Communicating Development with Communities

Communicating Development with Communities aims to take students, researchers and development professionals away from the theory of the classroom or policy-making boardroom and out into the community. Building on the work of Robert Chambers and Arturo Escobar, the book is an empirically grounded critical reflection on how the development industry defines, imagines and constructs development at the implementation level. Communicating Development With Communities is written for students, scholars and practitioners in participatory development, to prepare them for the complexities and challenges that await them when it comes to working with marginalised people in both the north and the south.

Development theory and practice are often taught in a manner that strips them of their historical context and obscures alternative intellectual assumptions and critical frameworks. This prevents students from acquiring a holistic understanding of the world and consequently, when it comes to development practice, most lack the skills to live and engage with people. It has become crucial to properly consider what it means to conceive and implement participatory development out in the field and not just in the boardroom.

Building on the work of Robert Chambers and Arturo Escobar, Communicating Development with Communities is an empirically grounded critical reflection on how the development industry defines, imagines and constructs development at the implementation level. Unpacking the dominant syntax in the theory and practice of development, the book advocates a move towards relational and indigenous models of living that celebrate local ontologies, spirituality, economies of solidarity and community-ness. It investigates how subaltern voices are produced and appropriated, and how well-meaning experts can easily become oppressors. The book propounds a pedagogy of listening as a pathway that offers a space for interest groups to collaboratively curate meaningful development with and alongside communities.

This is a valuable resource for academics and practitioners in the fields of Development Studies, Communication for Development, Communication for Social Change, Social Anthropology, Economic Development and Public Policy.

Foreword by Robin Mansell.