Journal ArticleDOI
Participatory development and empowerment: the dangers of localism
Giles Mohan,Kristian Stokke +1 more
TLDR
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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'New spaces' for change? Diamond governance reforms and the micro-politics of participation in post-war Sierra Leone
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the impact of unequal power relationships on livelihood options, decision-making abilities and development outcomes in the country's diamond-iferous communities in the post-war period.
Journal ArticleDOI
Obstacles to the use of indigenous knowledge
TL;DR: In this article, the main obstacles to the use of indigenous knowledge among the Reang tribal community in Tripura (northeast India), and presents two main arguments, namely, that there are inherent problems and tensions within the concept of the indigenous knowledge which is not evenly shared across the community, and that the essence of traditional knowledge remains futile in circumstances where the Indian state categorises indigenous knowledge and its holders as "backward" and "primitive".
Decentralization and democratization: the case of water user associations in Turkey
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a method to solve the problem of the problem: this article... ]..,.. )].. [1].
Journal ArticleDOI
Evidence, ideology, and the policy of community management in Africa
Luke Whaley,Donald John MacAllister,Helen Bonsor,Evance Mwathunga,Sembeyawo Banda,Felece Katusiime,Yehualaeshet Tadesse,Frances Cleaver,Alan MacDonald +8 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors conducted a survey of community management arrangements across six hundred sites in rural Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda, examining the extent to which management capacity is related to borehole functionality whilst accounting for a range of contextual variables.
Journal Article
The Persistence of Informality: Small-Scale Water Providers in Manila’s Post-Privatisation Era
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the spatial and temporal evolution of small-scale water provision in Manila's post-privatisation era, and show how certain spaces are seen as less serviceable than others.
References
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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.