Journal ArticleDOI
Participatory development and empowerment: the dangers of localism
Giles Mohan,Kristian Stokke +1 more
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In this paper, the authors examine the manifestations of this move in four key political arenas: decentralised service delivery, participatory development, social capital formation and local development, and collective actions for "radical democracy".Abstract:
Recent discussions in development have moved away from holistic theorisation towards more localised, empirical and inductive approaches. In development practice there has been a parallel move towards local ‘participation’ and ‘empowerment’, which has produced, albeit with very different agendas, a high level of agreement between actors and institutions of the ‘new’ Left and the ‘new’ Right. This paper examines the manifestations of this move in four key political arenas: decentralised service delivery, participatory development, social capital formation and local development, and collective actions for ‘radical democracy’. We argue that, by focusing so heavily on ‘the local’, the see manifestations tend to underplay both local inequalities and power relations as well as national and transnational economic and political forces. Following from this, we advocate a stronger emphasis on the politics of the local, ie on the political use of ‘the local’ by hegemonic and counter-hegemonic interests.read more
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Finding the Spaces for Change: A Power Analysis
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that opportunities for participation do not automatically translate into spaces for change, and that much depends on the power dynamics that surround and infuse them, shaping who participates, where and with what result.
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Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa
TL;DR: Lund et al. as mentioned in this paper discussed the role of public authority and local politics in Africa and proposed the Twilight Institutions, a set of institutions that can be used to reorder society.
Relocating Participation Within a Radical Politics of Development: Insights from Political Action and Practice
Sam Hickey,S. Mohan +1 more
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Community-based disaster preparedness and climate adaptation: local capacity-building in the Philippines
TL;DR: Evidence from the Philippines is presented that, in the limited forms in which they are currently employed, CBDP initiatives have the potential both to empower and disempower, and it is warned against treating CBDP as a panacea to disaster management problems.
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The use of indigenous knowledge in development: problems and challenges:
TL;DR: The use of indigenous knowledge has been seen by many as an alternative way of promoting development in poor rural communities in many parts of the world as mentioned in this paper. But, as pointed out by as mentioned in this paper, a number of problems and tensions has resulted in indigenous knowledge not being as useful as hoped for or supposed, such as a focus on the (arte)factual, binary tensions between western science and indigenous knowledge systems, the problem of differentiation and power relations, the romanticization of the indigenous knowledge, and the all too frequent decontextualization of knowledge.
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Book
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
TL;DR: In this paper, Anderson examines the creation and global spread of the 'imagined communities' of nationality and explores the processes that created these communities: the territorialisation of religious faiths, the decline of antique kingship, the interaction between capitalism and print, the development of vernacular languages-of-state, and changing conceptions of time.
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“Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital”
TL;DR: Putnam as discussed by the authors showed that crucial factors such as social trust are eroding rapidly in the United States and offered some possible explanations for this erosion and concluded that the work needed to consider these possibilities more fully.
Journal Article
Bowling alone, america's declining of social capital
TL;DR: The Johns Hopkins University Press is committed to respecting the needs of scholars as discussed by the authors, and return of that respect is requested. But no copies of the below work may be distributed electronically, in whole or in part, outside of their campus network without express permission (permissions@muse.jhu.edu).
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Absolute Voluntarism: Critique of a Post-Marxist Concept of Hegemony@@@Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics
Book
Space, Place and Gender
TL;DR: Massey as discussed by the authors rastrea el desarrollo de ideas sobre la estructura social del espacio y el lugar, and the relacion of ambos con cuestiones de genero and ciertos debates dentro del feminismo.