The devil's in the theory
A critical assessment of Robert Chambers' work on participatory development
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5826164 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ilan Kapoor (0000-0001-5495-5038, York University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 101-117 |
| Publication date | 2002-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Third World Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0143-6597 • E-ISSN: 1360-2241 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/01436590220108199 |
| OpenAlex | W2100335669 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 92 |
| References cited | 27 |
The practice orientation of Robert Chambers' work on Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), which aims at enabling local people and communities to take control over their own development, has received much attention in development circles. This article attempts to shift the emphasis away from PRA's practice towards its theoretical underpinnings. The article argues that PRA's practice/empiricist orientation causes it to be insufficiently theorised and politicised. As a result, questions about inclusiveness, the role of PRA facilitators, and the personal behaviour of elites overshadow, or sometimes ignore, questions of legitimacy, justice, power and the politics of gender and difference. The article draws on arguments and debates involving Habermasian 'deliberative democracy' and post-structuralist notions of power
Citizen journalism · Critical appraisal · Critical theory · Democracy · Epistemology · Legitimacy · Participatory rural appraisal · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Social science · Sociology · Work (physics) · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Law · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development
Empowering Local People through Community-based Resource Monitoring
Foghorns to the Future
Knowledge exchange
Participatory methods of incorporating scientific with traditional knowledge for volcanic hazard management on Ambae Island, Vanuatu
Ecosystem services and the idea of shared values
Concluding Remarks
Participation
Participation for Free. Exploring (limits of) participatory government
“Reason to Value”
People’s Participation in Disaster-Risk Reduction
Reimagining “Public” Outreach on Environmental Issues
The oppression/emancipation nexus in ongoing power struggles
Making Development Agents
Returning Water Data to Communities in Ndola, Zambia
Power, voice and participation
Partizipation als Ausnahmezustand
Schwierigkeiten mit der kritischen Geographie
Engaging with feminist postcolonial concerns through participatory action research and intersectionality
The Geography of Participation
A quest for questions
Indigenizing Psychology
Paniya Voices
When disaster management agencies create disaster risk
Sexual and reproductive health challenges facing minority ethnic girls in Vietnam
Improving food provision in a Guyanese home for the elderly
Developing Children's Participation
Public decision making by women’s self-help groups and its contributions to women’s empowerment
The Gender and Development (GAD) Paradigm
Multi-stakeholder dialogue and company-community relations in Ghana's oil and gas sector
Adapting to climate change in the coastal regions of Bangladesh
Four challenges to knowledge integration for development and the role of philosophy in addressing them
Communication for development and social change
Are Methodologies for Children keeping them in their Place
Learning from young people about their lives
Power is not an evil’
NGOs and poverty reduction in a globalizing world
The use of indigenous knowledge in development
Towards a reorientation in land reform
Enhancing pro-poor governance in Eastern India
Walking along with development’
Deconstructing ‘gender and development’ for ‘identities of women’
Volunteering While Researching Conflict and Violence
Participation and power in I ndonesian oil palm plantations
Can the anti-politics machine be dismantled
Cultivating model developing citizens
Empowering Women
Movement and Coalition in Contention
Endangered Youth? Youth, gender and sexualities in urban Botswana
Being(s) framed
Wither Participatory Banking? Experiences with Village Banks in South Africa
Trapping Farmer Communities Within Global Environmental Regimes
Political economy challenges for climate smart agriculture in Africa
Theorising the Intersection of Public Policy and Personal Lives through the Lens of ‘Participation’
Rethinking the European countryside—can we learn from the South
Engaging the complexities of community
Commentary
Power, Development, and Institutional Change
Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism? The Relevance of the Habermas-Mouffe Debate for Third World Politics
Conflict between green space preservation and housing needs
A changing landscape for teaching and learning in International Development Studies
Social Exclusion and Participation in Community Development Projects
Hyper‐self‐reflexive development? Spivak on representing the Third World ‘Other’
Participation and Passive Revolution
Mono‐industrialism and the Struggle for Alternative Development
Between supply and demand
Cracks that Let the Light in
Doing social volcanology
To Have or to Be
Participatory development, complicity and desire
The Role of Leaders in Democratic Deliberations
The Politics of Human Rights and Development
Creating learning and action space in South Africa’s post-apartheid land redistribution program
Extimate nature
Counterfeit museology
Governos locais e gestão de políticas sociais universais
Past and future adaptation pathways
Assemblage Thinking and Participatory Development
Local Knowledge in Development (Geography)
Whose analysis? Trial of a new participatory conflict analysis for Do No Harm/conflict-sensitive development planning
Spatialising Participatory Approaches
Participation in the Knowledge Society
Obstacles to the use of indigenous knowledge
What is a community's desire? A critical look at participatory research projects with Indigenous communities
The role and value of local knowledge in Jamaican agriculture
Simplified pairwise ranking for prioritisation of agricultural development intervention in Masisi, Democratic Republic of Congo
The global logic of development aid
Towards ethically sound participatory research with marginalised populations
The place of stories in development
Relocating Participation within a Radical Politics of Development
Interrogating the neo-pluralist orthodoxy in American anthropology
Re-Thinking the Boundaries of the Focus Group
From Absolute Poverty to Participatory Poverty Assessment and Back Again? A Critique of Poverty Scorecard through a Case Study from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Three Using Power/Fighting Power
One Three Normative Models of Democracy
Not so Distant, Not so Strange
Six Communication and the Other
The structural transformation of the public sphere
Whose Voice
Whose Reality Counts
Democracy and Difference
Not so distant, not so strange
Participatory rural appraisal (PRA)
Discourse and Power in Development
Participatory Action Research
Participatory development and empowerment
Unruly practices
Three Normative Models of Democracy
The origins and practice of participatory rural appraisal
Participatory rural appraisal (PRA)
Authority, Gender and Knowledge
Jurgen Habermas
Depoliticising development
Beyond Naivety
Between Facts and Norms
| Unique citing works | 92 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,83 |
| Citation span | 2002 - 2026 (25) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 90 |