social and political participation in sustainable

HAL Id: halshs-00685778https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00685778

Submitted on 20 Apr 2012

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open accessarchive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-entific research documents, whether they are pub-lished or not. The documents may come fromteaching and research institutions in France orabroad, or from public or private research centers.

L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, estdestinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documentsscientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,émanant des établissements d’enseignement et derecherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoirespublics ou privés.

Social and political participation in sustainabledevelopment with a focus on governance

Laurent Lacroix, Stephan Rist, Peter R.W. Gerritsen, Didier Péclard

To cite this version:Laurent Lacroix, Stephan Rist, Peter R.W. Gerritsen, Didier Péclard. Social and political participationin sustainable development with a focus on governance. NCCR North-South. Research for SustainableDevelopment: Foundations, Experiences, and Perspectives, Geographica Bernensia, pp.147-164, 2011,Perspectives of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research North-South. �halshs-00685778�

https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00685778

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr

Edited by Urs Wiesmann and Hans Hurni with an international group of co-editors

Research for Sustainable DevelopmentFoundations, Experiences, and Perspectives

perspectives Volume 6

Research for Sustainable Development: Foundations, Experiences, and Perspectives

Research for Sustainable Development

Foundations, Experiences, and Perspectives

Edited by Urs Wiesmann and Hans Hurni with an international group of co-editors

NCCR North-South Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research North-South University of Bern Switzerland

Citation:Wiesmann U, Hurni H, editors; with an international group of co-editors. 2011. Research for Sustainable Development: Foundations, Experiences, and Perspectives. Perspectives of the Swiss National Centre of Compe-tence in Research (NCCR) North-South, University of Bern, Vol. 6. Bern, Switzerland: Geographica Bernensia, 640 pp.

Copyright © 2011 by NCCR North-South, Bern, Switzerland.All rights reserved.

Published by:NCCR North-Southc/o Centre for Development and Environment (CDE)and Institute of Geography, University of BernHallerstrasse 10, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.

ISBN: 978-3-905835-31-1Geographica Bernensia, Bern.

Coordination of publication:Ruth Schaffner, Marlène Thibault, and Anne Zimmermann (NCCR North-South).

English language editing and proofreading:Theodore Wachs, Marlène Thibault, Anne Zimmermann (CDE); Stefan Zach (z.a.ch GmbH).

Layout:Simone Kummer (CDE).

Printed by:Stämpfli AG, Wölflistrasse 1, 3001 Bern, Switzerland.

Printed on FSC paper

Distribution:Additional copies may be obtained from NCCR North-South, c/o CDE, Bern: [email protected]. An open access version of this publication is available at: www.north-south.unibe.ch

Cover photo:Building a bamboo bridge across the Nam Khan river, near Luang Prabang (Lao PDR). Seemingly tenuous bridges can be powerful links between shores otherwise far apart: they are small and efficient, use adapted local technologies, serve the purpose of rapid connection, and can be rebuilt after floods. (Photo by Thomas Breu, November 2011)

Produktgruppe aus vorbildlich bewirtschafteten Wäldern und anderen kontrollierten Herkünften.

www.fsc.org Cert. No. SQS-COC-22253© 1996 Forest Stewardship Council

Mix

5

Table of Contents

ForewordUrs Wiesmann and Hans Hurni 8

Acknowledgements 11

Part I Foundations of Research for Sustainable Development

1 Global Change Research for Sustainable Development

Hans Hurni and Urs Wiesmann; with an international group of co-authors 15

2 Combining the Concepts of Transdisciplinarity and Partnership in Research for Sustainable Development

Urs Wiesmann, Hans Hurni, Cordula Ott, and Claudia Zingerli 43

Part II Concepts of Research for Sustainable Development

3 Research Partnerships and Capacity Development in the South: A Social Learning Perspective

Bishnu Raj Upreti 73

4 Collaborative Knowledge Production for Sustainable Development: Experiences from the NCCR North-South

Claudia Zingerli 91

5 The Transformation of Policy Ideas: A Challenge for Development Research

Laurent Goetschel 103

6 Endogenous Knowledge: Implications for Sustainable Development Stephan Rist, Sébastien Boillat, Peter R.W. Gerritsen, Flurina Schneider, Sarah-Lan

Mathez-Stiefel, and Nelson Tapia 119

7 Social and Political Participation in Sustainable Development with a Focus on Governance

Laurent Lacroix, Stephan Rist, Peter R.W. Gerritsen, and Didier Péclard 147

8 Governance: Exploring Four Approaches and Their Relevance to Research

Marc Hufty 165


6

North-Southperspectives

9 A Tool for Thought and Transformation: Gender-considerate Global Change Research in Practice

Sabin Bieri, Cordula Ott, Ada Freytes Frey, Cecilia Cross, Florencia Partenio, and María Inés Fernández Álvarez 185

10 Interdisciplinary Approaches in Research for Sustainable Development Jakob Zinsstag, Marcel Tanner, Hung Nguyen Viet, Brigit Obrist, Guéladio Cissé,

Bassirou Bonfoh, Roland Schertenleib, Christian Zurbrügg, Birru Yitaferu, Amare Bantider, and Hans Hurni 207

Part III Actor Perspectives in Research for Sustainable Development

11 A Human Actor Model as a Conceptual Orientation in Interdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Development

Urs Wiesmann, Cordula Ott, Chinwe Ifejika Speranza, Boniface P. Kiteme, Ulrike Müller-Böker, Peter Messerli, and Jakob Zinsstag 231

12 Towards an Analytical Livelihoods Perspective in Critical Development Research

Urs Geiser, Ulrike Müller-Böker, Babar Shahbaz, Bernd Steimann, and Susan Thieme 257

13 Multi-layered Social Resilience: A New Approach in Mitigation Research Brigit Obrist, Constanze Pfeiffer, and Robert Henley 273

14 From Rhetoric to Concept: Incremental Steps for Mainstreaming Gender in the NCCR North-South

Cordula Ott and Sabin Bieri 289

15 Access to Livelihood Assets: Inclusion, Exclusion, and the Reality of Development Interventions

Urs Geiser, Patrick Bottazzi, Michael Epprecht, Gilbert Fokou, Astrid Fritschi, R. Ramakumar, Babar Shahbaz, Bernd Steimann, and Balz Strasser 313

16 Sustaining a Multi-local Life: Possible Theoretical Foundations for Livelihood and Transnational Migration Studies

Susan Thieme 331

Part IV Tools in Research for Sustainable Development

17 System Dynamics in Transdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Development

Justus Gallati and Urs Wiesmann 345

18 Towards a Differentiated Assessment of Geographic Information Sciences for Sustainable Development

Albrecht Ehrensperger, Andreas Heinimann, Peter Messerli, Benedikt Notter, Julius Muchemi, Thomas Breu, and Michael Epprecht 361

7

19 Finding Homogeneity in Heterogeneity: A New Approach to Quantifying Landscape Mosaics, Developed for the LAO PDR

Peter Messerli, Andreas Heinimann, and Michael Epprecht 377

20 Investigating Policy Processes: The Governance Analytical Framework (GAF) Marc Hufty 403

Part V Thematic Foci in Research for Sustainable Development

21 Sustainable Land Management and Global Development: Factors Affecting Land Users’ Efforts to Adopt and Sustain the Productive Use of Natural Resources

Thomas Breu, Hans Hurni, Brigitte Portner, Gudrun Schwilch, Bettina Wolfgramm, Peter Messerli, and Karl Herweg 427

22 The Missing Link: Environmental Change, Institutions, and Violent Conflicts

Laurent Goetschel and Didier Péclard 451

23 Challenges for Participatory Conservation in Times of Global Change: Lessons from a Comparative Analysis and New Developments

Tobias Haller and Marc Galvin 467

24 Sustainable Livelihoods for Coffee Producers in East Africa: Is Producing Speciality Coffee a Way Out of Poverty?

Eva Ludi, Aklilu Amsalu, Wanjiku Chiuri, Tobias Haller, Gimbage Mbeyale, and David Mhando 505

25 Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in India: A (Neo-)Kaldorian Analysis

Rolf Kappel and Pradeep Agrawal 525

26 Pastoralism at the Crossroads: New Avenues for Sustainable Livelihoods in Semi-arid Regions

Bassirou Bonfoh, Jakob Zinsstag, Gilbert Fokou, Daniel Weibel, Moustapha Ould Taleb, Inam-ur-Rahim, Daniel Maselli, Joldoshbek Kasymbekov, and Marcel Tanner 549

27 Innovation in ‘Urbanism’ Thinking: Spectrum and Limits Adriana Rabinovich 571

28 Operationalising Human Security in an Urban Setting: The Experience of Caracas

Albrecht Schnabel, Andres Antillano, Indira C. Granda Alviarez, and Yves Pedrazzini 607

29 Towards Equity Effectiveness in Health Interventions Jakob Zinsstag, Bassirou Bonfoh, Guéladio Cissé, Hung Nguyen Viet, Bétio Silué, Tenguel

Sosthène N’Guessan, Daniel Weibel, Roland Schertenleib, Brigit Obrist, and Marcel Tanner 623


8


Foreword

Sustainable development remains an important global vision. This reveals a general conviction that global change and dynamics should not just re-sult in uncontrolled and uncontrollable development, but that development should be goal-oriented. In this context, sustainable development aims to establish a balance between economic, sociocultural, and ecological goals, and strives for intra- and intergenerational equity in a globalising world.

However, although sustainable development has been at the top of global and national agendas for at least two decades, concrete progress remains scanty. Among the societal reasons for this limited success are: lack of concretisation of targets attached to the value dimensions of sustainability; the higher temporal sensitivity of economic by comparison with sociocul-tural and especially ecological indicators, giving economic values more weight; and economic and political power disparities that lead to power-driven value definitions, with a tendency to neglect the values and visions of the populations concerned in concrete contexts.

At the same time, societal and scientific knowledge production has not suc-ceeded in fully matching the vision of sustainable development. Due to their rather one-sided quantitative and disciplinary-driven reference system, sci-ence and research have provided many important sectoral insights and ap-proaches, but they have largely missed out on (1) contextualisation and con-

cretisation of knowledge and explicit linking of knowledge production to

societal values, and (2) conceptual integration and mainstreaming of the

requirements of sustainable development. These two aspects remain major challenges of research for sustainable development and require that sound disciplinary and interdisciplinary research be complemented with transdisci-plinary approaches in contextually rooted, intercultural research partnerships.

The ongoing Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR)North-South programme focusing on “Research Partnerships for Mitigating Syndromes of Global Change” has provided a unique opportunity to contrib-ute to addressing the above two challenges of research for sustainable devel-opment. This opportunity has depended on three major factors: the long-term perspective of the NCCR Programme from mid-2001 to mid-2013; joint and coordinated support from a research foundation – the Swiss National Sci-ence Foundation (SNSF) – and a development agency – the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC); and well-established inter- and transdisciplinary research partnerships in nine regions worldwide.

9

Foreword

In a previous volume of this series (Hurni et al 2010) we presented a syn-thesis of the achievements of the NCCR North-South with regard to the first challenge mentioned above: contextualisation and concretisation. In the current volume, we present progress achieved with regard to the second challenge, that is, the conceptualisation and operationalisation of research

for sustainable development. This volume accounts for major progress in research approaches and their application, as achieved by the programme as a whole, as well as by the participating interdisciplinary and partnership-based research groups. These achievements are presented in five parts:

Part I: Foundations of research for sustainable development (2 articles):Reflections on the link between global change in its broadest sense and the concept of sustainable development form the basis for conceptualis-ing related research, and for justifying and clarifying the importance of transdisciplinarity, contextuality, and research partnerships.

Part II: Concepts of research for sustainable development (8 articles): Important specific challenges of research for sustainable development are addressed in greater detail in this section. The articles present considera-tions on and experiences with how to deal in concrete ways with: intercul-tural research partnerships and related capacity development; the quest for collaborative knowledge production at the interface between science and society; and giving the gender dimension adequate weight. Some articles also reflect on the links between participation, policy transformation, and governance – which are necessary requirements for an iterative, value-con-scious, and societally relevant research approach.

Part III: Actor perspectives in research for sustainable development (6 articles): Actors at multiple levels are agents of change and define the value dimension of sustainable development. Conceptualising “actors” in research is therefore crucial. Starting from a broad concept of actors, this section critically reviews and concretises livelihood concepts in devel-opment research and research on multilayered resilience; further articles examine the specific dimensions of gender, livelihood assets, and multi-locality.

Part IV: Tools in research for sustainable development (4 articles): Modern information technologies (ITs) have greatly increased the availabil-ity and spatio-temporal resolution of information. However, how can this information be transformed into shared knowledge in concrete research ap-proaches aiming for more sustainable development? This section presents


10


experiences with and tools for dealing with this challenge, and is comple-mented by a framework for analysing policy processes and governance.

Part V: Thematic foci in research for sustainable development (9 articles): In concrete development efforts, commissioning agencies and societies concerned usually do not ask for research on sustainable develop-ment as an overall goal, but for research linked to specific sustainability issues. Starting with insights into a wide range of such issues – ranging from land management to environmental conflicts, nature conservation, commodities, growth and poverty, pastoralism and urbanism, human se-curity, and equity effectiveness in health interventions – this final section illustrates how thematic foci can be embedded into the broader perspective of research for sustainable development.

By collating these different perspectives on research for sustainable develop-ment, we hope to contribute to the sustainable development debate from a number of angles, and to further development of concepts and approaches in this field of research. In particular, we hope to contribute to overcoming the deadlock in research for sustainable development, which seems to fo-cus either on global principles and perspectives, or on concrete realities and societal values in specific contexts, without being able to link the two foci. Based on our experience in the past 10 years of research in partnership, we are convinced that integrative research efforts can also trigger innovation in the participating scientific disciplines and thus contribute to science as a whole. This is a secondary effect alongside the ultimate goal of the NCCR North-South, which is to contribute in concrete ways to more sustainable de-velopment both in societal debates and in concrete, situation-specific efforts.

Urs Wiesmann and Hans Hurni (editors)

Reference:

Hurni H, Wiesmann U, editors; with an international group of co-editors. 2010. Global Change and Sustainable Development: A Synthesis of Regional Experiences from Research Part-nerships. Perspectives of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South, University of Bern, Vol. 5. Bern, Switzerland: Geographica Bernensia.

11

Acknowledgements

The Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South programme was established in 2001. It has been a unique opportu-nity to increase the concrete development impact of research. In addition, as presented in this volume, the programme has also enabled a significant number of research partners to experiment with, reflect on, and develop approaches, concepts, and methodologies with a view to enhancing the relevance and usefulness of research for sustainable development. This unique chance was made possible by the joint effort of our donors from the research (the Swiss National Science Foundation [SNSF]), development (the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation [SDC]), and aca-demic communities (the seven NCCR North-South partner institutions in Switzerland, with the lead institution at the University of Bern). We would like to thank them for their bold and continual support of our interdisci-plinary and intercultural programme, as well as for their guidance offered through the jointly established Review Panel.

This book presents articles authored by a total of 87 researchers from 19 countries. Over the years, however, many more people have been in-volved in this international partnership programme and have contributed to the approaches and results presented here; it is impossible to name them all. In addition, a wide range of scholars from the broad institutional network of the NCCR North-South reviewed the articles in this book and made in-valuable comments. The Editors would like to express their deep gratitude to all the researchers and institutions involved in the NCCR North-South programme and to all authors for their contributions to pertinent issues of research for sustainable development.

Finally, the Editors wish to thank three groups of people who initiated, coordinated, and produced this volume: first, the core group of NCCR North-South colleagues who, together with the Editors, have led the con-ceptual reflections resulting in this book on research for sustainable de-velopment: Urs Geiser, Andreas Heinimann, Cordula Ott, Didier Péclard, Stephan Rist, and Claudia Zingerli. Second, Ruth Schaffner, who coor-dinated the synthesis project and the internal peer-review process; and Thomas Breu, Programme Coordinator, who managed the project in the background. Finally, members of the production team: Anne Zimmermann (editing and coordination of the Perspectives series), Marlène Thibault

Acknowledgements


12


(editing and coordination of the publication process), Simone Kummer (layout), Theodore Wachs (editing), Mirjam Lazzini, Moritz Schönbächler, and Yasmine Willi (technical editing), and Stefan Zach (external editor and proofreader). Their untiring commitment made this book possible.

Bern, December 2011

The Editors: Urs Wiesmann and Hans Hurni (Directors NCCR North-South), and (in alphabetical order): Nazgulmira Arynova (UCA, JACS CAS), Bassirou Bonfoh (CSRS, JACS WAF), Gilles Carbonnier (IHEID, Geneva), Berhanu Debele (RCO, JACS HOA), Laurent Goetschel (Swisspeace and University of Basel), Janet Hering with Christian Zurbrügg (Eawag/San-dec, ETHZ), Elizabeth Jiménez Zamora (CIDES-UMSA, JACS SAM), Boniface Kiteme (CETRAD, JACS EAF), Thammarat Koottatep (AIT, JACS SEA), Karina Liechti (CDE, JACS ALP), Ulrike Müller-Böker (Department of Geography, University of Zurich), Maria Angelina Pérez Gutierrez (FLACSO, JACS CCA), Marcel Tanner with Jakob Zinsstag (Swiss TPH, University of Basel), and Bishnu Upreti (RCO, JACS SAM)

Sustainable development remains an important global vision in a rapidly changing and globalising world. Realising this vision requires knowledge-based and value-conscious social, political, and economic decisions and actions at multiple levels. Research aiming to support sustainable development faces challenges that go beyond the tradition-al roles of discipline-oriented science. This means that knowledge must be co-produced at the interfaces between a broad range of disciplines, between science and society, between knowledge cultures in the global North, South, and East, and between global visions and local realities – while remaining rooted in solid disciplinary foundations.

Research for Sustainable Development presents 29 articles mostly au-thored by interdisciplinary teams. Based on the experiences of a decade of inter- and transdisciplinary research in partnership conducted in nine regions of the world, some authors reflect on the foundations of sustainability-oriented research; others propose and illustrate con-crete concepts, tools, and approaches to overcome the challenges of such research; and further authors focus on specific issues of sustain-able development – ranging from land management to environmental conflicts, nature conservation, commodities, growth and poverty, pastoralism and urbanism, human security, and equity effectiveness in health interventions – and show how research practice has led to new thematic and methodological insights. This book thus seeks to stimu-late the advancement of research towards more relevant, scientifically sound, and concrete contributions to realising the vision of sustainable development.

ISBN 978-3-905835-31-1 perspectives

147

7 Social and Political Participation in Sustainable Development with a Focus on Governance

Laurent Lacroix1, Stephan Rist2, Peter R.W. Gerritsen3, and Didier Péclard4

Abstract

In the course of the past four decades, participation has been mainstreamed

in development research and practice. However, despite very widespread

use of the term, there is no consensus on its definition, and it has generated

intense and controversial debate. Taking stock of some fifty publications

developed within the framework of the Swiss National Centre of Compe-

tence in Research (NCCR) North-South on the topic, this paper opens up new

avenues of research while offering a critical appraisal of social and political

participation in sustainable development research and practice. The main-

streaming of participation has corresponded to an increasingly technical

approach to the question. What the body of literature discussed here sug-

gests is that more attention should be given to power relationships and gov-

ernance processes in analysing the participatory dynamics of development.

Participation is primarily a political problem relating to power relations and

(im)balances in a given society. It is, therefore, not a ‘simple’ norm whose

implementation would be a prerequisite for “good governance” and sustain-

able development. It is an arena, a physical or symbolic space where key

social issues such as, for example, access to resources, gender inequalities,

access to land, or land rights are debated and negotiated.

Keywords: Participation; sustainable development; governance; power;

politics.


148


7.1 Introduction

Over the course of the last four decades, the term “participation” has been widely used in development discourse and has also been mainstreamed in development practice and research. Although it is nowadays generally advocated as a philosophy of development (see, for example, Cernea 1985; Chambers 1992, 1994a, 1994b), the concept of participation itself has gen-erated and continues to generate intense and controversial debate about its meaning, implementation modes, and effects. Consequently, it is not easy to define what has gradually become a meta-concept of (sustainable) develop-ment, particularly as the polysemic nature of participation manifests itself in multiple, changing meanings in the development arena (Cornwall 2000).

In the present article, participation is considered as a process through which stakeholders (generally poor people or organisations that act as intermedi-aries for the poor or for specific relatively disadvantaged, marginalised, or voiceless groups of people) strive to influence and share control over devel-opment policies, initiatives, and the allocation of resources that affect them.

Based on this definition, the present article aims to contribute to current international debates on the issue of participation in (sustainable) develop-ment by reviewing approximately fifty relevant studies carried out within the framework of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South research programme. A diversity of situations, as well as the controversial nature and ambiguity of the concept of participation in development – in terms of its effects and limitations – are confirmed here. But what the body of research discussed in this article suggests, directly and indirectly, is that more attention needs to be given to power relation-ships and governance processes in analysing the participatory dynamics of development. As governance, very broadly speaking, refers to the inclusion of new actors in political decision-making processes, it is directly related to both power and participation.

This review argues that the concept of participation has undergone a cer-tain process of ‘depoliticisation’ (Cornwall 2000; McGee and Norton 2000; Bühler 2002; Brock and McGee 2004; Brown 2004; Gaventa 2004; Wil-liams 2004) during the last two decades, both at a conceptual level and in the way it has been implemented in development strategies. Currently, how-ever, the concept of participation appears to become repoliticised as a result of the impulse of certain civil-society actors and social movements. Power

149

Participation and Governance in Sustainable Development

relationships and governance issues are thus assuming importance in current debates about the new challenges and meanings of participation.

This article proceeds in three steps, first broadly sketching the evolution of the concept of participation in development literature and policies. It then moves on to synthesise briefly the main contributions of the NCCR North-South on the topic, with a particular focus on the effects of participation. The final section gives a critical outlook on the actual impact of decades of ‘participatory development’ before suggesting some avenues for further reflection.

7.2 The concept of participation in development (1960s–2000s)

The concept of participation in development policy has changed markedly in recent decades. During the 1990s, participatory processes were formal-ised and institutionalised on the international scene. This led to an inversion of logic. Bottom-up dynamics, which had been the hallmark of participatory principles in the 1970s, were widely replaced by top-down dynamics (initi-ated by states or international institutions) that nevertheless claimed to rest on bottom-up movements (Rabinovich, in press).

In the 1950s and 1960s, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and grass-roots activists began to promote greater popular involvement in the develop-ment process. Concepts of ‘community participation’ and ‘popular partici-pation’ emerged in opposition to technocratic, homogeneous, and homog-enising development practices inherited from the colonial period (Cornwall 2000; Karl 2002). Influenced by these initiatives, ‘community participation’ became a channel through which ‘popular participation’ began to be real-ised in mainstream development initiatives of the late 1970s and early 1980s (Cornwall 2000). In those years, indeed, donor governments and interna-tional agencies defined goals that put ‘popular participation’ on internation-al agendas and made it the subject of national legislation. In several South American countries, for example, the option of ‘popular participation’, con-ceived by the United Nations as an instrument of politico-administrative change, was adopted in response to the ‘modernisation’ of states that had been declared necessary (Martínez Montaño 1996).


150


Within mainstream discourse, participation was seen largely as a means to involve people in activities initiated by development agencies or the state (Cornwall 2000). Contrasting alternatives emerged, such as ‘people’s self-development’, ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’, and ‘participatory action research’, which considered participation as a process of creating collective reflection and action to recognise, and subsequently change, societal power structures that impeded more equal access to and participation in the shap-ing of public policies. In other words, this type of participation was meant to build the capacity to negotiate on new terms with those in power, including the state (Cornwall 2000; Fals Borda 2006).

In the mid-1980s and 1990s, the implementation of neo-liberal economic policies led to a convergence of different (even diametrically different) interests that can be considered “a meeting of the opposites” (Lacroix 2000, p 5) involving international institutions, states, social movements, engi-neers, specialists, local actors, etc., all of them sharing common objectives within the new global paradigm of development (e.g. Premchander and Mül-ler 2006). On the one hand, this change was mainly characterised by the increasing and exponential influence of the role of NGOs in the new politi-cal agendas of development, and by a withdrawal of the state as an actor in development. On the other hand, there was a formalisation and institution-alisation of concepts such as ‘capacity building’, ‘empowerment’, ‘commu-nity’, and ‘participation’ (Cornwall 2000; McGee and Norton 2000; Eberlei 2001; Brown 2004; Premchander and Müller 2006; Rabinovich, in press). The participatory dimension ultimately became central and consensual in development policies and projects.

During this period, the concept of participation was ‘domesticated’ by the implementation of ‘invited participation’ spaces (Cornwall 2000), and it also became broadly depoliticised with the development of an extensive and powerful process of ‘good governance’ in line with the dominant global neo-liberal paradigm (Bühler 2002). This evolution led some researchers and local actors to consider participation as the main tool in a new technocratic tyranny (Cook and Kothari 2001; Bühler 2002; Williams 2004). However, some alternative approaches, such as Participatory Rural Appraisal, have resisted the mainstream(ing) of participation controlled by international and transnational entities (Chambers 1992, 1994a, 1994b, 2007a).

151


Since 2000, growing interest in ‘citizenship participation’, defined as “direct ways in which citizens influence and exercise control in governance” (Gaventa and Valderrama 1999, quoted in Cornwall 2000, p 60), as well as in the generalisation of ‘invited participation’ spaces has been responsible for a return of the political dimension of participation in development. New forms of citizenship have emerged that consider participation as a right in the social, economic, ecological, and political realms. Moreover, the issue of (access to) decision-making and power relationships is again coming to the fore. It is in this context of renewed attention to the political dimen-sion of participation that research was conceived and conducted within the NCCR North-South. By focusing on the complex relationships between (and within) formal and informal power structures and the related institu-tional dynamics, as well as the implications these have for the production and reproduction of individual and collective agency, this research has made a valuable contribution to debates about participation in development.

7.3 Main foci of research on participation in the NCCR North-South

Providing a detailed overview of the more than fifty studies conducted with-in the framework of the NCCR North-South on the issue of participation would go far beyond the scope of this article. In what follows, we therefore outline some of the major lines of argument presented in these studies.

Broadly speaking, the studies can be grouped into two categories: 1) works dealing with ‘political participation’ that emphasise analysis of processes in arenas in which collective decisions are taken; and 2) works on the ‘effects’ of ‘social participation’ that focus on the implementation of development projects. However, a common denominator of all the studies is their focus on the continuities and discontinuities between mostly marginalised (local) actors in development projects and related public spaces for decision-mak-ing. In the latter category, research on participation in decentralisation pro-cesses clearly dominates (see Geiser and Rist 2009). Although most stud-ies recognise the interconnection between social and political participation, these are generally examined separately. Moreover, a distinction is to be made between processes and effects as a focus of research.


152


7.3.1 Focus on processes

Possible answers to the question of how certain forms of participation change power relations can be found in one group of studies dealing with conceptu-alisations of participatory processes in a broader societal context. Some of these studies analyse participation and its relationship to the transformation of basic understandings of citizenship, public space, deliberative democ-racy, emancipation, or resistance. Others emphasise a better understanding of the potentials and constraints of different forms of collective action as part of development (associations, social movements, etc.). The relation of the observed changes in power asymmetries to indicators of ecological sus-tainability is generally not addressed by these works. Instead, they focus on the constitution and evolution of social organisations and movements and show that it is worthwhile to differentiate between top-down (nevertheless usually well-intended) ‘decreed participation’ and ‘uninvited participation’ on the part of social groups making explicit claims to change political orders and societal structures. It seems that ‘decreed’ participation aims rather at maintaining dominant macro power relations – within a context of redistrib-uting administrative functions – and, to a certain degree, related power rela-tions. ‘Uninvited’ participation intends to change prevailing power relations directly.

Some PhD candidates carried out case studies showing how power relations are directly involved in the shaping of social relationships within different actor categories, and between these actor categories and their local natu-ral environment. These studies often focus on marginalised groups such as women, indigenous people in rural and urban areas, migrants, landless and unemployed people, pastoralists, slum dwellers, etc. They are significant insofar as they provide basic knowledge about the factors and dynamics that result in certain actor categories remaining or – in some cases – becoming marginalised.

7.3.2 Focus on effects and impacts

A second group of studies analysed the implications and impacts of par-ticipation on different forms of governance of natural resources, protect-ed areas, water, and waste. This group includes PhD-level studies dealing with the development or evaluation of participatory instruments for plan-ning, monitoring, or assessing aspects related to sustainable development. The indicators used to assess the effects of participation mainly refer to the

153


ecological dimensions of sustainability, for example impacts on deforesta-tion, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, or availability and quality of water. Research taking into account that sustainable development is not only defined by a certain form of participation but also by a broad set of socio-economic indicators, such as values and institutions regulating access to and distribution of basic natural resources, has not been conducted. Two books present a total of 21 case studies showing that current forms of ‘participa-tory’ (Galvin and Haller 2008) and ‘decentralised’ (Geiser and Rist 2009) management of natural resources are generally associated with great prob-lems when it comes to effectively changing existing power asymmetries. As a consequence, they often fail to achieve expected medium- and long-term ecological impacts.

7.4 Some effects of participation

Differentiating between processes, impacts, and effects makes it possible to identify two aspects of sustainable development that are interrelated but not integrated in research practice: the social-ecological and the political effects of participation. In the following sections, we summarise some typical cases in each category of effects, and point out some additional aspects mentioned in other studies.

7.4.1 Social and ecological effects

Participation has been shown to help improve people’s living conditions and their access to natural and other development-relevant resources. In Bolivia, the (ad)option of ‘popular participation’ in the implementation of a (government-induced) decentralisation process since 1994 has generated considerable changes in terms of local development, by comparison with neighbouring countries. In the initial years, educational, social, and medical infrastructures were created in each municipality, making local support of the economic sector more efficient (Arrieta and De La Fuente 1998; Lacroix 2000; De La Fuente 2001; Bolay 2002; Lacroix 2005). In a few villages in Pakistan, the participatory forest management system introduced by the public Forestry Sector Project has increased natural assets (use of forest-associated pastures) as well as the social assets (networks, organisation, information exchange) of forest dwellers, although institutional changes in the forestry sector did not help to foster cash-oriented livelihood strategies (Shahbaz 2004; Ali et al 2007).


154


The increase in social, cognitive, and emotional competencies through par-ticipatory training and joint learning by local actors, researchers, and devel-opment workers is another fundamental outcome of participation (Rist et al 2007; Rabinovich, in press). For women, education is particularly decisive for their integration in decision-making and negotiating processes on val-ues, norms, and entitlements (Müller 2006).

The group of works dealing with social effects includes a series of studies that aim to link social and ecological processes by evaluating participatory management schemes and emphasising ecological indicators of sustainabil-ity, for example with regard to impacts on deforestation (Ali et al 2006), soil erosion (Mitiku Haile et al 2006), loss of biodiversity (Gurung 2006), or availability and quality of water (Lüthi et al 2008). The main virtue of this kind of research consists in linking social and ecological processes. How-ever, because these studies generally examine only a small number of social variables related to specific but important aspects of participation, they tend to fall short of capturing the full complexity of other social phenomena related to participation, for example power structures and relations, actor-specific understandings of development, human beings, or nature (Bottazzi 2008; Geiser and Rist 2009).

7.4.2 Political effects

As stated above, participation by local actors is directly related to the issues of agency and power (Long 2001; Bichsel 2009). This relation is clear and obvious in participatory processes, which often reveal the social and politi-cal situation or configuration, bringing to light power relations (domination/subordination, normalisation/marginalisation), underlying or latent con-flicts, tensions, and interpersonal or intersectoral relations. Implementation of participation can lead to the emergence of claims that provide information about disparities and/or inequalities of access to decision-making.

In Mexico, as in other parts of Latin America, research on participation draws attention to social organisations and movements and their role in the construction of new societal structures (Morales 2004). Their activities often stem from the defence of local sociocultural, organisational, and economic structures in order to maintain or (re)gain control over constitutive elements of their life-worlds (Gerritsen and Morales Hernández 2009).

155


An example is the Red de Alternativas Sustentables Agropecuarias (RASA), a network for sustainable agricultural alternatives in western Mexico. This network currently comprises about 100 farmer families, six non-govern-mental organisations, and two local universities. Starting from the defence of local resources, organisations, food, and identities, it evolved into a new platform for debating and proposing alternative rural development poli-cies. RASA thereby became a frame of reference for organic agriculture and fair trade, and turned into an important policy actor. For example, RASA is actively participating in a state governmental board on strengthening organ-ic agriculture (Gerritsen and Morales Hernández 2009). Other cases confirm this pattern of policy influence exerted by locally rooted organisations and movements which, by means of federalisation, create powerful regional and national networks allowing them to compete with political parties and pri-vate companies in the arena of high-level policy-making (Freytes Frey et al 2006; Orozco Ramírez et al 2006; André de la Porte 2007).

7.5 The limited impacts of participation

When claims to change power structures are compared with the real-world effects of participatory development, it becomes apparent that the impact is very limited. Although participation in general promotes ‘better’ local development in the sense of responding more adequately to the needs and expectations of the local population, and contributes to (local-level) democ-ratisation, participatory approaches fall short of achieving real change in the power relationships implied in (re)shaping social, political, and ecological structures. In other words, participation only constitutes a means to improve access to resources or decision-making and/or to more participatory man-agement of resources. Although this is in accord with the principles of sus-tainable development, participatory approaches generally tend to improve sustainability within existing structures.

There are a number of reasons for this contradiction: a) exogenous, main-ly top-down-oriented initiatives for participatory processes often involve imposition or privileging of the development visions of more powerful actors, rather than creating room for reconciling local and external perspec-tives (Gerritsen and Morales Hernández 2001); b) local inhabitants’ knowl-edge is rarely integrated into projects, implying that the respective participa-tory process all too often ignores these people’s capacities, resources, and visions, drawing a line between their own and outsiders’ solutions (Rist and


156


Dahdouh-Guebas 2006; Rabinovich, in press); c) simplifying social com-plexity for the sake of participatory development as conceived from the top leads to overestimation of the effects and feasibility of institutional or tech-nical packages (Galvin 2004; Rabinovich and Navez-Bouchanine 2005). National governments often conceive participation schemes without politi-cal and structural backing, as simple tools for overcoming a specific crisis, instead of considering participation as a real means and opportunity for find-ing, in a joint effort, solutions to the underlying social problems such as pov-erty, inequality of access, and marginalisation. This leads to a discrepancy between local expectations, public policies, and international mainstream-ing, or to a lack of means that directly reflects a lack of political will on the part of national governments, which must respect modalities imposed by international institutions. As a result, in many cases participatory processes are artificial and remain superficial as they emerge from development pro-jects rather than (sectors of) civil society.

Consequently, the question of which role the state should play becomes central. One of the absolute conditions for international organisations to support top-down-initiated participatory processes was – and often still is – that the participatory process in question must support withdrawal of the state from the economy and society. In many cases, however, this (neo-)liberal ideology represents in itself an obstacle to implementation of public and participatory policies. Without the power of the state to institutionalise and upscale, generalise, and thereby protect successful participatory initia-tives for sustainable development, the sustainability of such initiatives will remain uncertain and weak.

These limits to participation can generate frustration on multiple levels for local stakeholders, and ultimately represent a danger to the participatory process itself. Indeed, the expectations and hopes of populations can rapidly turn into disappointment and rejection (Lacroix 2000; Müller and Kollmair 2004; Lacroix 2005; Gurung 2006; Shahbaz and Ali 2006; André de la Porte 2007). Beneficiaries or stakeholders can be exasperated by the time it takes for the effects of participatory processes to materialise, and many of them abandon the undertaking (Rabinovich, in press). This collective feeling comes from a misunderstanding between the people in charge of the par-ticipatory processes and some of the actors involved in them. Participation is often presented as a ‘revolutionary process’ that allows full consideration and automatic integration of all claims. On a practical level, however, this is impossible to achieve. Actors’ roles and responsibilities are rarely clearly

157


defined, and this provokes confusion, frustration, and disillusion. Finally, participation is completely overestimated if it is considered as a panacea – as if it could generate solutions for its own inherent limits. Participation is not implemented to effect structural change, particularly in cases where it is not accompanied by structural measures. Participation cannot be considered as a global solution to mitigate syndromes that are attributable to political structures or social inequalities. Yet local actors rarely discredit participa-tion as a way or method of development. The satisfaction of being consulted or included in development seems fundamentally more important than the results or consequences of the participatory process (Rabinovich, in press).

7.6 Preliminary conclusion and prospects

Any reflection on participation in development must face the difficulty of synthesis. As Brock and McGee (2004) mention, multiple levels and spaces lead to fragmentation of participation. Cornwall adds that “the spectrum of practices associated with participation in development is so vast that captur-ing their complexity would be impossible” (Cornwall 2000, p 58). Never-theless, the diversity of case studies in terms of geographical distribution, methodologies, and approaches relates to the various disciplines that co-exist within the NCCR North-South programme. Several complementary definitions of participation in development were produced. Participation is generally

understood not as an end in itself, but as a means to facilitate pro-

cesses of deliberation between different stakeholders who – based

on the principles of fairness and empathy – collectively use and

broaden public spaces, aiming at structural and personal trans-

formations in view of more sustainable forms of development.

(Webler and Tuler 2000, quoted in Wiesmann et al 2005, p 128)

In this respect, participation is generally seen as related to the broadening of existing or the opening of new deliberative spaces from a normative per-spective. But in a more critical way, participation is also perceived as a

complex concept that encompasses social actors’ interests; their

purposeful selection of partners for participation; their strategic

interaction – and active non-interaction – with others; and their

capacities to make claims sound attractive and just. Participation


158


can mean very different things to different social actors, though

all use the same word within a specific context […]. Participation

appears in this analysis as an important means to struggle for

one’s vision of development within wider social arenas. Such par-

ticipation alliances between (often unequal) partners are facilitat-

ed by converging interests and supported by related discourses,

and split by changing interests and the emergence of new dis-

courses. Finally, participation is not an a-historic phenomenon.

(Geiser 2001b, p 28)

These two positions span the political arena in which participation has appeared in the context of NCCR North-South research. A major difficul-ty in systematising the role of participation in development is its ‘double nature’: Participation appears to be understood by those promoting it from outside (e.g. development projects or governments) in a communicative way, oriented towards deliberation, while the beneficiaries of participation (e.g. marginalised societal actors such as women, peasants, etc.) use it as a strategic tool to improve their position in a process of negotiation with generally more powerful external actors, emphasising specific needs to be met, calling for solutions to conflicts, or expressing sociopolitical claims in development arenas.

We found that participation can be understood as a normative and purposive actor-specific process that adopts stances between strategic and communi-cative types of interaction. It thus becomes clear that participation generates ‘nodal points’, which can be defined as “physical or virtual spaces where various problems, actors, and processes converge, and where decisions are taken, agreements concluded, and social norms created”. These nodal points constitute “an interesting starting point for the observation of governance processes” (Hufty 2011 in this volume, p 413).

Finally, regarding the role of participation in solving any emerging conflicts, we find that rather than asking whether a solution or the actors involved are ‘good’ or ‘bad’, it is much more important to focus on temporary accept-ance of the existence of the claims of ‘the others’ and to implement a nego-tiation process and accept a re-negotiation of the rules of the game (Geiser 2001a, 2001b). This effort of allowing deconstruction and re-construction of fundamental notions such as ‘community’, ‘civil society’, or ‘state’ is an important aspect in jointly re-negotiating the meaning of participation (Geiser 2003; Geiser and Rist 2009).

159


Several types of contribution taking this approach to participation in devel-opment deserve to be fully considered. Some interesting and important efforts at synthesis have been made in recent years, including the works by Chambers (1994a, 1994b, 2007a), Cornwall (2000), McGee and Norton (2000), and Cook and Kothari (2001). New contributions have regenerated a consensual normative reflection by considering actors’ dynamic networks as well as power relationships in a certain Foucaldian spirit, such as the works by Kaufman and Dilla Alfonso (1997), Cornwall (2000), Cook and Kothari (2001), Gaventa (2004), Mohan and Hickey (2004), Williams (2004), Kesby (2005), and Beetham and colleagues (2008), or by proposing measuring instruments in the continuity of already existing ladders of participation, such as the contributions by Chambers (2007a, 2007b), as well as the work done by the Participation, Power and Social Change team at the Institute of Development Studies of the University of Sussex5 and the Participatory Geog-raphies Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society6. Based on this research and these reflections, a new governance of participation with new forms of engagement between citizens and the state was proposed (Cornwall 2000; Eberlei 2001; Mohan and Hickey 2004), involving a re-conceptualisa-tion of the meanings of participation and citizenship (Bühler 2002; Gaventa 2004) and opening up new spaces for political action (Williams 2004).

This is why the type of approach advocated here, which sees participation as primarily a political problem relating to power relations and (im)balances within a given context, seems particularly promising, from both an analyti-cal and a policy-oriented perspective. Participation, therefore, is not a ‘sim-ple’ norm whose implementation would be a pre-condition for ‘good gov-ernance’. It is an arena, a physical or symbolic space where key social issues such as access to resources, gender inequalities, and land rights, to name but a few, are negotiated, thereby producing new norms and patterns of social regulation. Analysing and understanding these negotiation processes is cru-cial to identifying the potential benefits or the negative and counterproduc-tive effects of decentralisation policies, as many of the NCCR North-South studies mentioned here have shown. This is also an important challenge to be taken up by future research.


160


Endnotes

Full citation for this article:Lacroix L, Rist S, Gerritsen PRW, Péclard D. 2011. Social and political participation in sustain able development with a focus on governance. In: Wiesmann U, Hurni H, editors; with an international group of co-editors. Research for Sustainable Development: Foundations,

Experiences, and Perspectives. Perspectives of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South, University of Bern, Vol. 6. Bern, Switzerland: Geographica Bernensia, pp 147–164.

Acknowledgements:The authors acknowledge support from the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South: Research Partnerships for Mitigating Syndromes of Global Change, co-funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and the participating institutions.

1 Laurent Lacroix is a sociologist. His research focuses on ethnicity, agrarian issues, and state forms in Latin America, in particular in Bolivia. He is a member of the SOGIP team (“Scale of Govern-ance, the UN, the States and Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights”, European Research Council project 249236) at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He is also an associate researcher with the Centre de Recherche et Documentation des Amériques (CREDA), unité mixte de recherche 7227 du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), at the Institut des Hautes Études de l’Amérique Latine (IHEAL) in Paris, France.

E-mail: [email protected] Stephan Rist is Adjunct Professor of Human Geography at the University of Bern, Switzer-

land, and Head of the Governance of Land and Natural Resources Cluster at the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern. He specialises in agronomy and rural sociology, with a focus on sustainability sciences, transdisciplinarity, social and societal learning, reflexive governance, and indigenous knowledge systems. Geographically he works in Switzerland, Europe, and Latin America.

E-mail: [email protected] Peter R.W. Gerritsen works as a rural sociologist at the Department of Ecology and Natural

Resources–IMECBIO, South Coast University Centre, University of Guadalajara, in Autlán, Mexico. His research focuses on sociological aspects of natural resource management and rural development. He has been working in Mexico for the past 17 years.

E-mail: [email protected] Didier Péclard is Head of the Statehood and Conflict Programme at the Swiss Peace Foundation

(swisspeace) in Bern and lecturer in political science at the University of Basel, both in Switzerland. As a senior research fellow of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South his main focus is on state (re)formation processes in societies after civil war.

E-mail: [email protected] See http://www.ids.ac.uk/go/research-teams/participation-team.6 See http://www.pygyrg.org.

161


References

Publications elaborated within the framework of NCCR North-South research are indicated by an asterisk (*).

* Ali T, Ahmad M, Shahbaz B, Suleri A. 2007. Impact of participatory forest management on vulnerability and livelihood assets of forest dependent communities in Northern Pakistan. International Journal for Sustainable Development and World Ecology 14(2):211−223.

* Ali T, Shahbaz B, Suleri AQ. 2006. Analysis of myths and realities of deforestation in Paki-stan: Implications for forestry extension. International Journal of Agriculture and Biology 8(1):107–110.

* André de la Porte C. 2007. Integrated Water Resources Management: Limits and Potential in the Municipality of El Grullo, Mexico [PhD dissertation]. Lausanne, Switzerland: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Swiss National Centre of Com-petence in Research (NCCR) North-South. Available at: http://library.epfl.ch/en/ theses/?nr=3735; accessed on 16 March 2011.

Arrieta M, De La Fuente M. 1998. Desarrollo rural y participación popular en Mizque: estudio de caso atípico. Decursos. Revista de Ciencias Sociales 6(3):91–117.

Beetham D, Blick A, Margetts H, Weir S. 2008. Power and Participation in Modern Britain: A Literature Review by Democratic Audit. Wembley, UK: Carnegie UK Trust. Also available at: http://filestore.democraticaudit.com/file/573983264be017b6c55df173f9b4347b-1282655557/pp_lowres.pdf; accessed on 16 March 2011.

* Bichsel C. 2009. Conflict Transformation in Central Asia: Irrigation Disputes in the Fergha-na Valley. Central Asian Studies Series. London, UK: Routledge.

* Bolay JC. 2002. Pratiques urbaines et planification en Amérique latine: alternatives pour une gestion participative de l’habitat des pauvres en Bolivie. In: Dansereau F, Navez-Bouchanine F, editors. Gestion du développement urbain et stratégies résidentielles des habitants. Collection Villes et Entreprises. Paris, France: L’Harmattan, pp 191–212.

* Bottazzi P. 2008. Linking ‘socio-’ and ‘bio-’ diversity: The stakes of indigenous and non-indigenous co-management in the Bolivian lowlands. In: Galvin M, Haller T, editors. People, Protected Areas and Global Change: Participatory Conservation in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe. Perspectives of the Swiss National Centre of Com-petence in Research (NCCR) North-South, University of Bern, Vol. 3. Bern, Switzer-land: Geographica Bernensia, pp 81–110.

Brock K, McGee R. 2004. Mapping Trade Policy: Understanding the Challenges of Civil Society Participation. IDS Working Paper 225. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

Brown D. 2004. Participation in poverty reduction strategies: Democracy strengthened – or democracy undermined? In: Hickey S, Mohan G, editors. Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation? London, UK: Zed Books, pp 237–251.

Bühler U. 2002. Participation ‘with justice and dignity’: Beyond ‘the new tyranny’. Peace, Conflict and Development 1. Available at: http://www.peacestudiesjournal.org.uk/edition/10; accessed on 16 March 2010.

Cernea MM. 1991. Putting People First: Sociological Variables in Rural Development. A World Bank Publication. Second, revised and expanded edition [19851]. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Chambers R. 1992. Rural Appraisal: Rapid, Relaxed and Participatory. IDS Discussion Paper 311. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

Chambers R. 1994a. Participatory rural appraisal (PRA): Analysis of experience. World Devel-opment 22(9):1253–1268.

Chambers R. 1994b. The origins and practice of participatory rural appraisal. World Devel-opment 22(7):953–969.

Chambers R. 2007a. From PRA to PLA and Pluralism: Practice and Theory. IDS Working Paper 286. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

Chambers R. 2007b. Who Counts? The Quiet Revolution of Participation and Numbers. IDS Working Paper 296. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

http://library.epfl.ch/en/theses/?nr=3735

http://library.epfl.ch/en/theses/?nr=3735

http://filestore.democraticaudit.com/file/573983264be017b6c55df173f9b4347b-1282655557/pp_lowres.pdf

http://filestore.democraticaudit.com/file/573983264be017b6c55df173f9b4347b-1282655557/pp_lowres.pdf

http://www.peacestudiesjournal.org.uk/edition/10

http://www.peacestudiesjournal.org.uk/edition/10


162


Cook B, Kothari U, editors. 2001. Participation: The New Tyranny? London, UK: Zed Books.

Cornwall A. 2000. Beneficiary, Consumer, Citizen: Perspectives on Participation for Poverty Reduction. SIDA Studies 2. Stockholm, Sweden: Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). Also available at: http://www2.sida.se/shared/jsp/download.jsp?f=Cornwall+study+Web.pdf&a=2079; accessed on 17 March 2010.

De La Fuente M, editor. 2001. Participación popular y desarrollo local: la situación de los municipios rurales en Cochabamba y Chuquisaca. La Paz, Bolivia: Unidad de Interac-ción Social de la Facultad de Economía (PROMEC), Centro de Planificación y Gestión (CEPLAG), and Centro de Estudios Superiores Universitarios, Universidad Mayor de San Simón (CESU-UMSS).

Eberlei W. 2001. Institutionalised Participation in Processes beyond the PRSP. Study com-missioned by the GTZ [Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit]. Duisburg, Germany: Institute for Development and Peace (INEF), Gerhard Mercator University.

Fals Borda O. 2006. The North-South convergence: A 30-year first-person assessment of PAR. Action Research 4:351–358.

* Freytes Frey A, Cross C, Partenio F, Crivelli K, Fernández Álvarez MI. 2006. Women in organisations for poor unemployed working people: Reshaping female roles through political commitment. In: Premchander S, Müller C, editors. Gender and Sustainable Development: Case Studies from NCCR North-South. Perspectives of the Swiss Nation-al Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South, University of Bern, Vol. 2. Bern, Switzerland: Geographica Bernensia, pp 233–247.

* Galvin M. 2004. La connaissance métisse: une analyse de la politique de protection des con-naissances traditionnelles au Pérou [PhD dissertation]. Geneva, Switzerland: Institut universitaire d’études du développement (IUED).

* Galvin M, Haller T, editors. 2008. People, Protected Areas and Global Change: Participatory Conservation in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe. Perspectives of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South, University of Bern, Vol. 3. Bern, Switzerland: Geographica Bernensia. Also available at: http://www. north-south.unibe.ch/content.php/publication/id/2226; accessed on 17 March 2011.

Gaventa J. 2004. Towards participatory local governance: Assessing the transformative pos-sibilities. In: Hickey S, Mohan G, editors. Participation: From Tyranny to Transforma-tion? London, UK: Zed Books, pp 25–47.

Geiser U. 2001a. Reading ‘participation in forest management’ through ‘modern’ and ‘post-modern’ concepts, or: Where to start normative debates? In: Tovey H, Blanc M, edi-tors. Food, Nature and Society: Rural Life in Late Modernity. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, pp 209–231.

Geiser U. 2001b. To participate with whom, for what (and against whom): Forest fringe management along the Western Ghats in Southern Kerala. In: Vira B, Jeffery R, editors. Analytical Issues in Participatory Natural Resource Management. New York, NY: Pal-grave, pp 19−36.

* Geiser U. 2003. Civil society, community participation, and the search for sustainable development: Questioning the categories and underlying concepts of a popular dis-course. In: SDPI [Sustainable Development Policy Institute], editor. Sustainable Devel-opment and Southern Realities: Past and Future in South Asia. Islamabad, Pakistan: SDPI, pp 197−212.

* Geiser U, Rist S, editors. 2009. Decentralisation Meets Local Complexity: Local Struggles, State Decentralisation and Access to Natural Resources in South Asia and Latin Amer-ica. Perspectives of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South, University of Bern, Vol. 4. Bern, Switzerland: Geographica Bernensia.

Gerritsen PRW, Morales Hernández J. 2001. Conservación de la biodiversidad: el papel del desarrollo y la participación local. Sociedades Rurales. Producción y Medio Ambiente 2(2):87−95.

Gerritsen PRW, Morales Hernández J. 2009. Experiencias de agricultura sustentable y com-ercio justo en el estado de Jalisco, occidente de México. Revista Pueblos y Fronteras 4(7):187–226.

* Gurung GS. 2006. Reconciling Biodiversity Conservation Priorities with Livelihood Needs in Kangchenjunga Conservation Area, Nepal. Human Geography Series, Vol. 23. Zurich, Switzerland: Department of Geography, University of Zurich.

http://www2.sida.se/shared/jsp/download.jsp?f=Cornwall+study+Web.pdf&a=2079

http://www2.sida.se/shared/jsp/download.jsp?f=Cornwall+study+Web.pdf&a=2079

http://www.north-south.unibe.ch/content.php/filterpage/id/27

http://www.north-south.unibe.ch/content.php/filterpage/id/27

163


* Hufty M. 2011. Investigating policy processes: The Governance Analytical Framework (GAF). In: Wiesmann U, Hurni H, editors; with an international group of co-editors. Research for Sustainable Development: Foundations, Experiences, and Perspectives. Perspectives of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South, University of Bern, Vol. 6. Bern, Switzerland: Geographica Bernensia, pp 403–424.

Karl M. 2002. Participatory Policy Reform from a Sustainable Livelihoods Perspective: Review of Concepts and Practical Experiences. Livelihood Support Programme. Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Available at: http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/ad688e/ad688e00.HTM; accessed on 1 April 2010.

Kaufman M, Dilla Alfonso H. 1997. Community Power and Grassroots Democracy: The Trans-formation of Social Life. London, UK: Zed Books. Also available at: http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/784-1/; accessed on 1 April 2010.

Kesby M. 2005. Retheorizing empowerment through participation as a performance in space: Beyond tyranny to transformation. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 30(4):2037–2065.

Lacroix L. 2000. La participation populaire et la question indigène en Bolivie [MSc thesis]. Paris, France: Institut des Hautes Etudes de l’Amérique Latine (IHEAL), Université Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle.

Lacroix L. 2005. Indigènes et Politique en Bolivie. Les stratégies des organisations chiqui-tanas dans le nouveau contexte de décentralisation participative [PhD dissertation]. Paris, France: Institut des Hautes Etudes de l’Amérique Latine (IHEAL), Université Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle.

Long N. 2001. Development Sociology: Actor Perspectives. London, UK: Routledge.

* Lüthi C, Morel A, Tilley L. 2008. Integrate at the top, involve at the bottom: The household-centred approach to environmental sanitation. Programme, presentations and papers – abstracts as well as full papers – presented at the IRC symposium “Sanitation for the Urban Poor: Partnerships and Governance”, 19–21 November 2008, Delft, the Netherlands. http://www.irc.nl/page/44902; accessed on 17 March 2011.

Martínez Montaño JA. 1996. Municipios y participación popular en América latina: un mode-lo de desarrollo. Serie Producción Educativa. La Paz, Bolivia: Servicios para la Misión y Liderazgo en Latinoamérica (SEMILLA) and Centro Boliviano de Investigación y Acción Educativas (CEBIAE).

McGee R, Norton A. 2000. Participation in Poverty Reduction Strategies: A Synthesis of Expe-rience with Participatory Approaches to Policy Design, Implementation and Monitor-ing. IDS Working Paper 109. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

* Mitiku Haile, Herweg K, Stillhardt B. 2006. Sustainable Land Management – A New Approach to Soil and Water Conservation in Ethiopia. Mekelle, Ethiopia and Bern, Switzerland: Land Resources Management and Environmental Protection Depart-ment, Mekelle University, Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern, and Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South.

Mohan G, Hickey S. 2004. Relocating participation within a radical politics of development: Critical modernism and citizenship. In: Hickey S, Mohan G, editors. Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation? London, UK: Zed Books, pp 59–74.

Morales JH. 2004. Sociedades rurales y naturaleza. En busca de alternativas hacia la sus-tentabilidad. Guadalajara, Mexico: Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO), Universidad Iberoamericana.

* Müller U. 2006. Synthesis and conclusions. In: Premchander S, Müller C, editors. Gender and Sustainable Development: Case Studies from NCCR North-South. Perspectives of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South, University of Bern, Vol. 2. Bern, Switzerland: Geographica Bernensia, pp 331−354.

* Müller U, Kollmair M. 2004. Die Erweiterung des Schweizerischen Nationalparks. Der Planungsprozess 1995–2000, betrachtet aus partizipationstheoretischer Sicht. disP – The Planning Review 159:44−51.

* Orozco Ramírez S, García Linera A, Stefanoni P. 2006. “No somos juguete de nadie”. Análisis de la relación de movimientos sociales, recursos naturales, estado y descentrali-zación. La Paz, Bolivia: Plural Editores.

http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/784-1/

http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/784-1/


164


* Premchander S, Müller C. 2006. Gender and Sustainable Development: Case Studies from NCCR North-South. Perspectives of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South, University of Bern, Vol. 2. Bern, Switzerland: Geo-graphica Bernensia.

* Rabinovich A. In press. Un demi-siècle de participation: place du savoir des habitants dans un contexte en “mutation”. In: Navez-Bouchanine F, Rabinovich A, editors. Prise en compte des dimensions sociales dans les projets urbains. Paris, France: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Available from Adriana Rabinovich ([email protected]).

* Rabinovich A, Navez-Bouchanine. 2005. Projet urbain: entre innovation et tradition dans l’action urbaine. Working paper. Lausanne, Switzerland: University of Lausanne. Also available at: http://www.unil.ch/webdav/site/ouvdd/shared/Colloque%202005/Communications/C)%20Mise%20en%20oeuvre/C4/A.%20Rabinovich.pdf; accessed on 1 April 2010.

* Rist S, Chiddambaranathan M, Escobar C, Wiesmann U, Zimmermann A. 2007. Moving from sustainable management to sustainable governance of natural resources: The role of social learning processes in rural India, Bolivia and Mali. Journal of Rural Stud-ies 23(1):23−37.

* Rist S, Dahdouh-Guebas F. 2006. Ethnosciences: A step towards the integration of scien-tific and non-scientific forms of knowledge in the management of natural resources for the future. Environment, Development and Sustainability 8(4):467−493.

* Shahbaz B. 2004. Impact of Participatory Forest Management on Rural Livelihoods. Poster. Islamabad and Faisalabad, Pakistan: Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South and Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Faisal-abad University of Agriculture.

* Shahbaz B, Ali T. 2006. Participatory forest management: Analysis of forest use patterns, livelihood strategies and extent of participation of forest users in Mansehra and Swat districts of Pakistan. In: SDPI [Sustainable Development Policy Institute], editor. Trou-bled Times: Sustainable Development and Governance in the Age of Extremes. Islama-bad, Pakistan: SDPI and Sama Editorial and Publishing Services, pp 148–158.

* Wiesmann U, Liechti K, Rist S. 2005. Between conservation and development: Concretiz-ing the first World Natural Heritage Site in the Alps through participatory processes. Mountain Research and Development 25(2):128–138.

Williams G. 2004. Towards a repoliticization of participatory development: Political capabili-ties and spaces of empowerment. In: Hickey S, Mohan G, editors. Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation? London, UK: Zed Books, pp 92–108.

http://www.unil.ch/webdav/site/ouvdd/shared/Colloque%202005/Communications/C)%20Mise%20en%20oeuvre/C4/A.%20Rabinovich.pdf

http://www.unil.ch/webdav/site/ouvdd/shared/Colloque%202005/Communications/C)%20Mise%20en%20oeuvre/C4/A.%20Rabinovich.pdf

social and political participation in sustainable

Documents