from the horizon

On the day before the conference was a workshop on Participatory Methodology run by Robert Chambers. I had the benefit to come into the workshop unaware of Robert Chamber’s celebrity status in development circles.

He certainly was an interesting man. Although he was at least 70, he went jogging each morning (and was impressed by the disproportionate number of women joggers in Dunedin) and even attended U2 concert in Auckland the previous weekend!

His workshop was delightfully “Old School”. He uses an array of old wall charts, which had been recycled and add to from previous workshops. He wandered around the room, barefoot, encouraging participation. Above all, his witty humility won over the whole crowd.The actual material he covered was no less astounding. I will try my best to summarize it in my blog, but I would strongly encourage you to download the hand out from the workshop here. Although the material isn’t arranged very well for digital distribution (the downside of ‘Old School’), there are some well typed notes towards the end of the document.
Robert Chambers talked about how tradition development has been driven from the top down, by the richer countries. Developing countries and communities have been forced to accept solutions dictated to them by foreign experts, who often have little idea of the context they are working in.

He argued that there was a paradigm shift taking place in the development community: A move towards a bottom up community participation approach. He gave a list of the shifts (which can be found in the handout). At the top of the list was the move from “Things” to “People”.

He talked about Power Relationships, where there is an Upper and a Lower. The group listed all the examples of these sort of relationships we could think of. Interestingly, the third relationship listed, was that between “IT Guys” (Uppers) and “The Rest” (Lower). Robert Chambers described how “All Power Deceives”. Being in the “Upper” position puts you at a disadvantage, because people are unlikely to give you accurate information, but rather tell you what (they think) you want to hear.

An opportunity was given for people who had had experience in participatory projects to present their work to the group. I thought my experience developing ProLogs had been rather “participatory”, and presented that to the group. I’ve posted the full details here.

He talked about different participatory approaches, including Participatory Numbers and GIS, which I found particularly interesting. The different behaviours and attitudes were also discussed, immersion in a community, unlearning professional biases, observing, not judging.

Finally Robert Chambers stated how he felt that New Zealand was in a unique position. Being somewhat isolated, innovative and different we perhaps have an important contribution to make to the rest of the world.