the proposition that the World Bank is still likely to bemore concerned with attaining certain project outcomes than participation, andSave the Children may show more genuine concern for empowerment, it muststill be conceded that the Bank at least shows some interest in participatorytechniques, while Save the Children is by no means uninterested in efficientlyachieving project objectives. It can be argued that no agency can afford tocompletely ignore participation, just as no agency can afford a completelycavalier attitude to the need to achieve at least some measurable developmentobjectives. Even the most top-down orientated organisation wants to engendersome participation in its projects (even if this only takes the form of acquies-

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cence), while those agencies that are concerned with empowerment want at leastsome measurable benefits to accrue to those that they empower. In short, aidagencies must necessarily try to strike a balance between concerns of empower-ment (participation as an end) and efficient achievement of development objec-tives (participation as a means) and this balance will vary in accordance with anumber of factors, including the organisation’s objectives, traditions and culture.

This necessity to strike a balance between participation as a means and an endindicates the inescapable nature of the means/end ambiguity. The impact of thisambiguity on the concept of participation is discernible in the aforementionedvagaries in the analysis of power and the community, whereby the view ofparticipation as a means leads to the under-analysis of power relations, both atthe donor–recipient level and within the community. In the next section we shallsee how this tendency gives rise to many of the criticisms made of participation.

Participation under scrutiny

Participation has been criticised at two levels, that of its theoretical coherenceand that of its practice. In this section we shall see that many of the theoreticalcritiques of participation are addressed to the issues identified above pertainingto the inadequate analysis of power and community. These issues are connectedto the criticisms of participatory practice, given that many critics link theseanalytical shortcomings with the way that participation is actualised, particularlythrough the strategy of PRA. Responses to these criticisms will be elaborateddrawing on the empowerment-orientated aspects of the participatory school thatthe critics have arguably under-valued.

Many critics focus on perceived inadequacies in the conceptualisation ofpower in Chambers’ work. Kothari points to Chambers’ tendency to presentsocial relations as a binary relation between ‘uppers’ who possess power, and‘lowers’ who are without power.8 It follows from this predicate that participationmust be about reversing this situation so that ‘lowers’ are empowered and‘uppers’ disempowered. Kothari argues further:

Participatory methodologies…require the formulation and adoption of a frameworkin which the micro is set against the macro, the margins against the centre, the localagainst the elite, and the powerless against the powerful. However, the almostexclusive focus on the micro-level, on people who are considered powerless andmarginal, has reproduced the simplistic notion that the sites of social power andcontrol are to be found solely at the macro- and central levels. These dichotomiesfurther strengthen the assumption that people who wield power are located atinstitutional centres, while those who are subjugated and subjected to power are tobe found at the local or regional level—hence the valorisation of ‘local knowledge’and the continued belief in the empowerment of ‘local’ people through partici-pation.9

It can be seen that such an account simplifies power relations in such a way asto obfuscate power differences at the local level. Mohan also notes ‘a tendency’in Chambers’ work ‘to romanticize and essentialize the poor and the socialsystems by which they operate’, which conceals ‘the important differences

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within the marginalized along lines of class, gender and ethnicity’.10 In theseinstances Chambers stands accused of a reductionist account of power relationsthat leads to under-analysis of the community.

However, these accounts of Chambers’ work do not sit comfortably with thequotation cited in the previous section where he specifically draws attention tothe presence of differentiation along lines of gender, age, ethnicity and socialgroup within local communities. This suggests that Chambers has a greaterappreciation of the social complexity of the local level than is initially impliedby his tendency to dichotomise social difference into ‘uppers’ and ‘lowers’. Itmay be because of her emphasis on the latter strand in Chambers’ thinking thatKothari makes a number of critical observations about PRA praxis that seemrather questionable. For example, she makes a blanket reference to PRA as apractice of surveillance, in which the poor are subjected to the disciplinary gazeof the aid donor without having any reciprocal right to examine or criticise thedonor.11 Yet Chambers refers to instances where farmers in Gujarat haveconducted their own monitoring of soil and conservation works, and villageorganisations in Sri Lanka and Gujarat have evaluated activities according tocriteria they have designed.12 In these instances the application of PRA techniquesto evaluation has enabled local people to have some feedback on aid activitiescarried out in their communities. Kothari also follows Mosse in suggesting thatPRA tools tend not to accurately represent the complexity of people’s lives (acontention that can be seen as following from the proposition that Chambers’account of power obfuscates differences at the local level). Rather, PRA tends tosimplify, ‘eliminating anything that is messy or does not fit the structuredrepresentations implied by participatory tools’ while ‘controlling to produce thenorm, the usual and the expected’.13 For example, Kothari suggests that aone-time event such as a wedding may be missed by a PRA exercise focused onthe routine, although it may have great significance for the financial well-beingof those involved in it. It is instructive to compare these observations with thefollowing account of a PRA exercise undertaken in Zimbabwe:

Participatory methods for wealth ranking involving card sorting are pretty standard.I sat down with my research team [consisting of people drawn from the localvillage] and said, ‘Tell me what rich people have, tell me what poor people have’.I wanted a five point scale. They pushed me to six. Their scale included the usualcast of variables—cattle, house type, and employment. But also included amongtheir variables was one I had never thought of—secondary education, where (in thevillage or in town), and how continuous. They laid out categories of people whowere dependent on other people for livelihoods. There was a huge argument overthe importance of owning means of production (ploughs, cattle, fields) againstowning consumer durables (fancy house, radio).

Then I asked each village researcher to rank all our respondents, leaving blankanyone they could not or did not want to rank. What I found particularly interestingin these rankings was that they ranked a number of widows much lower than Iwould have ranked them. Why? They ranked widows on what they themselvespersonally controlled/owned as opposed to what their children were able to givethem. Since their children might withdraw their favours, or be run over by a bus,

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their largesse did not count. There was a very strong sense of vulnerability in theserankings.14

In the first instance the reference to the standardisation of tools might seem tobear out Kothari’s reference to a normalising tendency in PRA. However, it isclear that at least in this instance the change agent was flexible enough to listento local people and take into account their concerns pertaining to appropriatenessof the wealth rankings. This suggests that PRA can be implemented in such a wayas to be sensitive to local specificities. Furthermore, the concern for the variablesituation of widows shows that these villagers were able to express considerableawareness of the particular and changeable situation of this vulnerable group.None of this suggests that PRA must inevitably elide over the messier, morevolatile aspects of life in order to produce the expected or ‘normal’ account ofpoor people’s lives.

Kapoor provides a somewhat different critique of Chambers’ account ofpower. He notes that Chambers equivocates between two positions, one beingthe binary division of society into uppers and lowers that Kothari focused on, theother being the more complex approach to analysis of local communities that wedrew attention to above. What these two positions hold in common is that theyboth envisage power as a negative influence, a force that those who areadvantaged use to repress those who are less advantaged. In order to correct this,power must be eliminated from the developmental arena and PRA is conceivedof as a means of achieving this. It is particularly worth noting that Chambersenvisages the uppers in aid agencies being persuaded to abandon their hold ontop-down mechanisms of power and to embrace the principles of participationand PRA on the basis of the personal satisfaction that this will afford them andthe increment in efficiency that will accrue to their development ventures. Inother words, they will be induced to give up their hold on power because of theefficacy of participation as a means.

Kapoor’s commentary starts from the basis that Chambers presents an under-theorised account of power that leaves out of account the Foucaultian insight thatpower is inevitably imbrocated with the formation of knowledge. In this sensepower cannot be eliminated from the developmental field since it is unavoidablyinvolved in the formation of development knowledge, irrespective of whether ornot such knowledge was gathered through participatory means. It furtherindicates that power is not to be seen purely in a negative light but, rather, asJanus-faced, having a repressive aspect, but also a more positive role in theformation of knowledge.15 This complicates Chambers’ agenda in a number ofways. First, the power of aid agencies cannot be dispensed with in the simpleway that he envisages, through a voluntary decision by the uppers in that agency.Second, participatory techniques such as PRA cannot be seen as ways of purgingpower relations from development because they are products of and thoroughlypermeated by power relations themselves. The danger in proposing that powercan be eliminated from development lies in the certainty that less obvious formsof power will certainly persist and the likelihood that some of them will berepressive, perhaps just as repressive as the more overtly top-down powerrelations that they purportedly reform. In this context it is notable that one of the

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inducements Chambers cites as persuading uppers to embrace PRA is theincrement that it will give to efficiency. This resort to a discourse of participationas means effectively re-inscribes the primacy of a top-down logic of the need toachieve measurable objectives efficiently. Thus, power re-enters the equationincognito under the guise of the demands of efficiency.

Clearly, Chambers falls into a trap created by the ambiguity of participation.He wants to propound a methodology for empowerment of vulnerable groupsbut, in order to sell the idea of participation to the ‘uppers’ in the aid agencies,he resorts to a rhetoric of efficiency, or participation as means. This is a similarmove to that undertaken by Oakley, who even more explicitly asserts therationale for adoption of participation by development organisations in terms ofsuch criteria as efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability.16 Associated with thisis a rather one-dimensional view of power as a force of oppression which canbe banished if the aid agencies vow to embrace participation and PRA. All of thisis to ignore the pervasive nature of power, which will persist in participatoryventures, albeit in forms that may have a participatory veneer. Notwithstandingthe extensive efforts both Chambers and Oakley make to defend the centralityof empowerment, their resort to the discourse of participation as means servesas the key that aid agencies can use to reintroduce top-down disciplines andpower relations, while simultaneously claiming to be inclusive and empower-ment-orientated through their endorsement of participation.

Kapoor and various other critics identify a number of ways in which powerrelations can be (and often are) secreted in the PRA process. Kapoor, and Mohanand Stokke note that the value that is attributed to local knowledge can oftenlead to its automatic acceptance.17 This can mean that local structures of powersuch as patriarchy are overlooked. Similarly, the nature of PRA as a publicexercise means that it tends to undervalue the private, which can mean thatwomen’s issues are concealed in areas where women are excluded from thepublic sphere. Kapoor suggests that there could even be ‘false use of PRA by stateorganisations to co-opt or monitor groups and communities seen as threaten-ing’.18 Mosse, Cleaver and Hildyard et al all provide case studies that bear outthe contention made above that top-down power relations tend to be preservedin certain projects beneath a participatory edifice. Mosse’s discussion of theKribhco Indo-British Farming Project (KRIBP) suggests that participation maytake place largely on a symbolic level, while the real decisions are taken at amuch higher level. He asserts:

not infrequently, programme decisions take place with little reference to locallyproduced knowledge at all. PRA charts and diagrams provide attractive walldecorations, making public statements about participatory intentions, legitimisingdecisions already made—in other words symbolizing good decision-making withoutinfluencing it.19

Mosse points out that projects like the KRIBP emerge out of an institutionalsetting involving national and local governments as well as wider aid bureaucra-cies. All these forces put pressure on project management and personnel toproduce outputs that such organisations can recognise as measures of progress,such as achievement of spending targets and timely delivery of quantifiable

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project objectives. Mosse argues that ‘over time, and through a Weberianprocess of routinization, the operational demands of a project such as KRIBP (ietimely implementation of high-quality programmes) can become divorced fromits participatory methods and goals’.20 He recounts how the KRIBP came to becharacterised by a dual logic in which there was a symbolic observance of theprinciples of participation, while the project actually operated along top-downlines. The adherence of the project’s clients was maintained through thedeployment of patronage by project staff. In short, the appearance of partici-pation was preserved while the project actually adhered to traditional top-downpower relations.

Hildyard et al draw similar conclusions from their case study of the WesternGhats Forestry Project in Karnataka, India, a venture in Joint Forest Manage-ment, this being a participatory approach to forestry. This involved the Karna-taka State Forestry Department (KFD) encouraging the formation of a number ofVillage Forest Committees (VFCs) to participate in forest conservation. Hildyardet al draw on research by Patricia Feeney of Oxfam to note that many of theproject’s activities were commenced before there had been any public meetingsto mobilise local people, that the KFD seemed to call VFC meetings at their ownconvenience, and they managed the funds and kept the minutes of meetings.Some VFCs only seemed to exist on paper. Furthermore, the VFCs were dominatedby the more powerful elements from within the villages and by men. Given thatthe VFCs were empowered to make rules on forest use this meant that the eliteswithin the villages were able to reorder forest use to their own best advantage.21

Although Hildyard et al note that there have been instances where villagers havebenefited from the VFCs, this is clearly a project where top-down power relationsbetween the implementing agency, the KFD, and the recipients have beenpreserved beneath a thin veneer. As anticipated in our earlier analysis, theconcern to achieve project objectives has also led to a failure to deal adequatelywith differences within the community, with the result that power disparitieshave been reproduced in the project.

Cleaver makes many of the same points as Mosse and Hildyard et al aboutroutinisation of participation and the persistence of top-down power structures,arguing as follows:

‘Participation’ in development activities has been translated into a managerialexercise based on ‘toolboxes’ of procedures and techniques. It has been turned awayfrom its radical roots: we now talk of problem-solving through participation ratherthan problematization, critical engagement and class…This limited approach toparticipation gives rise to a number of critical tensions or paradoxes. While weemphasize the desirability of empowerment, project approaches remain largelyconcerned with efficiency. While we recognize the importance of institutions, wefocus attention only on the highly visible, formal, local organizations, overlookingthe numerous communal activities that occur through daily interactions and sociallyembedded arrangements. A strong emphasis on the participation of individuals andtheir potential empowerment is not supported by convincing analyses of individualpositions, of the variability of the costs and benefits of participation, of theopportunities and constraints experienced by potential participants.22

This sums up many of the critiques of participatory practice, notably misuse of

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PRA techniques, the proclivity to focus on efficiency rather than empowerment,an obsession with creation of formal committees and organisations rather thandealing with existing groups. This is crowned by demands for more research intothe benefits and risks of participation.

In addition to all this we must keep in mind the critical insights that BillCooke brings to bear from a social-psychological perspective. Cooke refers tofour types of group dysfunction that he suggests may adversely affect theparticipatory process: risky shift, the Abilene paradox, groupthink and coercivepersuasion. The phenomenon of risky shift suggests that groups tend to takemore risky decisions than they would as individuals, thus suggesting thatorganisation of people into participatory groups may make them more risk prone.However, it is notable that the contention that groups will take more risks thanindividuals is premised on their living in a culture that values risk taking (eg theUSA). It is questionable how far this would apply to poor people in the South,who are usually identified as being conservative in their attitudes towards risk inview of their understanding of the dire consequences if such risk fails to pay offfor them. The Abilene paradox suggests that group actions often contradict whatthe group members really want to do, thus undermining their aims. The centralfactor in bringing about this outcome is a propensity for members of a group notto communicate and to make ill-founded assumptions about what others want,leading to decisions that run counter to what the group members actually wanted.It can be seen how a mechanistic application of PRA could give rise to such aphenomenon but, as we shall argue, participatory methodology does not have tofall into this trap. The phenomenon of groupthink indicates that groups can reacha false consensus when they reach a form of esprit de corps that displays certaincharacteristics. These include over-confidence about the power and capabilitiesof the group; a proclivity to rationalise away discouraging feedback; an unques-tioning acceptance of the morality of the group; negative stereotyping ofout-groups; self-censorship of any doubts and pressure against anybody whodoes express doubt; the tendency of some members to adopt the role of guardingthe group against negative information; and, as a consequence of the foregoing,a sense of false unanimity as to goals. While it is questionable whether somefactors might apply to groups of the Southern poor (notably over-confidence, forthe reason mentioned above), we have already seen from some of the othercritiques that out-groups may be excluded from participatory organisations, ormay be silenced even if they are allowed to join them. This indicates that certainaspects of groupthink are applicable in the participatory context. Again, it willbe argued that such tendencies can be avoided by a less mechanistic praxis. Thefinal type of group dysfunction that Cooke refers to is coercive persuasion,which can be summarised as brainwashing. Cooke suggests that coercivepersuasion, or conscientisation in the participatory context, consists of a three-stage process. The first stage consists in what Cooke terms ‘unfreezing’, ordestabilising a subject’s socio-ideological orientation through techniques basedon disconfirmation of that person’s world-view. The second stage is that of‘changing’ the orientation of the subject to the viewpoint preferred by theconscientiser by getting him or her to identify with the role model provided bythe conscientiser. The final stage is that of ‘refreezing’ the new orientation

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through positive techniques of confirmation. Cooke acknowledges the ambigu-ous nature of this process when he quotes Schein to the effect that, ifconsciousness is changed in a way that we approve of, we are more likely tolabel it positively (eg as conscientisation), whereas, if we disapprove, we aremore likely to apply a negative label, such as brainwashing.23 After all, theprocess that Cooke characterises could be used to describe such variant opera-tions as de-nazification, deprogramming of cult members, or US efforts to spreadthe creed of liberalism throughout the world. It can reasonably be argued that,to the extent that participation actually helps to change and mobilise people suchthat they are better able to accomplish their own development, there is noobvious reason why it should not be cast in a positive light even if it does workin the way Cooke suggests.

In this section we have reviewed some of the central critiques made ofparticipation both on the theoretical and the practical levels. It is clear that thereare substantive issues of doubt revolving around the means/end ambiguity thatwe identified earlier. At the theoretical level it seems clear that there is atrade-off between participation as a tool of empowerment and as a means toattain project objectives. Theorists such as Chambers and Oakley pitch theirwritings on participation in such a way as to try and sell it to aid agencies onthe basis of claims as to its efficiency, while also attempting to retain a centralposition for the idea of empowerment. However, this resort to a discourse ofefficiency has the tendency to open participation up to colonisation by top-downconcepts of managerial efficacy. The results of this are demonstrated in some ofthe case studies that have been cited, with a mechanistic, routinised, largelysymbolic practice of participation (often in the form of a rather perfunctory PRA)co-existing with an operational policy of traditional top-down management thataffords the recipients little in the way of empowerment. The question arises asto the extent to which this discredits participation as a development strategy. Inthe next section we shall attempt a rehabilitation of the idea of participation.

Reconstructing Participation

The central critiques of participation can be divided between those that focus onpraxis, notably on PRA, and those that question the analytical premises ofparticipation. Initially we shall try to provide some answers to these critiques atthe level of practice, before addressing some of the theoretical issues, notably themeans/end ambiguity that is integral to the concept of participation, but whichalso destabilises it.

Many observers have noted that formalism has grown with the spread of PRA

and its institutionalisation as a working methodology that has been adopted byan increasing number of development agencies. Indeed, this should not beunduly surprising, given the traditional bureaucratic characteristics of many aidagencies, with their emphases on rule following, hierarchy, procedure andplaying safe. Leurs observes that ‘perhaps the biggest challenge facing PRA atthis level [the organisational level] is the hierarchical organizational culturewhich is still so pervasive in non-governmental (including aid-funded projects)as well as government organisations’.24 A common pattern seems to be for

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development agencies of all kinds to adopt PRA in name so that they can claimto be participatory, only to try and institutionalise it as a part of their existingtop-down procedures. Leurs comments that ‘much PRA has been reduced to theincreasingly mechanical application of standardized sequences and combinationsof methods’.25

A study of the way that PRA has been used in Kenya comments that ‘for someagencies PRA has, it seems, simply become a bureaucratic requirement—a boxthat needs to be ticked for a project to proceed’. It also observes that:

‘Doing participation’ has, in some circles, become practically equivalent to doingPRA. A number of people highlighted the dangers of conflating the two. ‘Donorswant PRA, not participation’, one practitioner complained: they want a clearlydelimited product that would serve to meet the procedural obligation for consul-tation, not a process that could throw up challenges and possibilities beyond thebounds of the projects they had in mind. As an international NGO worker reflected,‘it seems like PRA is a thing you do to communities, rather than something aboutparticipation’.

This approach to PRA has the following costs:

One…is that PRA is simply slotted into existing practice, providing little challengeto institutionalised patterns of behaviour. Another is that without a closer under-standing of what PRA involves in practice—that is, without doing PRA—it is easyenough for people to latch onto elements of the approach. In so doing, they cometo regard ‘doing PRA’ as equivalent to, for example, applying a set package of toolsor as an event, ‘a PRA’, rather than as part of a process that has other aspects andentailments.26

This is illustrative of how a tokenistic use of PRA undercuts participation. Thecommon tendency to adopt a few tools, use them on a one-off basis in eachcommunity, and mechanistically repeat them from one community to the next,is far from conducive to a genuine process of participatory mobilisation. This isespecially the case if the agency or personnel doing the PRA are simply goingthrough the motions, with little if any intention of initiating a genuine participa-tory process in the first place.

In making these points it should not be forgotten that many agencies arecarrying out good work of the sort illustrated by Fortmann in the Zimbabweancase (see above), but bad PRAs are common enough that many people feel theyare a genuine reflection of what participation can achieve. For example, manyKenyan practitioners echoed the views of several of the critics cited here,expressing the view that PRA is not automatically sensitive to differences withincommunities. In particular, it was felt that PRA was gender blind and that itglossed over wealth differences in communities, consequently reinforcing in-equalities between men and women, and between wealthy and poor. Yet we havealready seen from the Fortmann example that a sensitive use of techniquesassociated with PRA can be very effective in identifying just such lines ofdifference. Clearly, the contrast between the Kenyan case and Fortmann’sZimbabwean example revolves around bad practice as against good practice. Itis clear that in Kenya many practitioners approach PRA in a tokenistic way,failing actually to engage with the people in an attempt to mobilise them. By

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contrast Fortmann avoided at least some of these pitfalls. Rather than using thewealth-ranking techniques in a purely routine manner, insisting that they beapplied exactly as specified in the manual, she used them as a starting point withwhich to communicate with the local community. In this sense she came muchcloser to observing Chambers’ views of empowerment and handing over thestick than to a top-down approach.

The question arises as to how to ensure some level of quality control inparticipatory work. This raises a complex of interrelated problems concerninghow to reconcile the somewhat contradictory demands of many developmentagencies for rules, regularity and efficient delivery of outputs (which implytop-down hierarchy) with the demands of empowerment for a more processualapproach involving handing over the stick. Analysts like Leurs see training ascentral in creating the conditions for good participation, advocating an approach‘which focuses on the role of the facilitator and his or her relationships withdifferent community members’. The facilitator is encouraged to analyse his/herexperience and generate training materials on this basis. This approach alsoencourages the facilitator to be self-critical and aware of his/her own actions.27

The emphasis on self-criticism and analysis would help to correct for tendenciestowards routinisation of participatory activities.

However, training does not in itself change organisational culture and, if atop-down organisation puts pressure on the facilitator to produce specific resultsin a certain time, s/he may well disregard any participatory training and revertto top-down methods. It is for this reason that many commentators, includingthose close to Chambers (eg many of his colleagues at the Institute of Develop-ment Studies (IDS) at Sussex University), have advocated the need for a new typeof development organisation, the learning organisation (a model that is derivedfrom business studies). An IDS workshop gave consideration to the changes inprocedures, systems and structures that would be necessary to turn top-downdevelopment bureaucracies into learning organisations. Under the rubric ofprocedural change, they recommended that aid donors and governments shouldmove away from an obsession with the need for a tightly defined, quantifiableproduct, or output, towards a greater concentration on process and capacitybuilding. Rather than looking for physical outputs, such as a school or a healthcentre, they should focus on the process of assisting people to enhance theircapacities to undertake and participate in development. Another of the work-shop’s recommendations was that incentive schemes should be introduced toreward participatory behaviour by personnel, both in the office and in the field.Rewards would be given to encourage behaviour patterns such as tolerance,mutual respect, openness to differing views, adaptability and the ability to learnfrom mistakes. Other procedural prerequisites for a learning organisation includeintroduction of feedback mechanisms so that information is shared and awillingness to have its development activities evaluated by stakeholders. Anumber of structural and systematic changes are identified as being necessary tosupport these procedural adaptations. First, the use of ‘flexible, ad hoc, innova-tive learning units’ is commended. These can help to break down boundariesbetween different sections or offices in an organisation, thus facilitating spreadof information and the ability to make ad hoc decisions when necessary. This

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would help the organisation become more flexible and responsive to situationsand opportunities as they arise in the field. The second structural/systemicchange recommended is flexible budgeting. The essence of participatory work isthat many development activities cannot be pre-planned and budgeted becausethey emerge out of the discussions between facilitators and beneficiaries. Somedevolution of responsibility for finance, the ability to switch money betweenbudget headings and the ability to roll unspent balances forward are essential toprovide the necessary flexibility to fund activities that have not been pre-planned. The IDS workshop points out that some donors are adopting some ofthese reforms, setting up contingency funds and permitting movement of fundingbetween budget headings. Finally, the importance of accountability to therecipients at the grass roots is emphasised. Indeed, participation necessitatesdownward accountability given that it entails recipients making decisions aboutwhat will be done. While its participants pointed out that downward accountabil-ity is necessary, the IDS Workshop failed to specify any systemic or structuralchanges that would help to bring this about, stipulating only that a ‘profoundchange in the behaviour and attitudes of those in positions of power, those whocontrol accounts, may be necessary’. The workshop suggested that taking seniorpersonnel into the field to show them the need for flexibility might help toconvince them to make such changes.28

Thompson notes that certain development projects have attempted to introducelearning mechanisms into their operation. The Badulla Integrated Rural Develop-ment Programme in Sri Lanka, the National Irrigation Administration of thePhilippines, and Kenya’s Soil and Water Conservation Branch have all madeefforts to develop institutional learning mechanisms. Thompson describes themas follows:

All three agencies…used pilot programmes as learning laboratories for testing,modifying and refining their new participatory approaches. These lessons wereanalysed and discussed in great detail by key decision makers from the agency and,in some instances, other external resource persons in a variety of workshops, reviewmeetings and working groups. The emphasis in all of these sessions was on criticalreflection, open sharing, constructive dialogue and learning. Various forms ofprocess documentation were also initiated, including regular village reports, catch-ment reports, process reports and socio-technical profiles. All of these forms ofdocumentation were distributed and discussed by a wide array of key stakeholderson a regular basis.29

Clearly these examples incorporate elements of the ‘learning organisation’model, notably self-critique, wide ranging and free discussion both within andoutside the organisation, information sharing, and moves towards downwardaccountability. All this is suggestive that at least some development organisa-tions are moving away from the top-down blueprint model towards a moreexperimental approach that involves at least an element of empowerment at thegrass roots.

While good training and institutional change may help to create the environ-ment for good participatory practice, it is questionable whether they aresufficient conditions for good participation. If we were to try to identify the

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elements that are core to good praxis, we would probably find ourselves focusingon the synergies that emerge from the positive behaviours (such as handing overthe stick and letting the recipients do things for themselves) emphasised byChambers and the attitude of self-critique (which Chambers also emphasised asessential to participation) that underlies and motivates such behaviour. Some-thing akin to this perception is evident in the views of many Kenyan practi-tioners, who agreed that ‘creation of more opportunities for interchange anddebate’ is essential to improve participatory practice. Cornwall et al elaborate onthese views as follows:

For some practitioners, the starting point for these discussions should be the coreconcepts underlying interpretations of ‘participation’. Conceptual clarity would,they suggested, help practitioners to differentiate between different forms ofpractice, and also to see the potential of using different participatory methodologiesto pursue the broader goals of participation. Others argued for the establishment ofnon-threatening spaces in which practitioners could interact around the dilemmas ofpractice. These ranged from ‘problem clinics at which less experienced practitionerscould gain support and advice from their more experienced peers, to open sessionsto which practitioners bring recent experiences and explore together ways to resolveproblems they face. Others still suggested starting from a discussion of outcomes,from which debate might be generated around indicators of impact, particularly fornon-tangible outcomes like ‘empowerment’. This could also take the shape of anopen discussion of standards of practice—whether framed in terms of minimumstandards, a code of ethics, or what a commitment to best practice actuallyinvolves.30

It can be seen how a widespread and open debate on such issues could deliverquite specific benefits in terms of mutual support, dissemination of varioustechniques, and greater general understanding among practitioners that partici-pation involves more than the routinised use of a few tools such as mapping andwealth ranking. Perhaps the most crucial benefit lies in the self-critical awarenessthat such ongoing debate is likely to foster, since this in itself constitutes themost effective safeguard against a formalistic praxis.

This gives rise to the question of how such debate might be ensured as anormal part of the participatory process. One of the central problems that criticsilluminate is that a moment of debate and self-critique is largely missing fromPRA, the most widely used methodology. It is too easy for practitioners to see PRA

as a grab bag of tools and techniques that the facilitator performs with acommunity. Certainly, there is the admonition to hand over the stick and to letthe villagers do it themselves, but there is no specific moment in a PRA thatnecessitates any self-critical debate among any of the parties involved, inclusiveof the donors and the aid beneficiaries. A good practitioner is likely tounderstand the need for such debate and critique and to introduce it as Fortmanndid (see above). However, it is all too easy for a facilitator to focus on the toolsand to forget about the principles that are supposed to underlie their utility.

This is suggestive of the need for a methodology in which the elements ofdebate and critique are central to the process in the sense of being built into it.In fact such a methodology exists in the shape of Participatory Action Research(PAR), which has been characterised by Burkey as ‘an educational process

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through which a target group is motivated to formulate strategies and initiateactivities to improve their collective situation’. Burkey defines it as follows:

Participatory action research takes place in time as part of the analysis—action—reflection process where the people are both the subject and the object of theresearch; where the investigator not only shares this reality, but in fact participatesin it as an agent of change. Participatory action research is thus an active researchwith a clearly defined purpose of creating knowledge to be shared by both thepeople and the investigator, knowledge that leads to action and, through reflection,to new knowledge and new action.

It is clear that analysis and reflection are an integral part of the process ofundertaking PAR, which consists of a cycle wherein analysis leads to action,followed by reflection, leading to further action. The centrality of these elementsof debate and critique is demonstrated by the fact that PAR is mainly based onthe dialogic approach, which Burkey describes as consisting of ‘an interchangeand discussion of ideas based on a process of open and frank questioning andanalysis in both directions between the investigators and the people, bothindividually and in small groups’. PAR is not something that is done to a targetgroup. The people are fully involved in the processes of analysis and reflection.They are not reduced to the position of objects of research because they alsooperate as subjects actively researching their own situations and strategies forimproving their lives. The objective of PAR is that people should become capableof producing their own analyses and plans of action. As Comstock and Foxassert:

The validity of the results of participatory research can be gauged first, by the extentto which the new knowledge can be used to inform collective action and second,by the degree to which a community moves towards the practice of a self-sustainingprocess of democratic learning and liberating action.31

This indicates that reflection, analysis and self-critical awareness are central tothe performance of a PAR intervention in a way that is not the case in PRA. It isintrinsic to PAR that the facilitator must embark on some form of analyticaldialogue with the target group. The fact that such reflection involves aidrecipients is also significant in that it means that any knowledge, analysis orcritique produced is not simply confined to the aid practitioners. It brings intoplay people’s knowledge and contributes to people’s knowledge. In this sense itrefrains from essentialising either top-down expertise or people’s knowledge.Thus, the dialogic approach can be conducive to synergies between the ‘special-ist’ knowledge brought by the facilitator and the people’s knowledge broughtinto play through the dialogue. Such synergies encourage the facilitator toremain critical and to develop his/her knowledge (consequently improvingpractice), while also encouraging the people to develop and use their knowledgefor their practical benefit. Such popular mobilisation is also one of the core aimsof participation and represents an indicator of at least a measure of success.

It seems likely that such a dialogic process would help to minimise thelikelihood of such instances of group dysfunction as the Abilene paradox, riskyshift and groupthink. The careful research process, the focus on dialogue and the

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combination of local and aid agency knowledge should act as an effective guardagainst the over-confidence and failures of communication that lie at the root ofsuch dysfunctions. Burkey also makes it clear that it is best to work with groupsthat have largely common interests in order to minimise disagreements andmiscommunication. Certain of the critics whose work is gathered together inCooke and Kothari’s volume also make comments that seem to favour such adialogic approach. Mohan refers approvingly to the work of Village AiD, whichis using the REFLECT approach pioneered by Action Aid ‘to explore the potentialof “self-generated literacy” through a programme called Arizama, which is aDagbani word roughly translating as “dialogue”…this involves the identification,adoption and adaptation (where necessary) of indigenous facilitation methods,such as dance, song and story-telling’.32 Hailey also stipulates that ‘personaldialogue, conversation and discussion are crucial to the success of shareddecision-making’, concluding that ‘participative decision-making should nottherefore be reduced to some formulaic process, but should be rooted in adynamic relationship of mutual trust and respect’.33

All this is suggestive that an empowering strand of participation is alive andwell despite the co-optation of many ventures, especially those based on amechanistic application of PRA. Good training and self critical use of a method-ology rooted in the dialogic approach can all contribute to a grassroots develop-ment in which people at the grass roots have a genuine decision-making role.Thompson even provides some proof to the effect that at least a few aid agenciesare beginning to adapt institutionally and incorporate elements of the ‘learningorganisation’ model.

It might be suggested that this does nothing to counter problems arising fromthe means/end ambiguity at the heart of the participatory idea and that conse-quently there is always the likelihood that aid bureaucracies will invoke adiscourse of participation as means that will undercut the possibilities ofparticipation to engender empowerment. Kapoor provides one possible correc-tive to such tendencies in using the work of Habermas on the conditions requiredto achieve free and fair democratic negotiation. He summarises Habermas’sposition as follows:

For Habermas, deliberations need to be governed by formal conditions that areanticipated in the very resort to dialogue and that he calls an ‘ideal speechsituation’. This ideal speech situation is one in which there is uncoerced rationaldialogue among free and equal participants: the discussion is inclusive (ie no oneis excluded from participating in the discussion on topics relevant to her/him),coercion free (ie people engage in arguments and counter-arguments freely, withoutdominating others or feeling intimidated by others) and open (ie every participantcan initiate and continue discussion on any relevant topic, including the veryprocedures governing the discussion).34

There is much controversy over how far this model is capable of implementationand Kapoor prefers to view it as a regulative principle with which to critiqueexamples of debate. In another context the present author has illustrated how thismodel might be applied to a participatory situation. A forestry project in Nepalinitially found that it was not reaching all the forest users at the project site

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because it had confined its dealings to those who were prominent in thecommunity. When the project took measures to involve at least some of thosewho had been previously excluded, ‘the project became more effective both interms of preservation of the forest and meeting the needs of the generality offorest users’.35 In this instance a move (and only a partial move it should benoted) towards inclusiveness in the debate delivered increments to the project interms not only of empowerment, but also of effectiveness (ie forest preser-vation). This is illustrative of the utility of the Habermasian model as a principleagainst which one can compare participatory projects to see how far they aremeeting conditions of inclusiveness, openness and avoidance of coercion.

Of course none of this actually resolves the means/end ambiguity and anycontradictions implicit in it. As we have seen, this ambiguity is inherent in theconcept of participation, given that any project must include at least someelement of participation by the local populace (however minimal or extensive)and produce at least some developmental outputs. Some might argue that thisrenders participation inoperable and discredits it. However, a different light maybe cast on this issue if it is viewed from a perspective that owes something todeconstructionism. One aspect of Derrida’s work on deconstruction constitutes aproposal to the effect that any concept will be revealed to consist of contradic-tory elements if subjected to analysis. Derrida uses the example of the law toillustrate this point, arguing that any body of law can only be founded on thebasis of a violation of law. He cites the American Constitution as an example ofthis, noting that this founding document of American law could only beinstituted on the basis of a violation of the British colonial law that preceded it.Even when a formal written legal code is instituted where there has been nonebefore, it must be introduced in violation of whatever system (whether custom-ary or otherwise) went before. Hence the law is characterised by contradictionin the sense that its logic consists in a demand that people must always respectthe law, but its origins lie in a breach of law. The means/end ambiguity inparticipation can be seen as constituting a similar structure. We have alreadyseen that participation must be conceived as both a means and an end, but thisentails an element of contradiction inasmuch as participation as means impliesa central value for efficient production of outputs, whereas participation as anend implies a central value for empowerment. In this sense both the law andparticipation are characterised by contradiction and ambiguity. However, thisdoes not result in Derrida rejecting the law, nor need it result in developmenttheorists rejecting participation. Such contradiction is integral to both conceptsand is essential to their meaning and utility. As already noted, participation isonly meaningful and utile if conceived as both means and end.

Derrida suggests that we abandon the Enlightenment propensity to try todefine every concept in a fully consistent way and accept that important conceptsentail an element of contradiction. Consequently, he would argue that the law(and respect for it) is necessary despite the founding breach of law that underliesit. What this contradiction implies is that there can never be a perfect law, thatis to say an absolute and completely coherent body of law that is sufficient todeal with all eventualities. British colonial law was overthrown because of itsimperfections, notably the injustice and repression implicit in colonial domi-

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nation. Indeed, the American law that followed it has been subsequently revised(sometimes with great violence) to correct injustices such as slavery. This is notto say that these bodies of law had no utility (despite their imperfections).Ambiguity and contradiction do not discredit the law, but point up the need tocontinually critique and revise the law.36 Similarly, participation can be seen asan essential value in development despite its ambiguity. What this ambiguitymeans is that (as in the case of the law) participation is a contested groundbetween those who would prefer to use it as a means to achieve certain ends andthose who wish to emphasise its possibilities for emancipation. The central pointfor us to note is that the emancipatory element is more pronounced in partici-pation than other philosophies of aid, inasmuch as it specifically incorporates anemphasis on popular mobilisation. Of course there are forces that prefer todownplay empowerment and that seek to co-opt participation, but even theycannot eliminate the emancipatory possibilities of participation. We have alsoseen that there are methodologies of participation (eg PAR) and institutionaladaptations that provide the basis for an emancipatory project. Examples ofbadly executed PRAs and superficial performances of participation can becountered with examples of projects that have delivered some increments ofempowerment to participants. This indicates that there is an opportunity to winthe high ground of participation from those who would like to co-opt it and turnit into a ‘new tyranny’. It is for these reasons that participation is worthy ofdefence, albeit a defence qualified by critique of those tendencies that attempt toderadicalise it.

Notes1 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 168.2 All quoted in P Oakley et al, Projects with People: The Practice of Participation in Rural Development,

Geneva: International Labour Office, 1991, p 6.3 Ibid, pp 7–8.4 Ibid, p 8.5 R Chambers, Whose Reality Counts Putting the Last First, London: Intermediate Technology Publications,

1997, p 183.6 Oakley et al, Projects with People, p 8.7 J Rietbergen-McCracken & D Narayan, Participation and Social Assessment: Tools and Techniques,

Washington DC: World Bank, 1998, p 4.8 See Chambers, Whose Reality Counts?.9 U Kothari, ‘Power, knowledge and social control in participatory development’, in Cooke & Kothari,

Participation, p 140.10 G Mohan, ‘Beyond participation: strategies for deeper empowerment’, in Cooke & Kothari, Participation,

p 160.11 Kothari, ‘Power, knowledge and social control’, p 145.12 Chambers, Whose Reality Counts?, p 218.13 Kothari, ‘Power, knowledge and social control’, p 147.14 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 Partici-pation—Tools for Change, London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1995, p 37.

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

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

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

18 Kapoor, ‘The devil’s in the theory’, p 114.19 D Mosse, ‘“People’s knowledge”, participation and patronage: operations and representations in rural

development’, in Cooke & Kothari, Participation, p 23.20 Ibid, p 25.21 N Hildyard et al, ‘Pluralism, participation and power: joint forest management in India‘, in Cooke &

Kothari, Participation, pp 63–64.22 F Cleaver, ‘Institutions, agency and the limitations of participatory approaches to development‘, in Cooke

& Kothari, Participation, p 53.23 B Cooke, ‘The social psychological limits of participation?’, in Cooke & Kothari, Participation, p120.24 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.

25 Ibid, p 125.26 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 7.27 Leurs, ‘Current challenges facing participatory rural appraisal’, p 125.28 IDS Workshop, ‘Towards a learning organisation—making development agencies more participatory from

the inside’, in Blackburn & Holland, Who Changes?, pp 145–152.29 J Thompson, ‘Participatory approaches in government bureaucracy: facilitating institutional change’, in

Blackburn & Holland, Who Changes?, pp 15–16.30 Cornwall et al, ‘In search of a new impetus’, pp 28–29.31 S Burkey, People First: A Guide to Self-Reliant Participatory Rural Development, London: Zed Press,

1993, pp 61–64.32 G Mohan, ‘Beyond participation: strategies for deeper empowerment’, in Cooke & Kothari, Participation,

p 165.33 J Hailey, ‘Beyond the formulaic: process and practice in South Asian ngos’, in Cooke & Kothari,

Participation, p 101.34 I. Kapoor, ‘The devil’s in the theory’, p 105.35 T Parfitt, The End of Development: Modernity, Post-Modernity and Development, London: Pluto Press,

2002, pp 155–156.36 For an extended discussion of Derrida’s ideas and their developmental implications, see Parfitt, The End

of Development, ch 4.

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