Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
key
points
•
The concepts of participation and empowerment have been widely
adopted by development agencies worldwide since the 1990s, and
they promise to listen to, and act upon, the voices of local marginal-
ized groups in society.
•
The extent to which the development process has become truly par-
ticipatory or empowering is contested, as policies often lack the
power fundamentally to change inequitable and unjust social rela-
tions at the global level.
•
Grounded in the notions of civic engagement and association, social
capital was seen as a panacea for development in the 1990s but its
popularity as a tool for poverty alleviation has diminished due to its
ambiguity and breadth.
•
Civil society has been championed as a way of facilitating participa-
tory development, and it has created new spaces for marginal com-
munities to mobilize and campaign for rights, resources and equity.
•
Although informal social movements and grassroots organizations
have been indentified as providing more radical spaces for action
and resistance, NGOs have been identified as the main agents of
civil society in the twenty-first century. NGOs have become an
important stage for addressing the development issues that frame
participatory development.
230
further
reading
There is a substantial literature on the issues raised in this chapter but
sound introductions to the interrelated concepts of participation, social
capital and civil society can be found in Desai and Potter's
Companion
to Development Studies
(2008): Giles Mohan on participatory develop-
ment (Chapter 1.10); Anthony Bebbington on social capital (Chapter 2.15);
and Vandana Desai on NGOs (Chapter 10.6). Anthony Bebbington
offers further critique of the concept of social capital in a series of
reports for
Progress in Development Studies
, while Cathy McIlwaine
(2007) provides a comprehensive and illuminating review of local and
global civil society in
Geography Compass
, 1 (16) and Cheryl McEwan
(2005) explores the gendering of new spaces of citizenship in
Political
Geography
, 24 (8).
