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Editorial, volume 10, number 1
The notion of culture has acted as something of a double-edged sword in terms of development policy and practice. Within the development industry, it has often been interpreted as something that distinguishes them from us, in that non-Western beliefs and customs are viewed as an obstacle to a paradigm that equates development with modernisation. This is reflected in the very different assumptions about Western culture as opposed to other forms. In the West, culture is commonly understood as having something to do with the fine arts, and something that one acquires through social class, education, and personal preference rather than something that defines ones social identity. A cultured person might have a taste for opera, for instance, or for chamber music. While it is also used attributivelysomething that characterises a people, or which is peculiar to specific collectivities, as for instance in phrases like working-class culture, popular culture, or street culture, it is seldom used as an all-encompassing definition of our behaviour or our being. Indeed, contemporary Western society seeks to reinforce and cast as natural a divide between public and private, work and leisure, social behaviour and personal beliefs, reason and emotion. Hence the masculinist management culture that permeates and organises most of the institutions that are involved in development cooperation, whether these are based in London or Lilongwe, lays claim to neutrality and rationality and is disdainful or simply uncomprehending of those which adopt a different style or ethos.
Defined by (and sometimes mired in) their culture, from which development will help them to escape. It is not long ago that peasant farmers were described in development literature as backwards and indigenous peoples (natives) as primitive; today, less overtly pejorative terms such as traditional or community are used, while a post-modern intellectual climate has led to a greater awareness of diversity and the need to respect local knowledge.1 In the end, though, the conventional developers goal remains at best to incorporate those who are on its margins into the socio-economic mainstream and so to consign most of their traditional ways of life, their values, and perspectives, to the past. The process of assimilation into the dominant culture takes many forms, some gradual, some voluntary, some enforced, some downright brutalas one Guatemalan general put it when explaining the scorched-earth campaigns being waged in the indian highlands during the 1980s: We must eradicate the identity of the 'indian'change their mental cassette. This meant destroying the communitarian and spiritually grounded Mayan identity in favour of individualism, absorption into the market economy, and allegiance to a modern nation-state. Those who survived the carnage were forced to live in development poles where saluting the flag and singing the national anthem, abandoning their language, form of dress, religious rituals, food, and agricultural practices, were part and parcel of changing their mental cassette. While the form this ethnocide took was exceptionally violent, the underlying messagethat development means breaking with the past, joining the mainstream on its terms, and stripping traditional forms and customs of their original meaningis one that still holds sway today.
However, culture is also selectively invoked by development agencies as a reason for not interfering with certain aspects of the status quo, the rights of women and children being the most egregious example. Never mind that all cultures are subject to change, both from within, and through contact with others. Or that development cooperation constitutes by definition a form of value-based intervention in distant societies and on behalf of people who generally remain anonymous, invisible, and unable to influence the direction that this development will take. The multicultural world we all inhabit calls for ever deeper forms of respect for difference as consumerist values now penetrate almost every corner of the globe; forms of respect that imply a willingness not merely to listen, but also to change ones own course. But cultural relativism can also be a convenient way to justify active or de facto collusion with the more powerful. For example, the issue of male violence against women is something that scarcely any non-specialist (non-feminist) aid agencies recognise as having any relevance to development. Very few countries will accept the well-grounded fear of such violence as a reason for offering asylum to actual or potential victims. Rape as a weapon of military conflict is now defined as a war crime. But conjugal rape is still a delicate matter, and is one that is sanctioned by culture. Hence development agencies, which are more than willing to intervene in other areas of intra-household dynamics, are generally reluctant to confront the issue, even when there is a clear linkage between their activities and the incidence of violence.2 Such inconsistencies suggest that development organisations and their staff should periodically re-examine their own cultural values and assumptions, and so recognise themselves as cultured as well as gendered institutions.
Paradoxically, as aid agencies become better at perceiving and responding to cultural diversity, so they risk intruding ever more deeply into the lives of those whose interests they hope to serve. Obviously, no sound development intervention can be built on assumptions and ignorance; and it is vital to continue the search for sensitive methods to acquire information that allow for disaggregation and analysis by sex, age, and other factors. We know that the artificial private/public divide can and does disguise conflicting interests within households, communities, and the wider society; and that it conceals the realities of the poorest and least powerfulwomen, children, elderly people, people with disabilities, ethnic or linguistic minority groups, and so on. However, extracting information from people who may not want to divulge it is not an easy matter even for insiders, and some of the Western techniques and procedures that are used are not ones that the external development researchers would necessarily want inflicted upon themselves. Imagine doing a wealth-ranking exercise in any run-down housing estate in the English Midlands, particularly if the person conducting it is young, highly educated, and has an Oxbridge accent. Yet this caricature is perhaps not so very different from what goes on in the name of participatory development when it is done in other cultures.
Thierry Verhelst of the SouthNorth Network Cultures and Development in Brussels describes culture not as something out there or belonging to them, but as the combination of beliefs and practices that enable all human beings to understand and make sense of the world in which they live.3 That world has never been static or perceived in exactly the same way by everyone who belongs to it. Indeed, it is at the intersections of values and change that development happens, irrespective of the (financial) interventions of outsiders. This is not the first time that Development in Practice has focused on the troubled relationships between development and culture.4 The previous issue explored the power dynamics inherent in the cross-cultural encounter that is embodied by the development industry, while this number looks at how belief systems can provide a basis from which not only to criticise or resist, but also influence the course of mainstream economic and social development. Wendy Tyndale draws on her experience in convening representatives of various religious faiths to begin to articulate a shared view of development that is informed by values that do not hold economic growth to be the essential motor force behind societies that are healthy, if not wealthy, and wise. Mohammad Rafi and A. M. R. Chowdhury offer a case study of how a legal and human rights education programme in Bangladesh was condemned by certain religious factions; and suggest ways in which campaigns that are likely to impinge on cultural or religious sensibilities can achieve their purpose without provoking a violent backlash or alienating their audience. Kurt Alan Ver Beek describes how the Lenca indians in Honduras have succeeded in bringing together a renewal of their traditional beliefs with political lobbying for their ancestral rights, and their rights as citizens, to be respected; a theme taken up by Vicky Mancuso Brehm in relation to the Honduran Mosquitia. Luis César Bou, writing about the Tobas indians in Argentina, argues that generations of exspoliation, discrimination, and impoverishment themselves constitute an assault on the cultural integrity of ethnic minorities.
Gender roles lie at the heart of all worldviews or forms of social organisation. Edith Sizoo describes a fascinating project to get men and women from many different countries and cultures to analyse the ways in which gender differences in their societies have been interpreted, and have changed, over time. Gabrielle Appleford uses the experience of womens groups in Papua New Guinea to show how local organisations can be sucked into a development agenda that is neither their own nor likely ultimately to do other than consolidate the status quo. She underlines how easy it is for outsiders to misinterpret existing organisational forms by seeing them through their own eyes; and how tempting it can be for development agencies to impose on such structures as a short-cut to realising their own short-term agendas. Reflecting on the growing use of the term social exclusion within the poverty-eradication and development discourse, Fenella Porter asks how useful this concept is in capturing either the multi-layered experiences of individuals and sectors of society (one can be included and excluded simultaneously) or the possibility that one might prefer to resist or to remain outside the mainstreamespecially since that mainstream is predicated on selective exclusion and hostility to anything which might really challenge its hegemony.
This first issue of the Wests third millennium also opens the tenth anniversary volume of Development in Practice. The journal has come a long way since 1991it has more than doubled in size and has built up a solid reputation for seeking out work by development practitioners and applied researchers, and for publishing academic papers that are both accessible and relevant to policy and practice. While the economic climate has not been an easy one in which to foster the growth of a young journal, we have also succeeded in quadrupling our global circulation as well as complementing this with the Development in Practice Readers series, which will also reach its tenth title this year. The journal has been available on-line for five years, and to celebrate our entry into double figures, we will soon be launching our own website which will provide existing readers with an exciting range of new facilities and services while also making the journal still more accessible to the development community worldwide. Details will be posted in our May issue.
Finally, we say goodbye to Caroline Knowles who has been with Development in Practice since 1993. As Reviews Editor, she substantially built up our reviews section, ensuring that books are reviewed within a year of publication and drawing upon an impressive range of highly qualified reviewers from around the globe. Over the last four years, she has combined this with being our Business Manager, keeping on top of our subscription profile, our business plan, and the huge amount of paper that passes through the editorial office. She has been very much a part of the life of the journal, and of Oxfams publishing programme more widely, and we all wish her every success in the future.
Deborah Eade
Editor
Oxfam GB
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