Beyond the comfort zone: some issues, questions, and challenges in thinking about development approaches and methods

Jo Rowlands

'If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.' Abraham Maslow

'Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.' Albert Einstein (attributed)

Introduction

I have believed for many years that human beings are generally highly resourceful, intelligent, and creative. The more I have seen during my working life, which has given me opportunities to experience life in many parts of the globe and under many different circumstances, the more I have been reinforced in this belief. Unless their abilities have been badly interfered with, human beings are capable of evaluating and judging complex circumstances and acting on their conclusions – even where the range of actions available to them is limited by inequality and other circumstances. Any course of action is contextualised within culture and personal life trajectory – so people don't always act in the way that someone with a different story might expect. I recently had the opportunity to listen to a highly placed member of staff in the Ugandan Ministry of Finance talking about the choices made by poor people in Uganda in chopping down trees. She said that the Ministry used to believe that poor people did not act rationally (because they were destroying their own resource base), but that the more detailed picture which the staff were able to see as a result of their Participatory Poverty Assessment process showed that poor people act as rationally as it is practicable for them to do within problematic circumstances where it is impossible to look beyond the immediate needs of survival. She acknowledged that it was the policy makers' lack of understanding of the full reality and stark choices confronting poor people that was the problem. I am interested in finding approaches to development and methods with which to work that will enable us to free up that human resourcefulness, intelligence, and creativity in ways that bring the achievement of human rights and social justice closer to reality.

In this introductory essay, I will touch on many different aspects, perhaps thinking about approaches and methods not as 'science' but as 'art'. I want to challenge the notion that methodology is somehow neutral; to unpack some of the assumptions that lie behind development interventions; and to explore how power is embedded in everything that gets done. I am also concerned with the process by which priorities are identified and by whom, and concerned also with the elusive challenge of scaling up small progress. I shall take a particular look at participatory approaches, and touch on evaluation and learning. I want to throw many questions into the open: this is an essay that is full of questions. Many of the essays in this volume help to bring those questions back down to the ground again. I will not attempt to draw a complete picture, but I do want to add a degree of complexity which goes beyond what most accounts of particular approaches or methods allow for. I will delve as far into that complexity as space allows, but I shall not attempt to produce many tidy resolutions: readers will have to provide those for themselves, as far as they are able to.

Not neutral, not in isolation

'Approaches' can refer to a wide spectrum of things. They might be empowering, participatory, gender-equitable, people-centred, inclusionary. Or they might be the reverse of each of those: disempowering, top-down, male-biased, formulaic, exclusionary. Or, of course, they might be (and often are) a combination of these, whether intentionally or not. Any approach has behind it a set of values, beliefs, and attitudes that give it its flavour, set its tone. This is a fundamental point to be clear about: approaches to development are not neutral. If an approach has a transformative agenda, it is in a particular direction, towards a change in power relations or resource allocation. If the approach largely tends to maintain the status quo, in so doing it is supporting the maintenance of a particular set of power relations and resource allocations.

Approaches provide a rough guiding framework within which specific methods and techniques can be used. Methods, then, are the step-by-step specifics of how an approach is put into practice at the 'coal face', at the 'kitchen sink', on the 'factory floor', or in the 'field'. Problems can arise when the method is not compatible with the values, beliefs, or attitudes on which the approach that is being used ultimately rests. In a top-down approach, the use of a method which encourages individuals to identify what they want to have happen, but in a context where their wishes will not be realised, can lead to frustration, disillusionment, and non-cooperation. Equally, in a participatory approach, a method which privileges some people's participation over that of others, such as one that requires the ability to read, although not everyone can do so, will not achieve the participation intended.

Problems may also arise when the approach used and the methods employed are compatible, but the individuals using these methods are insufficiently skilled or insufficiently self-aware for them to be truly effective. Participatory and inclusionary approaches are particularly vulnerable to this difficulty. The intent may be there, but here the methods cannot be separated from who is using them: where they 'sit' in the power relations of the context, how aware they are of that, what their skills are as facilitators or enablers of the participation of others, how willing they are to step out of their own 'comfort zone', and so on.

Within any given approach, how do we choose the methods that we use? And what factors influence how we apply them? These choices are not always clear or conscious. If we are really honest about it, many of us probably often choose methods because they are familiar and draw on skills that we feel confident about; or because we perceive that the funders require them. We therefore cannot extract the user from the equation. Methods may be quick to use, or cheap to use. We might choose them because they have been tried and tested: they have a track record which gives them credibility. We might choose them because they are not too disruptive of the status quo – or conversely because they are. We sometimes choose particular methods because we can't think of anything else. The point is, how aware are we of what forms and informs our choices? And how transparent is this to anyone else? People trained in qualitative approaches within the social sciences learn that the quality of the research and its results can be deeply affected by the degree of awareness with which these kinds of issue are considered. Realistically, most 'practitioners' operate within constraints of time and resources that affect the choices we make; we also operate within political contexts that shape our choices.

As to the application of methods, there is the issue (mentioned earlier) of the level of skill with which they are used. There are other issues as well, including flexibility and the ability to adapt a given method according to responses and circumstances. And there are other potentially controversial elements: with how much commitment and/or passion is the method applied? Here we enter into the relationship between the individual(s) engaged in the activity and the nature of the subject material or the kind of change being addressed. I don't advocate the energy of passion as a necessary element for effective action: it depends hugely on the purpose and context of the activity. Undoubtedly there are some areas of undertaking where passion would be unhelpful or counter-productive, or could lead to errors of judgement and mistakes. There are other contexts, however, where commitment – as long-term dedication and passion, as energy and drive – contributes positively to the achievement of change, bringing capacity to confront obstacles and be resilient in the face of set-backs.

Assumptions

Approaches to development, and the methods that flow from them, are profoundly shaped by assumptions that are made about people. Inclusionary and participatory approaches have a firm foundation in an assumption that human beings have capacities and value and potential, and that for many, these are limited by being in a position of powerlessness, vulnerability, or material poverty. Gender-equitable approaches are based on assumptions that men and women have equally valid needs, potential capacities, and contributions. They look for ways to redress the power imbalances that usually favour men over women. These assumptions can mean that conflicts of interest have to be recognised and addressed. Assumptions are also made about processes, such as how change happens or how learning takes place. Assumptions are made about what can and cannot be done. All of these shape the nature of the approach and the choice of methods.

Where do these assumptions come from? Some are based on experience or sound research and evidence from elsewhere. Others are based on beliefs and values – some of which can be based on stereotypes and misinformation. There have been plenty of examples of this over the years. A classic assumption is that of availability of time - usually the time of women, but also of all poor people. How many projects have tripped up over this assumption, only to find that the women's labour is not available at the point when it is needed: they are too busy doing their own work? Maybe some people used to make the assumption that poor people are poor because they sit around doing nothing all day; or, just as inaccurate, that they are doing things with their time that have less value than the project activity. I would like to believe that these particular assumptions are no longer made. Assumptions about what is and is not possible are sometimes based on a careful situational analysis (which can be vulnerable to the oversight of a key factor), and on knowledge and beliefs about how learning and change happen. This can lead to inaccurate assessments of what can be achieved. My favourite example of this comes from a women's group whom I visited in the course of doing research in the state of Puebla in Mexico. I met the women some three years after the completion of a pig-rearing project. The pig idea had been a disaster: everything that could have gone wrong apparently did go wrong. The project had been closed down and judged a failure. Yet when I met the women, they were full of energy, ideas, and enthusiasm, and they had embarked on a different project of their own, had raised their own funds, and had begun to generate income from it. In talking the whole experience over, it was apparent that they had learned all sorts of things from the 'failed project' which were now standing them in good stead. Despite the 'failure', these women had developed confidence, and above all a sense of themselves as able to act in order to meet their own needs. With the passage of time, it was clear that the earlier project had been a resounding success – just not in raising pigs!

One of the columns in the matrix of the Logical Framework is labelled 'assumptions'. The tool as a whole has attracted much criticism over the years, but this seems to me to be one of its strengths: to have a tool which systematically encourages you to become aware of the assumptions being made throughout a planning process seems like an excellent idea. The existence of an assumptions column, however, cannot provide a substitute for the awareness and understanding of assumptions that are needed in order to fill it in. That requires an openness of mind which the tool itself cannot provide. It also requires a willingness to revise the assumptions when they prove inaccurate and, on the part of institutions, a willingness not only to allow revisions but to welcome them as evidence of learning and experience.

Power

I cannot go much further in exploring the issues of development approaches and methods without stopping to explore the critical issue of power. All approaches to development have power embedded in them. The question is, what sorts of power do they encompass, who is powerful and who is not, and does that power help or hinder? It is well recognised that powerlessness is a central element of poverty; any focus on poverty, inequality, injustice, or exclusion involves power and power relations. But despite this acknowledgement, power is insidious and often remains invisible (or 'under the table', to borrow an image from VeneKlasen with Miller (2002)). Approaches that pay explicit attention to power relations, and acknowledge and address the power dynamics within which they operate, are more likely to contribute to change. But consideration of power also needs to be part of the solutions being sought and the methods through which this is done. We are not talking merely about 'power over' here. Approaches and methods are needed which reinforce and strengthen other forms of power that will contribute to lasting solutions through their enhancement – the power of people acting collectively to make change happen, and the power of people knowing and demanding their rights in ways that cannot be ignored. Participatory and inclusionary approaches and methods can be a channel for positive changes in power relations – but even with those approaches, there is nothing automatic about it. I shall return to this later. What matters is that power needs to be recognised and addressed.

One way in which some approaches address power is to focus on particular arenas in which it shows itself. This has been seen in relation to gender, with many instances of gender and gender relations being put intentionally into the foreground and built into the methods so that the power issues cannot be ignored. There have also been many instances where gender issues have been present in the rhetoric, but in practice, when methods are applied, it has been possible for them to be deliberately or unwittingly ignored (Longwe 1997). It matters, therefore, to be deliberate in making the links between the theoretical approach and the implementation of that approach in 'real life' and not to be naive about the tendency of existing power relations to distort and divert the best-intentioned approach.

Who sets the agenda and priorities?

Power comes to the fore again when we consider where agendas for change come from. Who identifies and ultimately decides what is needed in a given context, or which/whose needs should be given priority over which/whose others? Local, national, and international political agendas shift and change all the time, and are constantly interpreted and acted upon by a wide range of actors. So much of what actually happens is shaped and influenced by political timetables and considerations: When is the election? Who needs to be able to show that they have achieved what kind of results? Whose political future is at stake? Budget allocations at each level shift accordingly. Approaches to development need to be able to work within this shifting power context, and to develop strategies for functioning within it. Analysis and understanding are important, since they affect people's view of what is 'possible' and therefore 'worth attempting'. Sometimes, because of the values and beliefs underlying an approach, the response has to be 'it looks impossible, but we're going to try to do it anyway'. This can be very effective! Jubilee 2000 certainly faced considerable criticism for having unrealistic goals which were too complex for the general public to understand when it started its campaign to 'drop the debt' for the poorest indebted countries. Yet it succeeded in mobilising considerable popular opinion in support of an economic agenda of considerable technical complexity. Despite not achieving everything that it had intended, Jubilee 2000 made significant and continuing impact, educating many thousands of 'ordinary people' about significant global issues in the process.