Drawing Development: Analysing local understandings of development in three Andean communities

This article shows how local understandings of development can be researched empirically by reference to experiences presented from three drawing workshops performed with children in the Ayacucho region in the Peruvian Andes. The children were asked to draw pictures from their community, as they would like it to become in the future. Their drawings are analysed by using an adapted form of Grounded Theory, and further interpreted as expressions of local development discourses. Although the three villages are located within the same area, and share a violent history of war and instability, the research shows how each community has its own interpretation of development.