Recent debates on sustainable development increasingly shift the
focus from the technocratic and economic fix of environmental
problems to more fundamental changes in socio-political processes
and relations. In this shift, experts consider participation to be
a genuinely transformative approach to sustainable development.
Yet, the process by which this transformation takes place as an
outcome of the participation is not sufficiently understood.
This book considers how the act of participating in development
projects can bring about social transformation that is considered
to be fair and just by the participants and non-participants in a
broader societal context. Drawing on ideas from social theory,
anthropology and political ecology, the author proposes a
reflexivity-based framework to analyse participation as a type of
social action underpinned by primary experience, which can have a
transformative effect if the participants are allowed to reflect on
the experience, share the reflection with others through collective
deliberation and interaction, and open new space for change. Social
transformation cannot be planned beforehand but the conditions for
it emerge from the project process, with reference to, but outside
the pre-determined logical framework. Institutionalising the
transformation to reshape governance needs to recognise the
emerging conditions by which the participants keep on defining own
terms of engagement.
Using the reflexivity-based framework, the book reassesses
participatory projects for sustainable development in the Amazon,
an African slum, and disaster stricken areas in Japan. These cases
illustrate various patterns of potentially transformative process,
waiting to be appreciated by experts and policy-makers.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!