CRP 386
International Planning and Participation

Instructor: Patricia Wilson
Time: Tuesdays, 2-5 PM

This new course responds to the increasing interest of our graduate students in working with non-governmental organizations in international community development. The course offers a conceptual framework for that work, an understanding of the development issues and challenges involved, familiarity with important cases, and mastery of basic skills and attitudes needed to do such work.

The course is designed to have a field learning component--a combination of field training, research, and service learning. I am making arrangements (but they have not been finalized) for a three week training and field experience at the Institute of Participatory Development in Lucknow, India. The three weeks would include the week of spring break, so you would have to make arrangements to miss two weeks of your other classes. I have applied for a grant to help students with the expenses (which total approx. $2,300 per student) and expect to know on December 2 whether or not I receive the grant.

Enrollment will be limited to 10 students if the field component materializes, 15 students otherwise.

Content and Pedagogic Approach

The course will begin with alternative conceptual frameworks for understanding organized civil society as arena and protagonist of change, the role of NGOs and community-based organizations in development and change, and the now widespread use of participatory approaches in development initiatives. Leading issues in both urban and rural development will be addressed (see syllabus) and case studies from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific will be read and analyzed. Participatory methods in international development will be presented and practiced in roleplays. The changing role of the professional in international development will be a theme running throughout the course. Student research papers will be presented orally at the end of the semester.

Field experience.
For this coming Spring, I am making plans to take the students to Lucknow, India, for a three-week training and field experience in community development offered by the non-profit Institute for Participatory Development, which is the training arm of the twenty-year-old Manadovaya self-help community development organization in Uttar Pradesh. (www.manavodaya.org) Five years ago the Institute began to offer training to international development practitioners and students of development in the participatory self-help methods that have been the hallmark of the successful Manadovaya approach to community development in hundreds of villages. The highly regarded three-week program includes experiential learning in the field through hands-on participation in village development projects. This service learning component allows students to appreciate the intangible elements of the approach in actionthe values, beliefs, and attitudes of the practitioners and participants.

Besides the training and the participation in village projects, the three-week experience would offer students the opportunity to do field research for their term papers on participatory development, using participatory research and evaluation methodologies for data-gathering and analysis. I plan to conduct ongoing meetings with the students throughout the three weeks to process and integrate their experience and advise on field research.

Classroom approach. Taking advantage of the seminar format, the classroom teaching will employ relatively brief lectures and longer guided discussions. Case study analysis will complement the conceptual and issue-oriented readings and discussions. The two weeks prior to the field trip will be spent on participatory skills and cultural awareness. Roleplays will be used to complement the readings and presentations in that section of the course. Several films will be used during the semester to provide students with a visual understanding of cases and approaches in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

Students are provided individual guidance outside the classroom in framing the research question for their term papers, developing a methodology, reviewing the relevant literature, analyzing evidenceboth qualitative and quantitative, and structuring arguments.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the course the student should be able to do the following:

- Articulate his/her own framework for understanding participatory international development, the third sector, and the role of the professional

- Demonstrate understanding of leading issues and cases in participatory development

- Recognize and appreciate the role of cultural, religious, economic, and educational differences in shaping one’s perspectives

- Use competently and comfortably a basic set of methods for participatory development

- Design and implement a participatory research project

- Write a substantive research paper

- Show photographs of their trip to India during the semester!

Course Syllabus

Week 1: Participatory Development: Bottom Up and Inside Out

Week 2: Civil Society, the Voluntary Sector, and Empowerment: Conceptual Frameworks and Debates

Week 3: Religion and voluntary community development movements (India and Sri Lanka)

Week 4: Micro-enterprise development (India and Pakistan)SEWA, Grameen Bank

Weeks 5-6: Participatory Field Methods and Cultural Awareness

Participatory Rural Appraisal
Participatory Action Research
Participatory Planning and Evaluation
Institute of Cultural Affairs Methodology: Technology of Participation

Weeks 7-8 (and the week of Spring Break)  
International Field Work in Participatory Community Development:
Institute of Participatory Development, Lucknow, India

Week 9: Indigenous ways of knowing, planning, and organizing

Week 10: Community justice and peace-making

Week 11: Decentralization, local governance, and citizen participation

Week 12: People's Housing: a participatory alternative to the service delivery approach

Week 13: Sustainable community development

Week 14: Building partnership between the professional NGO and the voluntary community-based organization: from dependency to empowerment

Week 15: Synthesis and oral presentations of student research