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- Convenors:
-
Rose Pinnington
(King's College London)
Maia King (King's College London)
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- Formats:
- Papers
- Stream:
- Global methodologies
- Sessions:
- Friday 2 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel will bring together researchers who are engaging with questions of power and agency in development practice, in order to promote scholarly exchange about the different methodological, conceptual and analytical approaches that can be applied in research of this kind.
Long Abstract:
There has been extensive research on how aid and development practices can be harmful to local institutions and decision-making processes, as well as increasing calls to 'localise' development and shift power to local actors. There has been less rigorous examination of how problematic power differentials in development might be overcome, in order to enhance 'local agency'. In the studies and policy responses that do exist, there are also multiple views on what constitutes 'local agency', and how it can be measured. For instance, the 'partnership' agenda, which arose in the late 1990s, has been widely critiqued for its narrow and technocratic interpretation of 'ownership'. This has led to increasing efforts to understand the political dimensions of ownership expressed, for instance, in concepts of 'developmental leadership' and 'politically smart, locally led' aid.
This panel welcomes papers that explore questions of power and agency in donor funded programmes and development practice more broadly. It will address:
1) different approaches to conceptualising and theorising power and agency in research on development practice;
2) questions of language and discourse (e.g. what is the role of language in outcomes of relative power?)
3) whose perspectives do we encounter, or risk prioritising, when we make decisions about methods and approaches (e.g. data collection; units of analysis)?
4) the role of the researcher: how does the researcher encounter and affect power relations in the practice of development research?
The panel will aim to strengthen efforts to explore how local agency can be understood, facilitated and advanced in development thinking and practice.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 2 July, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Power relations within INGOs deserve attention to make development partnerships more effective and just. The study examines intra-organizational dynamics, beyond the usual inter-organizational partnerships. Our cases of Korean donors in Cambodia alternate between managerialism and a praxis approach.
Paper long abstract:
‘Partnership’ is everywhere in international development discourse, but it is unclear whether development relationships have become less hierarchical in practice. This study looks beyond the usual North-South inter-organizational partnerships, to examine intra-organizational dynamics. Questions of unequal power and voice between international and local staff within organizations deserve attention in efforts to make international development cooperation both more effective and more just. This paper presents case studies of South Korean NGOs in Cambodia. Findings from qualitative discourse analysis based on semi-structured interviews with Korean leaders and local Cambodian managers show that these emerging donors alternate between managerialism and a praxis approach. Opportunities for local managers’ capacity building are provided and encouraged; yet, most processes follow pre-established donor approaches and guidelines from headquarters. Korean directors do not see the locals (both their local staff and local communities as local partner groups) as ready for complete localization, while local managers seek more vision-sharing, chances for independent decision-making. The study shows the potential of examining intra-organizational power relations in providing an important window of observation to understand the real nature of agency, participation, empowerment and partnership in development cooperation practices.
Paper short abstract:
This paper uses research from Pakistan to propose a theory of ‘isomorphic activism’ that describes how elites appropriate opportunities to participate in public politics supported by development programmes and, in the process, strengthen antidemocratic networks.
Paper long abstract:
This paper uses research from Pakistan to argue that contemporary notions of elite capture are inadequate for exploring how social accountability programmes can fail to contribute to democratising projects in societies structured by patronage relationships. Instead, I propose a theory of ‘isomorphic activism’ that describes how elites appropriate opportunities to participate in public politics and, in the process, strengthen antidemocratic networks. This is facilitated by programmes that are based on ideals of civil society that render activism a technical exercise, depoliticising it and blinding donors to how power inequalities enable the activities they support. The challenges the paper highlights are important given calls for development programmes to change by whom and how politics is done, whilst granting local ownership to participants, quantitively reporting their results and demonstrating value for money. They should also be of interest to those concerned by the spread of market-principles within donor organisations’ ways of working with civil society, and how they are welcomed, appropriated, or simply ignored on the ground.
Paper short abstract:
This paper is a study of the micropolitics of a development intervention in rural Ethiopia. It assesses two different dynamics of the intervention’s micropolitics: firstly, struggles to control its resources, and secondly, its interactions with discursive understandings of power and the state.
Paper long abstract:
This paper is a study of the micropolitics of a development intervention implemented by a German NGO, Menschen für Menschen, in a single district of Amhara Region in Ethiopia. It explores the complex ways in which the intervention interacted with the local government and its officials, focusing on the question of whether the government was strengthened or weakened in the process. The paper makes the case for combining and comparing two different approaches to the study of power relations in development interventions: firstly, tracking flows of funds and material resources, and the struggles of particular actors to control these resources; and secondly, exploring how people’s everyday, discursive understandings of power and the state were reified or shaped by the intervention. The methodology is based in oral history and involved a combination of archival research, life-work history interviews and informal conversations gathered through frequent visits to the intervention site. The paper concludes that the government was both strengthened and weakened by the intervention. It was strengthened by its acquisition of a network of roads, schools, clinics and offices, as well as through officials’ control over training opportunities; but it was weakened because of the way the intervention interacted with people’s ideas of government (mengist). People came to see the NGO as representing ideals of mengist that the government itself failed to live up to – and this became particularly problematic for the government around the contested 2005 elections.