Abstract:This article examines the ongoing critiques and debates around the 'participatory turn' in development theory and practice and suggests anarchism as a practice-oriented theoretical framework for engaging with what participatory development ought to achieve. Explicit links are constructed between key terms in these development debates and anarchist political philosophy, and a call is made for greater attention to anarchism as a theoretical framework for radical and transformative development practice. This arti… Show more
“…The conclusions drawn in this paper are noteworthy for scholars within the realms of development, disaster studies, and geography, as well as policymakers interested in understanding and facilitating equitable and appropriate risk governance policies. The findings also speak to the broader and well‐established critical literature on the ‘participatory turn’ in development (for a review of these writings, see Wald, 2015).…”
Section: Introductionsupporting
confidence: 55%
“…15–16) as the ‘widespread risk associated with the exposure of dispersed populations to repeated or persistent hazard conditions of low or moderate intensity, often of a highly localized nature, which can lead to debilitating cumulative disaster impacts’. This was first identified through an online review of local newspapers that reported a landslide that affected 72 households in 2008 (see, for example, Wald, 2015), and was later corroborated by a scoping visit to the area in September 2012, as well as by interview and survey data.…”
The most important theoretical argument concerning decentralised participatory governance is that it can make a government more accountable for the needs of the governed. Key to this process are participatory spaces that act as mechanisms for dialogue between citizens and local government. However, within Cochabamba, a city in the centre of Bolivia, South America, ‘at‐risk’ citizens engage minimally with disaster risk issues in participatory spaces, despite high levels of civic participation. This is because ‘at‐risk’ populations view disasters as a private/household problem that is symptomatic of household error, rather than seeing them as a broader public problem due to wider structural inequalities. Consequently, they redistribute responsibility for disaster risk reduction towards households, which (re)produces the absolution of government authorities as guarantors of disaster risk reduction. This paper challenges the normative assumption that participatory spaces facilitate democratic deliberation of disaster risk reduction and the downward accountability of local government for disaster risk reduction.
“…The conclusions drawn in this paper are noteworthy for scholars within the realms of development, disaster studies, and geography, as well as policymakers interested in understanding and facilitating equitable and appropriate risk governance policies. The findings also speak to the broader and well‐established critical literature on the ‘participatory turn’ in development (for a review of these writings, see Wald, 2015).…”
Section: Introductionsupporting
confidence: 55%
“…15–16) as the ‘widespread risk associated with the exposure of dispersed populations to repeated or persistent hazard conditions of low or moderate intensity, often of a highly localized nature, which can lead to debilitating cumulative disaster impacts’. This was first identified through an online review of local newspapers that reported a landslide that affected 72 households in 2008 (see, for example, Wald, 2015), and was later corroborated by a scoping visit to the area in September 2012, as well as by interview and survey data.…”
The most important theoretical argument concerning decentralised participatory governance is that it can make a government more accountable for the needs of the governed. Key to this process are participatory spaces that act as mechanisms for dialogue between citizens and local government. However, within Cochabamba, a city in the centre of Bolivia, South America, ‘at‐risk’ citizens engage minimally with disaster risk issues in participatory spaces, despite high levels of civic participation. This is because ‘at‐risk’ populations view disasters as a private/household problem that is symptomatic of household error, rather than seeing them as a broader public problem due to wider structural inequalities. Consequently, they redistribute responsibility for disaster risk reduction towards households, which (re)produces the absolution of government authorities as guarantors of disaster risk reduction. This paper challenges the normative assumption that participatory spaces facilitate democratic deliberation of disaster risk reduction and the downward accountability of local government for disaster risk reduction.
“…One crucial aspect of the R&R logs in the MID units was to encourage students to relate development readings, often from far‐away places, to their own lives, to illustrate that theories and concepts are transferrable. In the quote below, a student explains how the notion of anarchistic partnerships in rural Argentina described by Wald () resonated with her political engagement at home.The article by Wald made me reflect on the grassroots protest movement against the Roe 8 developments in the Beeliar Wetlands in December 2016 to March 2017. Some of the anarchistic approaches explored throughout the article were definitely part of the approaches used by leaders and participants while we were protesting.…”
Section: Embracing Emotions Through Embodied Learningmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Navé Wald's () article introduced students to anarchistic partnerships in which the boundaries between ‘experts’ and ‘others’ are blurred, authority is understood as flat, and political culture and prefigurative politics are consciously fostered to enable radical transformation. These readings allowed the class to identify lingering binaries in participatory development and revisit Robert Chambers's () ‘uppers’ who ‘hand over the stick’ to ‘lowers’.If you asked me several years ago what it is that developers do, I would probably have painted them in some kind of heroic light, as individuals who make deep and lasting impacts on the lives of the poor and disadvantaged.…”
Section: Engaging With the ‘Other’ And Positionalitymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…While I understood the importance of these approaches at the time, I had not realised that by engaging in direct action, and by resisting authority, we were employing anarchistic approaches. This seems obvious to me now, having read the article by Wald … The idea that I have inadvertently taken part in ‘collective radical democracy and resistance’ (Wald, : 10) is pretty exciting to me. [Female]…”
Section: Embracing Emotions Through Embodied Learningmentioning
Like the development industry, development pedagogy and practice have begun to take into account the role of emotions and the deeper, affective and embodied experiences of understanding and doing development. In her ground‐breaking piece ‘Emotional geographies of development’, Sarah Wright illustrates how emotions not only create development subjects and associated subjectivities, but also provide a powerful entry point for resistance that may ultimately lead to transformative social change. Post‐colonial and feminist scholars have long emphasised the role of emotions such as anger, fear, shame, joy and hope in discursive construction of the ‘Other’ and the persistence of false binaries that obscure layers of struggle, exclusion and disenfranchisement. In this paper, we (students and educators) reflect on the role of emotions and affective engagements with development, drawing upon classroom discussions as well as reading and reflection logs of those studying for a Master in International Development (MID) at the University of Western Australia. We explore how explicit efforts to be attentive to our own emotions while digesting and deliberating material for this unit allow us to better grasp our own positionality while revisiting our personal entanglements with the ‘Other’ – the quintessential development subject. Making space for ‘more‐than‐rational’ aspects of development enables scholars and educators to experiment with affective options for interdisciplinary teaching in a distinctly more personal way than students may expect from a postgraduate degree in international development.
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