Name: Anna Bardolet Dilmé
Student number: 547612
Degree programme: MSc Violence, Conflict and Development
Course: Anthropology of Development 15PANC090_L1/01
Book Review No: 1
Seminar Tutor: Dr Richard Axelby
Book Reviewed:
Mosse, David (2005), “Cultivating Development: an Ethnography
of Aid Policy and Practice” London, Pluto.
Submission Date: 16 / January / 2012
Word Count: 1498
Mosse, David (2005), “Cultivating Development: an Ethnography of Aid Policy and
Practice” London, Pluto.
“Cultivating Development: an Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice” by
David Mosse is a fascinating ethnographic account, which looks at the dynamics
between development policy and practice in the 10 year Indo-British Rainfed Farming
Project (IBRFP). Focusing on how the shift in aid policy discourse in the UK, and in
particular in Department For International Development (DFID) from ‘partnership’ to
‘good governance’ meant that this project that had been praised as successful and which
had a positive socio-economic impact on the local population was deemed a ‘failure’
and nearly brought the project to the “brink of closure and collapse” (202). This
monograph can be considered revolutionary both due to its ‘new ethnography’ approach
and its positionality (ethnography from within). By asking thought-provoking questions,
for instance “not whether but rather how development projects work; not whether a
project succeeds, but how ‘success’ is produced” (8) Mosse illustrates that the link
between policy and practice is not as straightforward as one would assume. He aims to
“reinstate the complex agency of actors in development at every level, and move on
from the image of duped perpetrators and victims” (6) as well as showing that “in the
arena of development too, ideas have to be understood in terms of the institutions and
social relationships through which they are articulated, and how relationships have to be
understood in terms of ideas” (10-11). Mosse structures his book around five
propositions about policy and practice, which he explains through the ethnographic
account of the creation and implementation of the IBRFP throughout the 10 chapters of
the book. Mosse concludes that policies are very important in development but not in a
‘managerial’ view as is many times presupposed, but rather because of the “social and
political life of their ideas” (20).
New Ethnography
This monograph is especially interesting because of its ‘new-ethnography’
approach avoiding the dichotomy found in development policy studies between the
‘instrumental’ (“rational problem solving”) and ‘critical’ (technical discourse that
conceals the true political intents of power and dominance) perspectives (2). Therefore
emphasizing the importance of the links between institutions, policy, ideas, practice and
social relations. This critical approach is still influential today, for instance in
Ferguson's
“The
Anti-Politics
Machine:
Development,
Depoliticization,
and
Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho” (1990), but Mosse argues that such approaches (the
instrumental as much as the critical) “divert attention from the complexity of policy as
an institutional practice, from the perspectives of actors themselves and from the
diversity of interests behind policy models” (6). This book is significant therefore as it
discards such views that dismiss development through a ‘new ethnography’ approach,
influenced
by
ideas
from
other
anthropologists,
for
example
Foucault’s
‘governmentality’ (1979: 194, quoted in Mosse: 6). Emphasizing the importance of
agency and choice of individuals as well as the social networks in which they interact,
demonstrates that governance, for instance, is not imposable as it “requires
collaboration and compromise” from the beneficiaries (7). Another important aspect to
the ‘new ethnography’ approach is its ‘multi-positioned’ approach, whereupon the
researcher writes both from the ‘within’ and ‘outside’ perspective (11).
Positionality
Mosse has worked in the IBRFP as an anthropologist-consultant from 1990 to
1998 “as the project’s expatriate ‘expert’ in social development, participation or local
institutions” (preface viii). Engaging in ‘participant comprehension’ and ‘participant
deconstruction’ Mosse has a more profound insight about the problems the IBRFP
faced. This approach from within, despite clear benefits of an increased understanding,
is nonetheless problematic for it raises questions about the ethics of anthropologists in
terms of what should be revealed or silenced if it can harm people. Mosse reflects about
this in the preface of the monograph when explaining the strong objections he faced
towards the publication of the book by key actors in managerial positions of the project,
which even led to written complaints to his publisher and academic managers as well as
university’s research ethics committee (ix). However as he argues he is not judging the
project itself (it is not a project evaluation) but rather looking at the relationship
between policy and practice and the social construction of success, which can be
relevant to all development projects in general. Mosse also accepts his responsibility in
the project in an honest self-criticising way (x-xii).
Structure
Mosse structures the book by looking at five propositions of how policy and
practice interact: firstly “policy primarily functions to mobilise and maintain political
support, that is to legitimise rather than to orientate practice” (14) which he focuses on
in chapters 2 and 3 by looking at the design process of the project and the problems with
conceptions and representations in the development discourse (design texts and
underlying ideas from colonial times). The author therefore argues that policy is used to
justify the project and funding by the use of vague and persuasive terms that bring
people with different interests together, a similar idea expressed by Cornwall’s
definition of ‘buzzwords’ (2007). In chapter 2 Mosse looks at the first phase of the
implementation of Robert Chambers’ participatory methods, noting the problems they
encountered both by the project workers’ inexperience and the reluctance and mistrust
of the Bhil people. Chapter 3 focuses on the socio-historical reasons of the Bhil’s
reluctance and how the project was not able to properly understand these complexities
due to their choice of policy discourse and concepts.
The second proposition states “Development interventions are not driven by
policy but the exigencies of organisations and the need to maintain relationships” (16)
and is illustrated throughout chapters 4 and 5. These two chapters show how ideas set in
policy such as ‘participatory development’ are not easily implemented and simply
“cannot shape actual practice in the way that they claim. They are ignored, resisted,
‘consumed’ or tactically used in ways that make them irrelevant in the face of more
urgent relational demands” (16). Mosse therefore illustrates various problems with
participation discourse in these two chapters; for instance participation strategies were
manipulated by local elite to obtain what suited their interest best, they had negative
side effects such as silencing women (85- 87), or intended beneficiaries changed their
demands from what they really needed to what they though the program could give
them even if this had negative long term effects (e.g. planting of eucalyptus trees) (91 95). There was also the problem of agenda setting being dominated by program workers
despite talks of participation, for instance Mosse illustrates this through the example of
soil and water conservation (SWC) works, which was not what the Bhil sought from the
project but ended being a compromise that benefited everyone (91 - 95). However
through these examples Mosse shows naivety and implementation problems towards the
idea of participation, but not direct and purposeful manipulation by the policy as Cooke
and Kothari would argue through the idea of participation as a ‘new tyranny.’
The third proposition “development projects work to maintain themselves as
coherent policy ideas (as systems of representations) as well as operational systems”
(17) is illustrated through chapters 6 and 7, where Mosse looks at the role of foreign
experts and how ‘success’ is socially produced. The author illustrates the
interconnectedness of policy and practice arguing that “Development proceeds not only
(or primarily) from policy to practice, but also from practice to policy” (18).
The fourth proposition “Projects do not fail; they are failed by wider networks of
support and validation” (18) relates to the idea illustrated in chapter 7 that both success
and failure are produced socially, are a result of interpretation rather than of
implementation. Looking at how policy language changed in the UK (from
‘participation’ to ‘good governance’ through ‘micro-finance’ and ‘Sustainable Rural
Livelihood’) and the consequences this had for the project, Mosse argues that despite
little changes in implementation the project moved from being considered a success to a
failure. Which relates to the last proposition that states: “Success and failure are policyoriented judgments that obscure project effects” (19). By illustrating that despite the
fact that many villagers “considered that they had benefited” (205) from the project,
because the benefits were not those intended the project was not qualified as a success
anymore, as Mosse himself reflects by stating that “the project did have a significant
positive effect on the lives of many thousand adivasis in the villages of this western
India region, albeit often in unscripted and unintended ways” (227).
The author further emphasizes that to claim that IBRFP was a “shining
example of ‘participatory development’ ” would be to prioritize project ‘success’ or
‘failure’ ignoring how things “actually happen” (227) thus concluding that the relation
between policy and practice is a very complex one, that depends on social relations and
networks as much as political and financial discourse. This monograph incites
interesting debates and questions on the use and power of policy as well as its relation
to aid and development. It emphasizes the importance of a critical look at development
policy and aid, and while not dismissing development all together beacons against
judgments that obscure the real impacts of projects.
Bibliography
Chambers, Robert (1983), “Rural Development: Putting the Last First”, Longman
Harlow.
Cooke, Bill & Uma Kothari (2001), “Participation, the new tyranny?” London: Zed.
Cornwall, Andrea (2007), “Buzzwords and fuzzwords: deconstructing
development discourse”, Development in Practice, Vol. 17 (4-5), pp. 471 –
484.
Ferguson, James (1990), “The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization,
and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho”, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mosse, David (2005), “Cultivating Development: an ethnography of aid policy and
practice” London: Pluto.