Thesis Abstract and Dissertation Abstracts
We Know What is Needed: The dynamics of development discourse in Kenyan fisheries
Abstract Category: Other Categories
Course / Degree: MSc (Management of Agro-ecological Knowledge and Social Change)
Institution / University: Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University, Netherlands
Published in: 2005
This thesis aims to contribute to an important debate on the interconnections between people’s livelihoods and development intervention. It explores and analyzes a development intervention, discourses involved and people’s encounter at interfaces during interaction and negotiation processes in the everyday project practices using an anthropological approach. The study is based on the field work that I conducted in Kenya for my MSc thesis where an intervention, called Integrated Coastal Area Management (ICAM), has been piloted since 1993. The objective of the research was to get insight in the livelihood situation of artisanal fishermen in the North Coast of Mombasa district on the Kenya coast, and how it shapes and colors their perception of ongoing developments as a result of the ICAM implementation process. This is an exploratory research where ethnography has been applied as the major research method which focuses on a case study, which is supplemented with literature study, qualitative and quantitative data generation and analysis. With the help of an actor oriented approach I was able to identify the discourses of different groups of actors during the project intervention process. The fishermen’s livelihoods were analyzed to gain an in-depth understanding of their life because their views on certain issues are based on their ways of living, their past experiences, aspirations, hopes and expectations. The dynamism of development discourses was found to be strongly visible in the process of development intervention. This was shown through the case of the introduction of a motorized boat by ICAM to improve the fishers’ technology. The ICAM implementers and the fishermen have different concepts of development concerning the level of improvement of the existing technology. Both of them have proposed a modern boat to have a better catch but what should be a good boat they could not agree because of differences in their individual, institutional and livelihood conditions. The fishermen met with the implementers, they negotiated and finally the fishers were powerful enough to change ICAM’s decision of the type of boat that should be constructed to improve the fisher’s technology. In this thesis, I have argued that the history of interactions of local people and the development practitioners, the frustrations and aspirations that they created are important to increase people’s agency in the decision making process. Finally, this thesis concludes that different discourses developed in the interface of individual and institutions partly influenced by their livelihood conditions. In the boat case, local actors were further strengthened by their frustrations about earlier hopes and dreams raised by development institutions not to take everything from the government or development agencies for granted.
Thesis Keywords/Search Tags:
Participation, Co-management, ICAM, Development discourse, Kenya
This Thesis Abstract may be cited as follows:
Gartaula, H.N. (2005) We Know What is Needed: the dynamics of development discourse in Kenyan fisheries, M.Sc. Thesis, Department of Social Sciences, Rural Development Sociology Group, Wageningen University, the Netherlands
Submission Details: Thesis Abstract submitted by Hom Nath Gartaula from Nepal on 27-Oct-2010 21:25.
Abstract has been viewed 2485 times (since 7 Mar 2010).
Hom Nath Gartaula Contact Details: Email: hom.gartaula@gmail.com
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