Navigating Community Development Conflicts: Contested Visions of Poverty & Poverty Alleviation

Abstract

This article explores an ethical dilemma that arose from the author's involvement in a project intended to identify and address the needs of seven batey communities in the Dominican Republic. In the summer of 2014, the author conducted a large-scale needs assessment to inform strategic planning for a foundation that was invested in community development work in those communities. Through a collaborative process, the author worked with the foundation, representatives of the migrant communities, and other researchers to develop survey and focus group tools that were administered to 1,360 and 54 people, respectively. Data collection, analysis, and dissemination proceeded as planned. The conflict and resulting ethical dilemma emerged at the point of data interpretation and strategic planning, processes that revealed that the different parties held conflicting theories of poverty. The ideological conflicts related to why poverty exists, who is responsible for it, and what should be done about it made proceeding with the project ethically tenuous for the author. The author describes the values and theories of ethics on which she relied to navigate this challenge, as well as reflections on her continued participation in the community development process.

Complicating Narratives: Defining and Deconstructing Ethical Challenges in Community Psychology

“…As the project unfolded, Kesten and her colleagues became increasingly concerned about the lack of authentic community engagement and wondered whether they should “fight, [take] flight, or remain silent.” Any of these options could be ethically justified, and Kesten and her colleagues explain how their contractual obligations necessitated that they keep their heads down and finish the work at hand, an uneasy decision but one that in the long run may have kept options open for continued progress with this community. Similarly, Suiter (2017*) describes the challenges she faced when collaborating with an international foundation seeking to support public health projects targeting an economically and politically marginalized community in the Dominican Republic. Stakeholders disagreed as to the best strategy for creating vitally needed water projects, and over time, Suiter became concerned that the foundation's approach was fundamentally paternalistic and did not adequately address the root causes of poverty.…”