People Defining Development
(Chapter 13)
The BIG Questions
What is development and the approaches to achieving it?
How is development related to indigenous people and
women?
What are urgent issues in development?
What is Development?
Development is directed change to improve human welfare
through poverty reduction
Development anthropology is the subfield of anthropology
that studies how culture and development interact
Has a strong applied component
Development and Culture Change
Development is a major driver of cultural change in
contemporary times
Culture change can be intentional or accidental, forward- or
backward-looking, rapid or gradual, obvious or nearly
invisible, beneficial or harmful
Development and Culture Change
Culture change occurs through…
Invention & Diffusion
Invention
Culture change driven within a culture through experimentation and
accumulation of knowledge
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Diffusion – culture change driven by cultural contact; the spread of
culture through contact
Can occur…
Between cultures of roughly equal power
A more powerful culture appropriating aspects
of a less powerful
culture
Transfer from a dominant culture to a less powerful one – through
force, education, “marketing”
Acculturation – Form of cultural change in which a minority culture
becomes more like the dominant culture
Assimilation – Form of culture change in which a culture is
thoroughly acculturated and is no longer distinguishable as having a
separate identity
Models of Development
No single view of how to achieve development exists
They differ in terms of…
The goals of development
The process of development – how development is accomplished
How development is measured
Attention to environmental and financial sustainability
Models of Development
Five major models…
Modernization
Growth-oriented development
Distributional development
Human development
Sustainable development
Some of the models overlap and are not mutually exclusive
Models of Development
Modernization
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 Modernization is a form of change marked by economic
growth through industrialization and market expansion
Western model – belief that other cultures can develop in
the same way that the West did
Goals: Industrialization, technological progress
Process: Belief that science and technology are the
pathways to progress; material progress will lead to
individual betterment
Problems: Little regard for the environment, brings about
social inequality, trying to assimilate cultures to a Western
way of thinking
Growth-Oriented Development
Is similar to modernization in its goals
Key emphasis on economic growth
Belief that economic growth will trickle-down, leading to
improved human welfare among the less well-off
Goals: economic growth, industrialization, technological
progress
Measurement of development: Rate of growth of the
economy, gross domestic product (GDP)
Process: Structural adjustment
1. Increasing economic productivity and trade through modernized
agriculture and manufacturing and participation in world markets.
2. Reducing government expenditures on public services such as
schools and health in order to reduce debt and reallocate resources
to increase productivity.
Problems: Will the wealth trickle-down? Or will the rich get
richer and the poor get poorer?
Green revolution – rich got richer and the poor got poorer
Distributional Development
Goal: Emphasizes social equality in benefits, especially in terms of
increased income, literacy, and health
Process:
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Rejects the trickle-down process as ineffective in reaching less well-
off people
Opposes structural adjustment policies because structural
adjustment undermines the welfare of the poor by removing the few
entitlements they had in the form of services
Advocates need for benevolent government to ensure equitable
access of resources for the poor to provide for their own needs –
government investment in schools, health care, land redistribution,
etc.
Measurement of development: Health status, literacy, social
equality
Problems:
May have difficulty implementing
“Socialism” and “big government” are seen as having negative
connotations among some areas of the West
Kerala, a state in South India, has followed a distributive path
to development and, though the “poorest” state in India, it has
the highest social indicators in health and education
Human Development
Based on the belief that people are the real wealth of
nations
 Investments in improving human welfare will lead to
economic development, not vice versa
Goal: Invest in human welfare rather than economic growth
Process: Invest in health, education, personal security, and
safety (may involve redistribution)
 Measurement of development: Human development index
(HDI) – measure of life expectancy, literacy, education,
standard of living, and GDP per capita (strives to measure
overall well-being, not just economic well-being)
Problems: well-being is subjective – e.g. measuring quality
of life, human development, and human welfare are tricky
Gross International Happiness (GIH)
 http://www.grossinternationalhappiness.org/index.html
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Sustainable Development
Sustainable development refers to forms of improvement
that do not destroy nonrenewable resources and are
financially supportable over time
 Based on the belief that the economic growth of wealthy
countries has been and still is costly in terms of the natural
environment and people whose lives depend on these
ecosystems
Goal: Non-environmentally destructive development
Measurement of development: environmental indicators
and other social and economic indicators
Institutional Approaches to Development
 There are a wide variety of institutions, organizations, and
specialists involved in development policy making,
programs, and projects
 Cultural anthropologists examine the organizations involved
in international development
Behavior within the institutions
Institutional discourse
Social interactions with the “client population”
Institutional Approaches to Development
 Large-scale development institutions
Multilateral institutions – those that include several countries as
“donor” members
United Nations
World Bank
Founded in 1944
Dedicated to promoting the concept of economic growth
worldwide
Is supported by contributions from over 150 member
countries – economic superpowers dominate it
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Main
strategy is to promote international investment
through loans
Most loans support large infrastructure projects such as
roads and dams
Most loans charge interest and are tied to certain
conditions
 Large-scale development institutions
Bilateral institutions – those that involve only two countries: a
“donor” and a “recipient”
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID)
Differ in amount of grants versus loans, countries to which they lend
to, etc. depending on each “donor” country’s interests and political
goals
 Small-scale organizations
Grassroots approach – locally initiated projects
More likely to be culturally appropriate, supported through local
participation, and successful
Often utilize social capital – intangible resources of social ties,
trust, and cooperation
Often can use social capital to provide basic social and
economic needs
May be faith-based organizations
The Development Project
Development institutions, whether they are large or small,
implement their goals through the development project
The development project is a set of activities designed to
put development policies into action
The Project Cycle

All development projects have a project cycle, or the full
process of a project from initial planning to completion
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
The project cycle includes 5 basic steps from beginning
to end
The Development Project Cycle
History of Anthropologists and the Project
Cycle

Most individuals that work in large-scale development
institutions are economists
Since the 1970s applied anthropologists have been involved
in development projects
Anthropologists were first hired to be project evaluations



Found a variety of problems with development projects
Problems with Development Projects
 The project was inappropriate for the cultural and
environmental context
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 The target group, such as the poor and women, had
not been reached, but instead project benefits had
gone to some other group
 The intended beneficiaries were actually worse off
after the project than before it
Why these problems?

Poor project design
 Projects designed by people-distant and culturally
uninformed bureaucrats, usually Western economists who
lived in cities far from the project site with no firsthand
experience of the lives of the target population
 Lack of a sociocultural fit
 Sociocultural fit is taking the local culture into account in
project design
 e.g. giving milk to a community that is lactose intolerant
 Tree project in Haiti


“Experts” applied a universal formula (“one size fits all”) to all
situations
Development aggression – the imposition of development
projects and policies without the free, prior, and informed consent
of the affected people
 Some scholars argue that many development projects are a
form of neocolonialism
Anthropologists and the Project Cycle Today



Today anthropologists are involved in earlier aspects of
the project cycle as well
Recognition among development institutions for the
people-close, culturally informed perspective that
anthropologists begin
Anthropologists may engage in traditional development
anthropology (TDA)
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 When an anthropologist takes on a role of helping to
make development policies and programs work better
 Anthropologist asks: What can I do to make this project
successful?

Or anthropologists may engage in critical development
anthropology (CDA)
 When an anthropologist takes on a critical-thinking role
 Anthropologist asks: Is this a good project from the
perspective of the local people and their environment?

Anthropologists may be considered a bit of a nuisance
because their involvement may slow the process of
implementing projects
 But hopefully the tradeoff is a more successful project!
Social Impact Assessment
Social impact assessments are studies that gauge the
potential social costs and benefits of particular innovations
before change is undertaken
Anthropologists are often involved in these assessments
The studies may allow communities that are confronting the
adoption of new technology the chance to weigh evidence on the
pros and cons and make an informed judgment
Development and Minority Groups
Indigenous people and women are often the ones most
negatively affected by development projects
Indigenous People & Development
Example: Native Peoples of Walpole Island, Canada, fought to
control industrial waste that was polluting their water and
land
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Women and Development
Have lost political power and rights to property
e.g.
decline of matrilineality
Increased inequality in genders by giving men greater access to new
sources of income
Have undergone “domestication” due to development projects which
focus on infant feeding practices, child care, and family planning
Their lives have been more focused on the domestic domain and
more removed from the public domain
Male bias in development and the exclusion of women has led to
some development projects to fail
Urgent Issues and New Directions in
Development
Designing more people centered projects is a priority
Redefining development projects as life projects
A life project is local people’s vision of the direction they want to
take in life, informed by their knowledge, history, and context, and
how to achieve that vision
Viewing the protection of cultural rights as a human right
Making sure development doesn’t destroy culture and a culture’s
environment should be a priority
Great in theory, but in practice in our increasingly globalized world
cultural practices and positions of two or more cultures may conflict
Viewing cultural heritage as a way to development
Promoting cultural heritage, through tourism for example, can be a
double-edged sword, though
Tourism can preserve and protect cultural heritage (e.g. preserving
indigenous arts)
But tourism can also damage and destroy culture and the
environment (e.g. through roads, hotels)
Promoting cultural intellectual property rights
Can help people gain a share of profits from intellectual property
But can also be difficult to defend and enforce
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Cultural Anthropology of the Future
Cultural anthropologists work with and for local people
To secure human rights and prevent human rights abuses
To improve their lives through appropriate development projects and
policies
To foster cultural diversity, understanding, and survival throughout
the world
The BIG Questions Revisited
What is development and the approaches to achieving it?
How is development related to indigenous people and
women?
What are urgent issues in development?
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