BOOK REVIEWS - PUlTtNC PEOPLE FIRST SOCIOLOGICAL VARIABLES IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT (revised edition) Michael Cernea (ed.) ( 1 99 1 ) Oxford University Press, New York

There is every reason for one being cynical about a book edited by a sociologist who declares that '...people are - and should be - the starting point, the centre, and the end goal of each development intervention' (xiv). Afier all, as Hulme and Turner (1 990, p.11) have written elsewhere, 'Despite investing so much time and effort in the study of development, sociology (and most of the other non- economic social sciences) have exerted a minimal impact on the practice of development ... vagueness and abstraction characterise much sociological output and severely limit its practical relevance ... much tertiary-level sociological training in both the developed and developing worlds does not prepare graduates for making significant and influential contributions to development. A disdain has left sociologists without both a body of normative theory which can apply and a clear idea of their practical task.'

Yet if there is a book which is able to explain and describe and argue that sociologists are positive practitioners rather than negative academics or left-wing ideologues, and that they do have an important and practical contribution to make to development, this is it. It is a significant volume of readings which does not only advocate but also illustrates meticulously how sociological information on social organisation and culture could shape the success or failure of development activities. And this important message i s clearly demonstrated throughout the book with classic case materials drawing from a wide range of projects. These include irrigation projects, settlement and involuntary settlement projects, livestock, fishery and forestry projects as well as rural road projects.

Varied and broad as these projects may be, what has emerged from these readings i s a common theme - that is, the unintended negative effects of all these projects are often not results of technical causes, but from inattention to the social organisation, socioeconomic and cultural complexities intrinsic to implementation of development projects.

In these readings, a number of new models have also been proposed by the different authors to explain the operation of social organisation and cultural issues. Although the views of these models do not necessarily coincide with one another, it has been demonstrated that they are directly useful in designing and formulating development projects. Typically these include the settlement models developed by Scudder and Cernea; and the learning process model as applied in an irrigation project by Bagadion and Korten.

The experiences and findings of these projects certainly have exemplified the significance of 'putting people first'. Kottak's chapter further presents lessons practitioners learn from completed projects which did nor allow people to come first by ignoring cultural variability such as residence rules, division of labour, kinship resource distribution and management.

Of equal importance is Uphoff's chapter on participation. Here the tasks and experiences of identifying, organising and fitting actors into projects in terms of project design, execution and monitoring are summarised and highlighted, and the reader is reminded of the unfortunate tendency that often people are considered more as 'the problem' rather than 'resources' while planners, technicians and bureaucrats are regarded as 'the solution'.

Equally valuable and illuminating is Chamber's contribution on the methodology of rapid rural appraisal in collecting social information for development projects. My main point is that not only is there a wide menu of sociological methods that can be used imaginatively to collect sensitive, practical and relevant information on the local community and their concerns economically and quickly, one should also recognise that often rural people themselves are the most knowledgeable but overlooked resource for information on local problems and activities.

However, without the conviction and the vision of the editor, this volume would have easily become a loose collection of case materials. The editor makes very clear his firm stand against the technocratic and econocratic biases in development work at the expense of social and cultural consideration. He is equally critical of the rigidity of blueprint thinking in project design, the neglect of social actors, the disregard for local farmers' knowledge, and the indifference towards grassroots institutions and organisations. In the first chapter of the book Cernea has been able to bring into focus most convincingly and systematically socio- anthropological analyses as tools of social science for inducing development. In describing the work and contributions of sociologists, he writes, 'they carried out these social analyses in the context for real development programs, and they have examined the social organisational and cultural variables, either to propose models, define methodologies for social action, or translate the lessons from past failures into improved approaches' (p.3). It is an amazing feat that this volume has managed to document all that and more - to reaffirm sociology and sociologists of a rightful place in the practice of development.

David Ip University of Queensland

Reference

1. Hulme, D. and Turner, M., (1990) Sociology and Development. Theories, Policies and Practices, St. Martin, New York.

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