Sustainable development at the sharp end

Jackson, Cecile (1997) Sustainable development at the sharp end. Development in Practice, 7 (3). pp. 237-247. ISSN 0961-4524

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Abstract

This paper takes an actor-oriented approach to understanding the significance for policy and practice of field-worker experience at the interface between project and people. It is set in the context of an Indian project which aims to reduce poverty through sustainable, participatory agricultural change, based on low-cost inputs, catalysed by village-based project staff. Diaries kept by such staff are analysed to reveal how the social position of field-workers enables and constrains their interactions within and without the project, and the ways in which ‘street level bureaucrats’ shape projects through their discretionary actions. They show the Village Motivators struggling to communicate project objectives, to establish their roles and distinguish themselves fromother village-level bureaucrats, to negotiate participation, to overcome hostility to Participatory Rural Appraisal, to arbitrate access to consultants and seniors, to interpret project objectives and lobby for changes in these without admission of failure, and finally to develop a shared vocabulary of participation and belief in success. Some of the implications for participatory approaches are that there may be significant contradictions between sustainability and participatory development.

Item Type: Article
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Global Development (formerly School of International Development)
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Gender and Development
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Experimental Economics (former - to 2017)
Depositing User: Abigail Dalgleish
Date Deposited: 15 Jul 2011 13:42
Last Modified: 16 Jun 2023 11:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/33822
DOI: 10.1080/09614529754477

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