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Development theories were traditionally based on the idea of the objective truth and a top-down expert-led approach thereby virtually ignoring the ways in which people negotiate changes and initiate their own. The 1990s post modernist era rejects the principle of the single, objective account of reality, and rather than adhering to grand universal discourses, the new approach relies on a multiplicity of voices as its cornerstone. In his 1997 book Whose Reality counts? Putting the first last Robert Chambers argued that the conception of development projects, generally almost exclusively designed by external technical experts, should on the contrary, be based on local knowledge. Given that well-being may mean different things in different places to different people at different times, problems and solutions alike should be elicited from local people through participatory research methodologies in order for development projects to be effective and bring about tangible results. This new approach extensively draws on traditional anthropological methods and insights, such as informal conversations and relaxed observations, the importance of the positioning of the researcher through attitude and behavior, and the potential value of indigenous knowledge.

For the past two decades, the development industry has increasingly been calling upon social scientists (in particular anthropologists) as cultural “brokers” to identify and understand local cultural and social factors, which are often seen as potential barriers to the success of development projects. Yet, other development workers may explicitly state that projects should not interfere with “traditional” cultures for fear of disrupting socio-cultural structures implicitly considered as “closer to nature”. Whichever the interpretation of the role culture plays development projects, the fact remains that contemporary anthropology’s emphasis on culture as contested, flexible, fragmented and deterritorialized is hard to reconcile with development practitioners’ concern to design replicable projects and stable decision-making frameworks. As a result of these diverging notions on development and culture, development work is becoming increasingly eclectic.

This special issue on development and culture aims to illustrate through recent case studies the field of tension between on the one hand, the recent paradigm of “incorporating culture” into development project design, and on the other hand, the lived experiences of the project beneficiaries as well as of development practitioners in the implementation of these “culture sensitive” projects. It seeks answers to questions such as,

➢ To what extent was culture taken into account in the project design?
➢ What was the nature of the beneficiaries’ implication?
➢ How did the development practitioners relate tot the beneficiaries?
➢ Did the approach reach the desired results from the beneficiaries’ point of view versus the development workers’ view?
➢ What lessons can be drawn from positive and negative experiences?



Roos Willems got her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Florida in Gainesville. She is affiliated as a Research Associate to the IMMRC at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. She has published articles on methods, forced migration and social networks based on her PhD research in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, as well as the clandestine migration flows from Senegal to the Canary Islands in 2006. She has been working as the representative of a Belgian NGO in Dakar since 2004, and recent research interests focus on the field of tensions between development and culture.



Negotiating Ethno-development and Performing as an Indigenous Development Expert in Highland Ecuador Studies on the practices of the actors involved in development are shedding important insights on how development projects work in practice. This article understands development projects as social arenas in which different groups with specific agendas meet with each other. It explores how certain development workers negotiate their organization’s agenda with their donor agency. Tensions, overt and hidden strategies, and accommodation often occur between indigenous development brokers and their donor agencies when the former promote an agenda based on indigenous identity and practices. Indigenous development workers have affected changes in the agency’s agenda through the use and performance of their indigenous identity. This had led to an adjustment in the agency’s allocation of resources and an increased appreciation for the legitimacy of the development workers’ initiatives.
Maria Moreno – University of Kentucky

Dyeing for Credit: Are women empowered as a result of participating in a micro credit program? This paper assesses whether women cloth dyers of Bamako, Mali experienced self-empowerment as a result of their participation in a micro credit program. I use the term ‘empowerment’ to mean: a) the expansion of individual choice in a person’s life; and/or b) the capacity for self-reliance. In communities where cash is scarce, it is often the reliance on network ties rather than money that members seek in getting their needs met. One of the hypotheses of the micro credit model studied for this discussion posits that through group lending social networks become strengthened thereby empowering its members. These hypotheses raise several interesting questions: Did members, in fact, experience expanded choice or a sense of self-reliance, as a result of establishing network ties as participants in a micro credit program?
Maxine Downs – University of Florida

Entangled in the Networks of Good Friends: HIV/AIDS Risk Taking Organization among Long-line Fishermen in Benoa, Bali, Indonesia. Existing HIV/AIDS prevention programs in Indonesia are almost exclusively designed based on the results of cross-sectional surveys of individuals’ knowledge, perception and behaviour but they fail to take into account the role of social behaviour and networking. A qualitative social network approach was conducted to investigate HIV/AIDS-related risks among migrant Javanese fishermen in Benoa Port in Bali, one of Indonesia’s major fishing ports. It was found that their entertainment activities between fishing trips include drinking parties, watching pornographic videos and visiting brothels while condoms use is rare. Hence, fishermen at Benoa with their circular migration pattern run a high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and bringing it to their rural hometowns. My paper argues that the role that social interactions play in HIV/AIDS related risks should be considered equally important -- if not more important than merely the knowledge, perception and behaviour of the individual -- in the design of HIV/AIDS prevention programs.
I. Made Setiawan, PhD - University of Udayana Bali

Understanding Organisational Culture in a Development NGO in Nepal by applying academic theory to witnessed organisational behaviour. Whilst anthropologists seek to understand national and ethnic subcultures better, OD practitioners and managers are focussing on the culture of organisations with the aim to improve it and to steer and control the organisation towards optimal performance. In order to analyse the organisational culture of SRWSP, a development organisation in Nepal, the author first discusses relevant theory. Examining SRWSP through the lenses of (even contradictory) academic theories reveals valuable details for interpreting and understanding witnessed organisational behaviour in a complex international organisation situated in a complex national culture. The influences of national culture, international corporate culture and SRWSP’s mission on the formation of its organisational culture are examined, before finally reflecting on the applicability of theoretical models to the case of SRWSP and their possible contribution to organisation development.
Michael Schueber - University of Manchester, UK

“To participate or not to participate”: how to increase local ownership of development initiatives and projects? International development NGO's changed their intervention strategies and policies over the past decades following outsiders' criticisms and internal reflection processes. The traditional top down approach made way for a bottom up approach with a focus on identifying and supporting local initiatives through participatory methods. Yet when looking closer at the roots of the very concept of participation as well as the way it is filled in a West African socio-cultural context, unexpected findings turn up. Despite formal structures designed to guarantee the free participation of all individuals to decision making processes, whether at the national or local level, West-African cultural logic appears to prescribe men and women to unconditionally follow the social hierarchy of their communities. The paper argues that concepts used in discourses are very much culture-laden and that their meanings may change according to context, hence producing very different results than those initially intended.
Roos Willems – Catholic University of Leuven