No more adoption rates! Looking for empowerment in agricultural development programmes
Andrew Bartlett
Development in Practice, 2008, vol. 18, issue 4-5, 524-538
Abstract:
The debate on empowerment encompasses an older discourse about the intrinsic value of empowerment, and a newer discourse about the instrumental benefits of empowerment; the concept of agency is useful in understanding this distinction. In agricultural development, empowerment efforts are often instrumentalist, viewed as an advanced form of participation that will improve project effectiveness, with adoption rates that promote compliance rather than intrinsic empowerment. Nevertheless, it is possible for projects to enhance the means for – and facilitate the process of – intrinsic empowerment. With regard to process, research and extension can make use of a constructivist rather than the behaviourist approach to support changes in knowledge, behaviour, and social relationships. In assessing empowerment, both developers and ‘developees’ need to look for evidence that people are taking control of their lives. Case studies – such as those used by the Indonesian Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Programme – will help to capture context and chronology, with unplanned behaviours being particularly useful indicators.
Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09614520802181269 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cdipxx:v:18:y:2008:i:4-5:p:524-538
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cdip20
DOI: 10.1080/09614520802181269
Access Statistics for this article
Development in Practice is currently edited by Emily Finlay
More articles in Development in Practice from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().