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Empowering people? World vision and 'transformatory development' in Tanzania

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Tim Kelsall

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Abstract

Ideas of participatory development and empowerment have become central to contemporary development discourse. This article identifies two axes of tension within this discourse. First is the disturbing thought that by empowering a 'community' a development project can disempower groups or individuals within that community. Second is the paradox whereby external agents are perceived as necessary to install internal desires and capacities for individual and community autonomy. The article presents empirical data from research into two projects by the NGO World Vision in northeast Tanzania. The aim is to show that the dilemmas of development In practice turn around these axis of tension, as the attempts to empower the 'community' benefit disproportionately an elite - the idea of development as 'empowerment' inserted into the community from the outside.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Kelsall T, Mercer C

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Review of African Political Economy

Year: 2003

Volume: 30

Issue: 96

Pages: 293-304

ISSN (print): 0305-6244

ISSN (electronic): 1740-1720

Publisher: Routledge

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2003.9693501

DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2003.9693501

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