Meetings, minutes and the limits of participation in a rural water project
Date
1998
Authors
Burke, Edward
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Abstract
This report investigates participatory development practices through an analysis of a rural
water project. The research is based upon data from interviews, written sources, and
the author's observations as a consultant On the project, The report critically examines two
approaches to development: the modernist approach of the developers, and the critical
approach of some anthropologists who view development as a tool for the domination of the
Third World. An alternative approach is proposed which is based upon the interaction
between the global and the local. This accounts for the role of power in development without
reducing development to a strategy in a struggle between the First and the Third World. This
framework is used to analyse how different actors in the project understood project meetings
quite differently. These understandings shaped the course of the project and have important
implications for the adaptation of the village to a global environment.
Description
A research report submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for
the degree of Master of Arts.
Johannesburg 1998