Participatory Development and the Appropriation of Agency in

Abstract n Ideologies of participatory development promoted by development organizations in Tanzania are at odds with popular aspirations. Popular under-standings of development emphasize individual achievement in a context of social differentiation, in what amounts to a recognition of the importance of individual agency in bringing about social transformation. Despite the claims of participatory development ideologies to foster the empowerment of the poor, the interventions it promotes are premised on a denial of poor people’s capac-ity to bring about change for themselves. Agency can only be effected through the imposed institutional structures for participation. Keywords n inequality n participatory development n Tanzania This article2 explores competing constructions of ‘development ’ in a rural district in southern Tanzania which has recently become the beneficiary of a large donor-funded poverty reduction programme.3 The programme goals rest on certain assumptions about what ‘development ’ is, and the needs and desires of a particular social category, ‘the poor’, as programme beneficiaries. From the perspective of the programme, ‘development’ encompasses a range of qualitative goals, including enhanced popular par-ticipation, better local democracy, improvements in health and welfare and the consolidation of community commitment to development so defined. Its core objectives of ‘growth with equity ’ and ‘improving the quality of life of all the residents in the district ’ are to be achieved via the implementation of specific interventions across a range of sectors, using a combination of top-down and participatory approaches. These objectives, and the assumptions which inform them, centre on a concept of ‘partici-patory development ’ as both a means and an end of development inter-ventions. They are not confined to this particular organization or development programme. On the contrary, the discourse of participatory development has come to constitute the new orthodoxy in development circles, from NGOs to the World Bank, over the past decade (Gardner an