Showing papers in "Development and Change in 2004"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the unfolding activities of a development project over more than ten years as it falls under different policy regimes, and suggest 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.
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.
772 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on research by scholars in the International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) research network which demonstrates that some forms of heterogeneity do not negatively affect collective action.
Abstract: Collective action for sustainable management among resource-dependent populations has important policy implications. Despite considerable progress in identifying factors that affect the prospects for collective action, no consensus exists about the role played by heterogeneity and size of group. The debate continues in part because of a lack of uniform conceptualization of these factors, the existence of non-linear relationships, and the mediating role played by institutions. This article draws on research by scholars in the International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) research network which demonstrates that some forms of heterogeneity do not negatively affect some forms of collective action. More importantly, IFRI research draws out the interrelations among group size, heterogeneity, and institutions. Institutions can affect the level of heterogeneity or compensate for it. Group size appears to have a non-linear relationship to at least some forms of collective action. Moreover, group size may be as much an indicator of institutional success as a precondition for such success.
600 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the sequential and conditional release of aid funds may not be sufficient to keep elite capture well under control, making it necessary to resort to co-ordination mechanisms among aid agencies, such as multilateral reputation mechanisms.
Abstract: Recently, a lot of attention has been paid to improving ways of assessing the effectiveness of development interventions. This is to be welcomed, especially with regard to community-based or participatory aid projects, since considerable resources are currently being earmarked for these by almost all types of donor agencies, including large international organizations. Such projects are vulnerable to elite capture at local level, and this problem must be mitigated if most of the aid funds thus disbursed are to reach the intended beneficiaries. This article discusses several methods available to achieve that objective. In particular, it argues that the sequential and conditional release of aid funds may not be sufficient to keep elite capture well under control, making it necessary to resort to co-ordination mechanisms among aid agencies, such as multilateral reputation mechanisms. Even these are not going to be effective enough, however. In the end, an active role will have to be played by the ultimate purveyors of aid money, whether the taxpayers or the contributors in fund-raising campaigns.
509 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use the case of Mexico to make two broad arguments, one related to the importance of extra-economic dimensions of remittances, particularly the social and political meanings of remitances, and the other based on a disaggregation of remittance into family, collective or community-based, and investment remITTances.
Abstract: The development potential of remittances has resurfaced as a topic of analysis, based in part on dramatic increases in migration and amounts of money ‘sent home’, and partly in the growing interest and involvement by states and non-state actors in gaining leverage over remittances. The trend is indicative of an emerging remittance-based component of development and poverty reduction planning. This article uses the case of Mexico to make two broad arguments, one related to the importance of extra-economic dimensions of remittances, particularly the social and political meanings of remittances, and the other based on a disaggregation of remittances into family, collective or community-based, and investment remittances. Key dimensions of this typology include the constellation of remitters, receivers, and mediating institutions; the norms and logic(s) that regulate remittances; the uses of remittances (income versus savings); the social and political meanings of remittances; and the implications of such meanings for various interventions. The author concludes that policy and programme interventions need to recognize the specificity of each remittance type. Existing initiatives to bank the un-banked and reduce transfer costs, for example, are effective for family remittances, but attempts to expand the share of remittances allocated to savings, or to turn community donations into profitable ventures, or small investments into large businesses, are much more complex and require a range of other interventions.
312 citations
TL;DR: In the context of the recent and ongoing Indonesian experience with decentralization, the authors assesses some of the major premises of neo-institutionalist explanations of decentralization policy and practices, but focuses especially on the relationship between decentralization and democracy, and suggests alternative ways of understanding why decentralization has often failed to achieve its stated aims in terms of promoting democracy, 'good governance', and the like.
Abstract: This article assesses some of the major premises of neo-institutionalist explanations of decentralization policy and practices, but focuses especially on the relationship between decentralization and democracy, in the context of the recent and ongoing Indonesian experience with decentralization. In the last two decades 'decentralization' has become, along with 'civil society', 'social capital' and 'good governance', an integral part of the contemporary neo-institutionalist lexicon, especially that part which is intended to draw greater attention to 'social' development. The concern of this article is to demystify how, as a policy objective, decentralization has come to embody a barely acknowledged political, not just theoretical, agenda. It also suggests alternative ways of understanding why decentralization has often failed to achieve its stated aims in terms of promoting democracy, 'good governance', and the like. What is offered is an understanding of decentralization processes that more fully incorporates the factors of power, struggle and interests, which tend to be overlooked by neo-institutionalist perspectives. The current Indonesian experience clearly illustrates the way in which institutions can be hijacked by a wide range of interests that may sideline those that champion the worldview of 'technocratic rationality'. © Institute of Social Studies 2004.
298 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the concept of social exclusion is of limited utility, and has significant disadvantages, and argue that these are better captured by the notion of adverse incorporation.
Abstract: This article questions the export of ‘social exclusion’ discourse to the field of development and poverty studies. It considers the findings of ongoing research into chronic poverty in the Western Cape district of Ceres, one of the centres of the South African deciduous fruit export industry. It explores the links between the livelihood options of poor people and processes of global integration, agro-food restructuring and the modernization of paternalist farming styles. In this context the concept of ‘social exclusion’ is of only limited utility, and has significant disadvantages. Although it has the potential to focus attention on the disabling effects of poverty, its most common usage often fails to capture how poverty can flow not only from exclusion but also from processes of integration into broader economic and social networks. The author argues that these are better captured by the notion of ‘adverse incorporation’, and calls for a more cautious approach to the modernizing myths and moralizing narratives that shape policy debates.
229 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a national survey about resettlement in Laos is presented, focusing on the consequences of these huge shifts of population and on the social and cultural dynamics that underlie them, showing that the planned resettlements which are intended to promote the "settling" of the highland populations by enforcing the ban on slash-and-burn agriculture and opium growing actually cause increased and diversified rural mobility.
Abstract: Though not officially considered a ‘policy’ by the Lao government resettlement of ethnic minorities has become a central feature of the rural development strategy in Laos. Over the past ten years a majority of highland villages have been resettled downhill and the local administrations are planning to move the remaining villages in the coming years. This article draws on a national survey about resettlement in Laos commissioned by UNESCO and financed by UNDP that was undertaken by the authors. It focuses on the consequences of these huge shifts of population and on the social and cultural dynamics that underlie them. It shows that the planned resettlements which are intended to promote the ‘settling’ of the highland populations by enforcing the ban on slash-and-burn agriculture and opium growing actually cause increased and diversified rural mobility. This in turn complicates the implementation of the rural development policy and the political management of interethnic relationships. In other words the ‘settling’ process promoted by the State because of its broad and often tragic social consequences can paradoxically generate unplanned or unexpected further migrations which could be called ‘resettlement-induced forms of mobility.’ (authors)
208 citations
TL;DR: The authors argues that the literature on common property has become divided between a body of scholarship that uses deductive models of individual decision-making and rational choice to explain the ways in which different types of property rights arrangements emerge and change over time, and one whose questions, aims and methods are more modest, and historically specific.
Abstract: It would not be a great exaggeration to say that scholars of environmental conservation and conflict have re-discovered the institutional foundations of social and economic life. At the heart of this ‘renaissance’ is the belief that property and property relations have a strong bearing on how people use, manage and abuse natural resource systems, and that institutional arrangements based on the creation and management of common property can have positive impacts on resource use and conservation. Two bodies of thought compete for a voice in this literature. One, which aims to resolve Hardin's tragedy of the commons, is primarily concerned with the problem of encouraging collective action to conserve resources that are both depletable and unregulated. A second, influenced by notions of moral economy and entitlement, deals with the problem of creating and sustaining resource access for poor and vulnerable groups in society. This article argues that the literature on common property has become divided between a body of scholarship that uses deductive models of individual decision-making and rational choice to explain the ways in which different types of property rights arrangements emerge and change over time, and one whose questions, aims and methods are more modest, and historically-specific. It then aims to understand this evolution by situating the mainstream common property discourse in the wider intellectual trend of positivism, methodological individualism and formal modelling that has come to dominate social science in the United States. In so doing, it attempts to unravel the political and ideological foundations of what has come to be a dominant mode of understanding environmental problems, and solutions to these problems.
206 citations
TL;DR: This article reviewed a range of literatures in order to draw out themes and arguments concerning the relationships between India's middle classes and the complex meanings and materialities of the environment, emphasizing the importance of recognizing diversity and dynamism within the middle classes in relation to the environment.
Abstract: The focus of most analyses of environmental struggles and discourses in colonial and postcolonial India is on rural and forest areas, and on subalterns versus elites. Recently, however, there has been increased interest in urban environmental issues, and, to some extent, in India's (variously defined)‘middle classes’. This article reviews a range of literatures — environmental, social-cultural and political — in order to draw out themes and arguments concerning the relationships between India's middle classes and the complex meanings and materialities of the environment. Three issues are explored in detail: civic indifference and the public sphere; environmental activism; and Hinduism and ecological thinking. The article emphasizes the importance of recognizing diversity and dynamism within the middle classes in relation to the environment. It argues the need to develop situated understandings of what constitutes ‘the environment’ amongst different middle class groups; and underlines the ways in which environmental issues reflect and are often emblematic of wider social and political debates.
146 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify the leaders, the supporters and the resisters of public service reform in developing countries, and identify the interests involved in reform, indicating how the balance between them is affected by institutional and sectoral factors.
Abstract: This article identifies the leaders, the supporters and the resisters of public service reform. It adopts a principal–agent framework, comparing reality with an ‘ideal’ situation in which citizens are the principals over political policy-makers as their agents, and policy-makers are the principals over public service officials as their agents. Reform in most developing countries is complicated by an additional set of external actors — international financial institutions and donors. In practice, international agencies and core government officials usually act as the ‘principals’ in the determination of reforms. The analysis identifies the interests involved in reform, indicating how the balance between them is affected by institutional and sectoral factors. Organizational reforms, particularly in the social sectors, present greater difficulties than first generation economic policy reforms.
140 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider the capacity of formal education to undermine established processes of caste and class reproduction in an area of north India, with particular reference to the views and strategies of educated Dalit young men.
Abstract: This article considers the capacity of formal education to undermine established processes of caste and class reproduction in an area of north India, with particular reference to the views and strategies of educated Dalit young men. It draws on quantitative and qualitative research conducted by the authors in a village in Bijnor district, western Uttar Pradesh (UP). We discuss how educated Dalit young men perceive education, how they seek to use educational credentials to obtain ‘respectable’ jobs, and how they react when this strategy fails. Increased formal education has given Dalit young men a sense of dignity and confidence at the village level. However, these men are increasingly unable to convert this ‘cultural capital’ into secure employment. This has created a reproductive crisis which is manifest in an emerging culture of masculine Dalit resentment. In response to this culture, Dalit parents are beginning to withdraw from investing money in young mens’ higher secondary and tertiary-level education. Without a substantial redistribution in material assets within society, development initiatives focused on formal education are likely to be only partially successful in raising the social standing and economic position of subordinate groups.
TL;DR: In this article, a three pillar model of household livelihood strategies focusing on how households cope with the increased level of risk and uncertainty, adjust their economic and social household assets for economic survival, and use their social and political assets as livelihood strategies is proposed.
Abstract: As the number of de-stabilized regions of warfare or post-war conditions worldwide continues to grow, this article investigates how civilians survive in the context of a civil war. It analyses livelihood strategies of farmers in the war-torn areas of Sri Lanka, using an analytical framework based on a revised form of DFID's sustainable rural livelihoods approach, placing particular attention on the institutional reproduction of household capital assets in the war economy. The author delineates a three pillar model of household livelihood strategies focusing on how households (1) cope with the increased level of risk and uncertainty; (2) adjust their economic and social household assets for economic survival; and (3) use their social and political assets as livelihood strategies. Empirical evidence comes from four case study villages in the east of Sri Lanka. Although the four case studies were very close together geographically, their livelihood outcomes differed considerably depending on the very specific local political geography. The role of social and political assets is essential: while social assets (extended family networks) were important to absorb migrants, political assets (alliances with power holders) were instrumental in enabling individuals, households or economic actors to stabilize or even expand their livelihood options and opportunities. The author concludes that civilians in conflict situations are not all victims (some may also be culprits in the political economy of warfare), and that war can be both a threat and an opportunity, often at the same time.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the implications of the Land Law's implementation at the local level, based on interviews with herders and officials in all levels of government, and a resurvey of herding households.
Abstract: With the dismantling of herding collectives in Mongolia in 1992, formal regulatory institutions for allocating pasture vanished, and weakened customary institutions were unable effectively to fill the void. Increasing poverty and wealth differentiation in the herding sector, a wave of urban–rural migration, and the lack of formal or strong informal regulation led to a downward spiral of unsustainable grazing practices. In 1994, Mongolia's parliament passed the Land Law, which authorized land possession contracts (leases) over pastoral resources such as campsites and pastures. Implementation of leasing provisions began in 1998. This article examines the implications of the Law's implementation at the local level, based on interviews with herders and officials in all levels of government, and a resurvey of herding households. Amongst many findings, the research shows that poorer herders were largely overlooked in the allocation of campsite leases; that the poor had become more mobile and the wealthy more sedentary; that there had been a sharp decline in trespassing following lease implementation, but that many herders and officials expected pasture leasing to lead to increased conflict over pastures. The Land Law provides broad regulatory latitude and flexibility to local authorities, but the Law's lack of clarity and poor understanding of its provisions by herders and local officials limit its utility. The existing legal framework and local attitudes stand in clear opposition to the implied goal of land registration and titling — an all-embracing land market and the supremacy of private property rights.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors draw on the findings of a countrywide participatory poverty assessment conducted in 2000 to bring into sharper relief the broad outlines of an integrated approach to building secure and sustainable livelihoods both on and off the pastoral commons.
Abstract: Under the socialist regime that prevailed until the start of the 1990s, Mongolia made great progress in improving human development indicators, and poverty was virtually unknown. Political and economic transition in the 1990s ushered in a rapid rise in asset and income inequality, and at least a third of the population has been living in poverty since 1995. Many workers made redundant from uneconomic state-owned enterprises were absorbed into the extensive livestock sector in rural areas and by the growing informal economy in urban areas. The livestock sector grew dramatically, with herders accounting for over a third of the total population and half of the active labour force by the late 1990s. Three consecutive years of drought and harsh winters in 1999–2002 then drastically reduced the national herd. These trends are viewed against a backdrop of relative neglect of the livestock sector in development priorities and a concomitant decline in agricultural productivity. Pressures on common pasture have mounted, and conflict over grazing is becoming endemic. In such a context, sustainable management of Mongolia's pastoral commons should be central to the country's economic development agenda in general, and to its poverty reduction strategy in particular. This article draws on the findings of a country-wide participatory poverty assessment conducted in 2000. Blending quantitative and qualitative data, these findings help to bring into sharper relief the broad outlines of an integrated approach to building secure and sustainable livelihoods both on and off the pastoral commons.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors assess the impact of watershed development on the livelihoods of the rural communities by assessing the programme in the context of a sustainable rural livelihoods framework, that is, looking at its impact on the five types of capital assets and strategies required for the means of living.
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to assess the impact of policy interventions through watershed development (WD) on the livelihoods of the rural communities. This is done by assessing the programme in the context of a sustainable rural livelihoods framework, that is, looking at its impact on the five types of capital assets and strategies required for the means of living. The article also examines the vulnerability and stability of these capital assets, as well as analysing which people participate in the programme and enhance their livelihoods through sharing its benefits. In the light of the analysis, it is argued that watershed development holds the potential for enhanced livelihood security even in geo-climatic conditions where the watershed cannot bring direct irrigation benefits on a large scale. In such fragile environments, however, watershed development is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for sustaining rural livelihoods. While the focus of watershed development is primarily on strengthening the ecological base such as water bodies (including traditional tanks), grazing lands and wastelands, it should be complemented with other programmes which focus on landless poor households in order to make it pro-poor. In the context of low rainfall regions where improvement in irrigation facilities is slow, agriculture alone cannot support the communities. Policies and programmes should aim at creating an environment for diverse livelihood activities, which are the choice of the household rather than distress activities.
TL;DR: The Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park was established in south central Mongolia in 1993 and is used by over 1100 families with pastoralism as their main means of livelihood as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park was established in south central Mongolia in 1993 and is used by over 1100 families with pastoralism as their main means of livelihood. Research conducted in 1998–2000 to analyse grazing management problems identified a number of issues and concerns, including a significant increase in the number of herders and the size of the herd; variations in herd size reflecting differences in wealth; problems with marketing of livestock or livestock products; declining stock movements because of transportation costs and loss of water sources; and significant competition and conflicts for grazing areas. The socio-economic problems associated with Mongolia's transition to a market system, coupled with the expansion of protected areas, mean that herders have to adapt to both the current economic system and changes in land use. Although some aspects of the development of the park can be seen as a positive influence on maintaining pastoral livelihoods in this area, the national goal of protecting 30 per cent of the country, doubling the area of Mongolia currently under protected area status, could have negative effects on pastoral livelihoods, unless ministry officials, protected area administrators and pastoralists can work effectively to solve resource problems.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss road-building undertaken by the state in the Peruvian Andes and examine practices of mobility in Andean indigenous/rural society, and outline reasons why people in post-conflict, neo-liberal Peru now dedicate much time and energy to road building, even though this may potentially lead to loss of land, community control and greater impoverishment.
Abstract: This article looks at why states build roads, and in what circumstances roads become a priority for rural people. To distinguish between situations of spatial autonomy and isolation, a concept of territorializing regime is elaborated. This is employed to discuss road-building undertaken by the state in the Peruvian Andes and to examine practices of mobility in Andean indigenous/rural society. While a location ‘off the beaten track’ could be a source of autonomy in the past, the author outlines reasons why people in post-conflict, neo-liberal Peru now dedicate much time and energy to road-building, even though this may potentially lead to loss of land, community control and greater impoverishment.
TL;DR: In this article, a case study of two watershed development projects in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh in India, the authors argue that participatory development projects are legitimized by using formalistic compliance criteria, while removing politics as a context.
Abstract: Based on a case study of two watershed development projects in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh in India, this article argues that participatory development projects are legitimized by using formalistic compliance criteria, while removing politics as a context. It shows how key aspects of the liberal political framework have not been fully harmonized with communitarian theories; the result is an interpretation of participation as a set of practices that are far removed from politics. As a development practice, participation can turn into the itemizing of participatory objectives, which are then to be fulfilled in the same way as physical and financial targets. The practitioners see their role as merely ‘technocratic’ and the projects they implement as ‘apolitical’. The author argues that, central to these claims, is a limited definition of ‘politics’ as a one dimensional domain comprising contest and irreconcilable conflict, from which the participatory projects, based on so-called consensus, publicly expressed, are to be shielded. The article concludes that participatory projects accommodate and reflect existing relations of domination and control much more than their outward orientation would suggest.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the history, rationale and effectiveness of development aid and reach some quite different conclusions as to the part it plays in catalysing or stifling, development.
Abstract: About the book: This volume presents a state-of-the-art debate on the controversial topic of development aid.
For several decades, the need to provide aid to low income countries, in order to stimulate and promote their economic and social development, was widely accepted. In recent years, however, the issue of aid and the question of its role in development have become matters of controversy. In this collection of essays, development aid is put under the microscope, as the contributors examine its history, its rationale, and its effectiveness, and reach some quite different conclusions as to the part it plays in catalysing, or indeed in stifling, development. While some argue that aid remains vital, and must be maintained or increased, others are more sceptical, and fear that it may even prolong underdevelopment in certain circumstances. These essays, from a select group of commentators representing different analytical perspectives, first appeared as an academic debate in the journal Development and Change, in response to an article by Jan Pronk, former Minister for Development Co-operation of the Netherlands.
TL;DR: In this article, a case study of the Ilisu dam in South East Anatolia Turkey is presented to examine the influence of the rights to development agenda on the spatial context of displacement and its associated economic and political changes.
Abstract: A cursory attempt to measure the extent of displacement over the past two decades indicates significant increases in conflict-induced displacement and displacement resulting from development projects. At the same time a growing opposition to the latter form of displacement has raised questions over its legitimacy through a variety of media including public campaigns and protests. This article focuses on some of the challenges that this presents to the displacement and resettlement discourse. In particular it considers the influences of the rights to development agenda on the spatial context of displacement and its associated economic and political changes. There appears to be a disjuncture between the practices of mainstream development which tend to interpret development policy as it is defined and applied by a nation state and to assess inequalities within clear geographical definitions and the universality of a rights based approach to development. This article examines these tensions in the context of displacement and resettlement management drawing on evidence from a case study of the Ilisu dam in South East Anatolia Turkey. (authors)
TL;DR: The authors traces border practices along boundaries that China and Thailand share with Burma and depicts a spectrum of small border polities, from principalities on the fringes of Southeast Asian kingdoms, through Nationalist troops in Burma following their defeat in China, to "drug lords" and "rebel armies".
Abstract: This article traces border practices along boundaries that China and Thailand share with Burma. It portrays a spectrum of small border polities, from principalities on the fringes of Southeast Asian kingdoms, through Nationalist troops in Burma following their defeat in China, to ‘drug lords’ and ‘rebel armies’. The focus here is on Akha village heads who have worked their connections in multiple directions, including into Burma, to position themselves as patrons controlling local resource access. With state appointment as border guardians, village heads become chiefs of new kinds of small border entities, protecting the border for the homeland while enabling certain illicit information, people, and goods to cross. In regions with a history of complex patronage relations, state efforts to control peripheral people, resources, and territories have in fact produced small border chiefs, with practices similar to those of frontier princes in the past.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the conceptual and methodological characteristics of the PPA and the pictures of poverty trends arising from it, with a view to dispelling confusion and to better understand the relationship between these and pictures emerging from survey data.
Abstract: In late 1999, apparently contradictory pictures of what was happening to poverty in Uganda emerged from the Participatory Poverty Assessment (PPA) and the household survey. This article analyses certain conceptual and methodological characteristics of the PPA and the pictures of poverty trends arising from it, with a view to dispelling confusion and to better understanding the relationship between these and the pictures emerging from survey data. It argues that the apparently contradictory visions, when explored carefully, are found to be compatible, and concludes that deeper and less oppositional understandings of the purpose of PPAs vis-a-vis surveys for poverty assessment are an important and timely contribution to current research and knowledge about poverty.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze gendered discourses of development in rural North India and address the usefulness of recent scholarship on development as discourse for understanding connections between development and subjectivity.
Abstract: This article analyses gendered discourses of development in rural North India and addresses the usefulness of recent scholarship on development as discourse for understanding connections between development and subjectivity. This scholarship is an excellent point of departure for exploring the contradictions inherent in the institutionalization of economic development and the global reach of its discourses but it has focused primarily upon development as discourse at official sites of deployment while paying less attention to how specific discourses and processes of development are appropriated by those constituted as beneficiaries of development. The under-theorization of this aspect has meant that the range of processes through which development projects may encourage new subject positions are poorly understood. By investigating what some women in rural Kumaon have made of their own development this article contributes to emerging scholarship on development and subjectivity with an ethnographic analysis of the polysemic enthusiasm for development expressed by some of its beneficiaries. (authors)
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how demand for methamphetamines in mainland Southeast Asia emerges in sync with changing value systems fostered by development trajectories within a globalized commodity culture.
Abstract: As opium cultivation is increasingly controlled in the Golden Triangle, producers and traffickers have created new markets for methamphetamines (ATS) amongst highland and lowland populations. At the same time, evolving forms of drug abuse also reflect a larger order of social change that directly shapes the consumer market. This article explores how demand for methamphetamines in mainland Southeast Asia emerges in sync with changing value systems fostered by development trajectories within a globalized commodity culture. The primary focus is on Akha highlanders in northwestern Laos for whom dual processes of opium eradication and village relocation directly encourage the currently prominent uptake of ATS. As Akha move into the lowlands to engage in modern capitalist systems of production, increased methamphetamine use emerges as a means to facilitate a greater reliance on sedentization and petty commodity trade. Rather than the uptake of heroin that took place in neighbouring countries, the transition from opium to methamphetamines is a highly charged sign of new social and material relations adopted by the Lao Akha as they enter primitive forms of capital accumulation and wage-labour.
TL;DR: This article explored gendered patterns of migration and transnationalism in Haiti and found that women have participated in changing the financial architecture and political landscape of Haiti through migration, and women's movements in Haiti have also benefited from transnational organizing and the transnational links forged over the past three decades.
Abstract: This article explores gendered patterns of migration and transnationalism in Haiti. A combination of factors has prompted extensive rural–urban migration and emigration over the last three decades: violence, repression, economic collapse and the implementation of neo-liberal reforms have left many Haitians with few options other than to seek a new life elsewhere. Although many Haitians abroad naturalize and take citizenship in host countries, emigration does not mean that ties to their homeland are severed. Indeed, a substantial number of Haitians remain intimately connected to Haiti, visiting, sending remittances and gifts, investing in land and exercising political voice in Haiti and in their country of residence. This article focuses on the gender dimension of Haitian migration and transnationalism drawing on Hirschman's typology of exit, voice and loyalty. These options are uniquely gendered. Although most analyses of transnational citizenship focus on men, women and women's movements in Haiti have also benefited from transnational organizing and the transnational links forged over the past three decades. Through migration, women have participated in changing the financial architecture and political landscape of Haiti. Expressions of voice and loyalty by women are challenging traditional gender roles in Haiti and contributing to an emerging transnationalism that has profound effects on Haitians and their communities at home and abroad.
TL;DR: The authors examines the definition of poverty and the evidential base for the claims that the region of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has historically low levels of poverty, and relatively good levels of income distribution.
Abstract: This article examines the definition of poverty and the evidential base for the claims that the region of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has historically low levels of poverty and relatively good levels of income distribution. It argues that the dominant trend in the literature on poverty in the global south in general, and in MENA in particular, has a neo-classical bias. Amongst other things, that bias fails to understand that poverty does not emerge because of exclusion but because of poor people's ‘differential incorporation’ into economic and political processes. It also raises the question: if the MENA has indeed had relatively low levels of poverty and good income distribution, does this complicate the issue of autocracy and the western drive to remove political ‘backwardness’ in the region? In particular, the characterization of autocracy and the west's attempt to promote political liberalization is likely to impact adversely on the social contract that autocratic rulers have enforced regarding the delivery of basic services.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated patterns of provision and use in a local financial market in Karatina, Kenya, at the end of the 1990s after a period of financial and economic liberalization.
Abstract: Financial liberalization policies in the 1990s were intended to raise formal sector interest rates, enhance competition and expand access for users. This article investigates patterns of provision and use in a local financial market in Karatina, Kenya, at the end of the 1990s after a period of financial and economic liberalization. It takes a holistic approach, examining both formal and informal financial arrangements and microfinance interventions. This is because the role of the informal financial sector is particularly important for poor people and has received relatively little attention in the discussion of the consequences of reform. The author does this using a ‘real’ markets approach that sees markets as socially regulated and structured. Significant provision by the mutual sector (formal and informal), and poor lending performance by the banking sector is explained through an examination of the characteristics of the services on offer and their embeddedness in social relations, culture and politics.
TL;DR: In this paper, the situation of migrant workers in the country's labour-intensive foreign investment enterprises is examined and it is argued that it is difficult to establish tripartite industrial relations in China and that pluralistic labour organizations will not easily develop into civil society type labour entities.
Abstract: Migrant workers present a new challenge both to China’s increasingly diversified industrial relations and to its state–society relationship especially vis-a`-vis China’s developmental state. Through an examination of the situation of migrant workers in the country’s labour-intensive foreign investment enterprises this article argues that it is difficult to establish tripartite industrial relations in China and that pluralistic labour organizations will not easily develop into civil society type labour entities. China’s developmental state is in an ambiguous process in redefining its role. Its ability to micro-manage society is weakening substantially. However its developmental character at the macro-level largely remains strong allowing it to continue to restrict progress towards civil society. The future will ultimately depend on a collective determination by key players — the workers unions and the state — to find a compromise. (authors)