ABSTRACT
While the techniques of local appraisal are well-intentioned by those who lead and conduct them, the critical questions concerning the balance of power are who leads them and to what ends. In general they are led, or at least significantly advised, by First World professionals, and the idea that a group of outsiders visiting for a short period of time can appreciate, let alone solve, the problems experienced by local communities is rather pretentious and patronising, and suggestive of neo-colonialist attitudes. It is no doubt exciting, and a little ‘ramboesque’, for the First World professional to be whisked off to help a community somewhere in Latin America, Oceania, South East Asia or Africa, and will certainly add kudos to their curriculum vitae. But such approaches may not be appropriate for addressing the structural and long-term problems of community development. This is not to say that collaboration between First World professionals and local communities is not possible or desirable. But a crucial element in such collaboration might be to redress existing imbalances of power so that the outcome of the exercise represents the interests of local people rather than the interests and values of the
This summer I will be working with an Ecuadorean NGO called EcoCiencia and will be leading a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) in a small peasant community located in Pululahua Geobotanical Reserve, a 30-minute bus ride north of Quito.
