The lost 1990s? Personal reflections on a history of participatory technology development
Biggs, Stephen
Biggs, Stephen
Citations
Altmetric:
Titre
Publication date
2008-08-01
Document type
Journal article
Pages
16
Author(s)
Advisors
Editor(s)
Other Contributors
Affiliation
ePub Date
Submitted date
Local subject classification
MeSH
Country
Collections
Description
This article traces a history of agricultural participatory research, largely from the author's personal experience. Participatory research in the 1970s was mostly led by disciplinary scientists, and characterised by innovative activities and open academic debate, with some recognition that policy and development practice was a political process. The 1980s saw a shift to learning from past experience, and a participatory mainstream developed, seeking methods for scaling up. Meanwhile, others sought to understand and influence policy and institutional change in their political and cultural contexts, and to keep open the academic debates. The author considers the 1990s as 'lost years', during which mainstream participatory practitioners became inward-looking development generalists, not so interested in learning from others outside their paradigm. The late 2000s provide a chance to re-recognise the political and cultural embeddedness of science and technology; re-introduce strong, widely based disciplines; and learn from past activities that resulted in positive development outcomes (planned or unplanned).<p>This article is hosted by our co-publisher Taylor & Francis.</p>
Language
English
Other Titles
Abstract
Citation
Journal
Development in Practice
Journal Theme
Operationalising Participatory Research and Gender Analysis
Volume
18
Issue
4 & 5
Research Unit
Table of contents
Series
ISSN
0961-4524
EISSN
1364-9213