A review of IRmi maral-hanak's language, discourse and participation studies in Donor-Driven development in Tanzania
Daniela Waldburger · Journal of Globalization Studies · 2012
Maral-Hanak investigated the discourse between donors and communities as shown in two rural development programmes in Tanzania. Her study is based on data which were collected during the 1990s, a decade marked by a major change in develop-ment approach. During the 1980s, the planning and implementation of development pro-jects was donor driven with little possibility of contribution from local communities. In addition, at this time there was little academic interest and what was written in theory was significantly different from what was occurring at the community level. In the 1990s the unequal power relations began to be acknowledged by all participants. The result was a tentative collaborative process that acknowledged the importance of both donor and local communities in implementation of projects. Maral-Hanak analyzed the force of language usage, namely the power over others by means of discourse strategies during this period of change. Development practice and networks are characterized by asymmetric power relations: money, knowledge and political power are unequally distributed in our globalized world. During the first decades of development co-operation participants from the donor side acted in relative isolation without taking the opinion and views of the local communities into account and they saw no problem in this divide between the developed and develop-ing worlds. The critical approach especially from scientists and politicians from Africa, including the donor community was to pass on the responsibility for development pro-grams and projects to the stakeholders under the disguise of ‘ownership’ while the funda-mental elements of management (financing, outline of legal and political parameters, tech-nical knowledge, topics in global discourse,