Title: Culture and Development
1Culture and Development
2What is anthropology?
- Recognise multiple rationalities
- Look at actions, not just words
- Compare, compare, compare
- Reconfigure the boundaries of the problem
Adapted from Lambert McKevitt (2002) British
Medical Journal
3Recognise multiple rationalities
- What is rational (what makes good sense) is
socially and culturally specific - Anthropologists try to see things from the
natives point of view - This reveals that our way of seeing things is
neither normative nor universal
4Look at actions, not just words
- There may be a big difference between what people
say and what they actually think and do - Anthropologists do not just interview people, but
also participate in the daily lives of the
people they are studying usually for long
periods of time - Distinguish ideal from actual
5Compare, compare, compare
- Understanding a phenomenon in one site can be
helped by comparing it with what has happened
somewhere else - Logical rather than statistical inferences
- When comparing, emphasise difference as much as
commonalities (generalities)
6Reconfigure the boundaries of the problem
- Question familiar categories!!
- Not How can development become more
participatory? - But instead Where has the idea that development
should be participatory come from? How has
this been defined as a goal? Why? In whose
interest?
Adapted from Lambert McKevitt (2002) British
Medical Journal
7Course Outline
- Nine weeks of lectures
- Seminars
- Readings (reading pack)
- Assessment
- Attendance
- Learning outcomes
8Learning Outcomes
- In this course, students will develop
- An awareness of different theoretical approaches
to culture - An awareness of the relationship between culture
and development - Knowledge of anthropological contributions to
development
9Week 1
- Introduction
- Culture and development as concepts
- How we understand these concepts is framed by our
own history, values, and ideas about the world.
- BUT also want to think about the way other
cultures engage with development.
10Week 2
- Development and the Idea of
- Progress
- Developments intellectual heritage
- Max Weber
- Cultural conditions that facilitate development
or take off - Clifford Geertz, Peddlars and Princes
11Week 3
- NGO Cultures and Cultures of Consultancy
- What (cultural) ideas inform the way development
consultants work? - Why are we so attracted to the idea of NGOs? Is
it justified?
12Week 4
- Actors and Brokers
- At the Development Interface
- Think about development as an arena in which
different actors with a range of cultural
backgrounds meet - What does this tell us? Is it useful?
13Week 5
- Human Rights and Moral Issues
- (Gavin Weston)
- Different ways of seeing the world
- Can the idea of universal human rights be
defended? - On what grounds can this be done?
14Week 6
- Gender and Development
- Issues around representation of women
- Questions of cultural relativism (on what basis
do we make judgements about other cultures is it
justified?) - Case of Muslim women
15Week 7
- Knowledge, the Environment and
- Sustainable Development
- How can we gain purchase on the idea of
sustainable development? - What can academics (anthropologists) contribute?
- Case studies Africa and Central America
16Week 8
- Information Communication Technologies
- (ICTs) and Development
- How do ICTs relate to peoples experiences of
development? - What is the technology gap and is bridging it
as way to combat poverty? - Case studies low-income mobile phone use
17Week 9
- Development, Developments,
- Post-development?
- Role of cultural politics in development what
is cultural politics, how does it work? - Contributions of Appadurai and Escobar
18Week 1 Introduction to Culture and Development
- What is the history (genealogy) of the concept of
culture? - What kind of meanings does it carry?
- Why is culture so complex?
- What is the relation between the culture concept
and ideas about development?
19CULTURE CULTIVATION
- derives from nature Latin root colere, means to
cultivate (crops, animals, and the mind) - Horticulture
- Agriculture
20Three meanings of the term culture
- Culture as the ideal
- Culture as romantic critique of modernity
- Culture as different ways of life
211. Culture as the ideal
- The best that has been thought and
said in the world - Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy 1869
- Cultivation of the self/mind improvement
- Class inflections civility
- To be cultured (art, music, books)
- Culture as progress?
22The Enlightenment
- workings of human society are subject to natural
laws that can be discovered by scientific enquiry - society can be moulded for individual and
collective benefit
232. Culture as the romantic critique of modernity
- Conceptualising culture as the opposite of the
Enlightenment ideals of rationality and
progress - Celebrating aspects of human life that are though
to be deeper and more eternal than technology,
consumerism, etc. - Rejection of mechanical rationality, replaced
with sentiments, expression, beauty, etc.
243. Culture as different ways of life
- Diversity of human groups
- Relativism
- Anthropology as an interpretive quest to
understand cultural diversity - Clifford Geertz and thick description
25Summary Culture Development
- If we define culture as
- the idealwe see development as improvement
and human perfectibility - the romantic critique of modernitywe are
critical of development and notions of
progress therefore we also critique
universalism - different ways of lifewe endeavour to see these
different ways of life as valid on their own
terms
26Summary Culture Development
- When culture is defined as shared, common
meanings and values implies people inhabit a
world with - 1) clear boundaries
- 2) static, unchanging
- 3) traditional
- From one perspective culture then becomes a
barrier to progress - From another perspective culture provides grounds
to criticise modernity progress
27Contact Details
- Dr Rebecca Prentice
- r.j.prentice_at_sussex.ac.uk
- Office Hours 10am-12pm (directly after class),
Arts C257