Journal ArticleDOI
What do buzzwords do for development policy? a critical look at ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘poverty reduction’
Andrea Cornwall,Karen Brock +1 more
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In the fast-moving world of development policy, buzzwords play an important part in framing solutions as mentioned in this paper, and today's development orthodoxies are captured in a seductive mix of such words, among which 'participation', 'empowerment' and 'poverty reduction' take a prominent place.Abstract:
In the fast-moving world of development policy, buzzwords play an important part in framing solutions. Today's development orthodoxies are captured in a seductive mix of such words, among which 'participation', 'empowerment' and 'poverty reduction' take a prominent place. This paper takes a critical look at how these three terms have come to be used in international development policy, exploring how different configurations of words frame and justify particular kinds of development interventions. It analyses their use in the context of two contemporary development policy instruments, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). We show how words that once spoke of politics and power have come to be reconfigured in the service of today's one- size-fits-all development recipes, spun into an apoliticised form that everyone can agree with. As such, we contend, their use in development policy may offer little hope of the world free of poverty that they are used to evoke. The past 10 years have witnessed a remarkable apparent confluence of positions in the international development arena. Barely any development actor could take serious issue with the way the objectives of development are currently framed. This new consensus is captured in a seductive mix of buzzwords. 'Participation' and 'empowerment', words that are 'warmly persuasive' 1 and fulsomely positive, promise an entirely different way of doing business. Harnessed in the service of 'poverty reduction' and decorated with the clamours of 'civil society' and 'the voices of the poor', they speak of an agenda for transformation that combines no-nonsense pragmatism with almost unimpeachable moral authority. It is easy enough to get caught up in the emotive calls for action, to feel that, in the midst of all the uncertainties of the day, international institutions are working together for the good, and that they have now got the story right and are really going to make a difference.read more
Citations
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Towards reframing professional expert support
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors address practical ways of reconfiguring professional expertise in development practice in moving away from the expert as a technocrat, and provide an alternative way of framing intervention involving professional experts providing a more appropriate collaborative learning space for development practice.
Journal ArticleDOI
The role of developmental ‘buzzwords’ in the international refugee regime: Self-reliance, resilience, and economic inclusion
TL;DR: In this article , a review of policy documents and multi-sited empirical research in Sub-Saharan Africa is presented to understand the current mainstreaming of developmental support within the international refugee regime from a lens of reframing, which is a strategy to redefine social problems and thereby control discourses around their solutions.
Journal ArticleDOI
From informal to formal: understanding gendered energy transitions through filmmaking in Cape Town and Mumbai
TL;DR: In this article , the authors adopt a participatory filmmaking approach to understand women's agency in low-income domestic housing in India and South Africa, where women shared insights of how the transitional housing environment has impacted their everyday routines and how they are utilising the access to energy.
Journal ArticleDOI
Musical chairs: Analyzing the evolution of stakeholders in Peru's mining sector through dialogue tables
Alicia Polo y La Borda Cavero,Yezelia Danira Cáceres Cabana,Aaron M. Malone,Ronaldo Quinta Soto +3 more
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors present a database of 321 cases in which dialogue tables had been established in response to mining conflicts, disputes, or for monitoring and communication, divided between central government, regional/local government, civil society/community, and miners.
Book ChapterDOI
Was wird zur Erleichterung der Handlungsfähigkeitsentwicklung in der Praxis getan? Dokumentation und Herauskristallisierung eines unbekannten praktischen Wissens eines Experten aus einem Drittland
TL;DR: In this article , a theoretischen Rahmen für den Prozess der Handlungsfähigkeitsentwicklung zu verdeutlichen und the Blackboxes der Theorien zu identifizieren is discussed.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World.
Susan Greenhalgh,Arturo Escobar +1 more
TL;DR: The 2012 edition of the 2012 edition vii Preface xlv as discussed by the authors is a collection of essays about development and the anthropology of modernity, with a focus on post-development.
Book
Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays
TL;DR: Althusser's "For Marx" (1965) and "Reading Capital" (1968) had an enormous influence on the New Left of the 1960s and continues to influence modern Marxist scholarship as mentioned in this paper.
Book
Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World
TL;DR: The 2012 edition of the 2012 edition vii Preface xlv as discussed by the authors is a collection of essays about development and the anthropology of modernity, with a focus on post-development.