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
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Rethinking the 'global' in global health: a dialectic approach
TL;DR: The author argues for detaching normative objectives from 'global health' definitions to avoid so called 'entanglement-problems' and argues that the proposed concept constitutes an un-euphemistical approach to describe the inherently politicised field of ' global health'.
Journal ArticleDOI
Explaining the impact of a women's group led community mobilisation intervention on maternal and newborn health outcomes: the Ekjut trial process evaluation
Suchitra Rath,Nirmala Nair,Prasanta Tripathy,Sarah A. Barnett,Shibanand Rath,Rajendra Mahapatra,Rajkumar Gope,Aparna Bajpai,Rajesh Sinha,Anthony Costello,Audrey Prost +10 more
TL;DR: This study reports process evaluation data from the Ekjut cluster-randomised controlled trial of a participatory learning and action cycle with women's groups to improve maternal and newborn health outcomes in Jharkhand and Orissa, eastern India (2005-2008).
Journal ArticleDOI
Community-based adaptation research in the Canadian Arctic
James D. Ford,Ellie Stephenson,Ashlee Cunsolo Willox,Victoria L. Edge,Khosrow Farahbakhsh,Chris Furgal,Sherilee L. Harper,Susan Chatwood,Ian Mauro,Tristan Pearce,Stephanie E. Austin,Anna Bunce,Alejandra Bussalleu,Jahir Diaz,Kaitlyn Kaitlyn Finner,Allan C Gordon,Catherine Huet,Knut Kitching,Marie-Pierre Lardeau,Graham McDowell,Ellen McDonald,Lesya Nakoneczny,Mya Sherman +22 more
TL;DR: It is suggested that CBA holds significant promise to make adaptation research more democratic and responsive to local needs, providing a basis for developing locally appropriate adaptations based on local/indigenous and Western knowledge.
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“ Neopatrimonialism ” and Agricultural Development in Africa: Contributions and Limitations of a Contested Concept
TL;DR: The authors summarizes the literature on neopatrimonialism, reviewing how analysts have applied the concept in studies of food and agricultural policies in Africa, and draws out some of the key contributions of such an approach, and describes limitations, both methodological and substantive.
Journal ArticleDOI
Gender myths in energy poverty literature: a critical discourse analysis
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the findings of a gendered or feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of energy poverty scholarship, arguing that energy poverty discourse in academic literature constructs problematic "gender myths" of women, gender equality and its relationship with energy.
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.
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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.