The social reproduction of community-based development

Syncretism and sustainability in a Senegalese farmers' association

Bibliographic Data

ID4251216
AuthorsDennis Galvan (University of Oregon, corresponding author), Dennis C Galvan
Year2007
Volume45
Issue1
Pages61-88
Publication date2007-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Modern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-278X • E-ISSN: 1469-7777
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022278x0600228x
OpenAlexW2102871116
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited26

This article traces the rise and decline of a grassroots community organisation in rural Senegal. It has three aims. First, it problematises the sometimes idealistic nature of the rhetoric and literature on community-based development. Second, it suggests three factors that contribute to the effectiveness of rural self-help organisations: educated and technocratically skilled leadership, unintentionally benevolent state neglect, and a willingness to syncretically recycle elements of 'traditional' social order and culture in the service of contemporary development tasks. Finally, the demise of the community-based organisation examined here suggests a need to shift focus away from the institutionalisation of community-based or civil society organisations per se, and to consider instead the routinisation of the participatory, empowering, and deliberative socio-political conditions that make possible the regular emergence of new grassroots organisations across time within a given community. Recent events (since 2005) in the village in question support this shift, as a new generation of community leaders has begun to craft a new community organisation, explicitly built from the detritus of the older organisation described in this article

Community development · Craft · Economic growth · Geography · Grassroots · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Sociology · Sustainability · African Studies and Ethnography · Agriculture and Rural Development Research · Gender Studies · Law · Religion, Society, and Development