Development Sociology

Actor Perspectives

Norman Long

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN: 9781134564231
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

In this exciting and challenging work, Norman Long brings together years of work and thought in development studies to provide a key text for guiding future development research and practice.

Using case studies and empirical material from Africa and Latin America, Development Sociology focuses on the theoretical and methodological foundations of an actor-oriented and social constructionist form of analysis. This style of analysis is opposed to the traditional structuralist/institutional analysis which is often applied in development studies.

With an accessible mix of general debate, critical literature reviews and original case study materials this work covers a variety of key development issues. Among many important topics discussed, the author looks at commoditisation, small-scale enterprise and social capital, knowledge interfaces, networks and power, globalisation and localisation as well as policy formulation and planned intervention processes.

This book should be read for its desire to pursue a form of analysis that helps us to understand better (and more realistically) the kinds of development interventions and social transformations that have characterised the second half of the twentieth century and will no doubt continue to characterise future development studies.

Part I

THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

1
THE CASE FOR AN ACTOR-ORIENTED SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT¹

This chapter lays the foundations for an actor perspective on development intervention and social change. It opens with a brief critical overview of the paradigmatic character of structural versus actor approaches, followed by a delineation of the theoretical and epistemological advantages of adopting an actor-oriented analysis. In the second half of the chapter I trace my own struggle with theory and practice during the course of my Latin American work in Peru and Mexico. And in the conclusion I return to the issue of paradigm change and the prospects for a revitalised sociology of development.²

The paradigmatic world of research

When considering the rise and decline of paradigms one could not do better than to begin with Cynthia Hewitt de Alcántara’s (1982) interesting treatment of anthropological paradigms in post-revolutionary Mexico. She provides a detailed history of anthropological schools of thought and research practice dealing with Mexican rural life and agrarian problems. Hewitt draws her concept of paradigm from Kuhn’s (1962) original work on the character and succession of contrasting paradigms or worldviews in the development of science. Modifying Kuhn’s simple unilinear picture of paradigm development, Hewitt (following Masterman 1970: 74; see also de Mey 1982: 223) suggests that social science has always been composed of a multiplicity of paradigms, of which none has so far achieved the hegemonic status of a central theory or universal paradigm.³ Hence, although for certain periods particular theories or images of society may be considered more credible than others, due to the support they receive from scholars and academic institutions, the winds of change are always round the corner. This arises principally because general sociological theories and metaphors are mostly rooted in contrasting, if not incompatible, epistemologies; that is, they conceive of the nature of social phenomena and explanation quite differently.

Nevertheless, as Hewitt’s study beautifully demonstrates, it is possible to plot the waxing and waning of particular paradigms over time and to identify periods during which certain images and types of analysis have predominated over others. Few scholars would challenge, for instance, the observation that the general course of debates and interpretations on development since the Second World War has been from perspectives based upon the concept of modernisation (in the mid-1950s), to dependency (in the mid-1960s), to political economy (in the mid-1970s), to some kind of ill-defined postmodernism of the mid-1980s onwards. This latest postmodernist phase is depicted in many quarters – even among certain die-hard structural Marxists – as entailing the deconstruction of previous orthodoxies,⁴ or perhaps even as a form of theoretical agnosticism which some scholars would regard as verging on empiricism.⁵

A glance at the extensive post-war literature on development and social change immediately throws up a sharp divide between, on the one hand, work that deals with aggregate or large scale structures and trends (often described as ‘macro’) and studies that characterise the nature of changes at the level of operating or acting units (often depicted as ‘micro’).⁶ The former generally frame their analyses in terms of concepts drawn from modernisation theory or they adopt a structural or institutionalist perspective based on some variety of political economy analysis. The latter, while they may also highlight dimensions relevant to these same general theories, are more likely to provide detailed accounts of differential responses to structural conditions and to explore the livelihood strategies and cultural dispositions of the social actors involved. At one level, this difference in analysis coincides crudely with the division between economics, political science and macro-sociology, as against anthropology and history; or more accurately between scholars concerned with the testing of general structural models and those interested in depicting the ways in which people manage the dilemmas of their everyday lives. Some remarkable studies have of course managed to combine these levels reasonably successfully, but on the whole these have been few and far between.⁷ A principal reason why it has been difficult to integrate structural and actor perspectives is that their theoretical and epistemological assumptions diverge, although this is not to say that it is impossible to combine them within a single study.

The convergence of structural models of development

Despite obvious differences in ideology and theoretical trappings, two structural models have until relatively recently occupied centre stage in the sociology of development – modernisation theory and political economy. And both evince certain paradigmatic similarities and common analytical weaknesses.

Modernisation theory visualises development in terms of a progressive movement towards technologically and institutionally more complex and integrated forms of ‘modern’ society. This process is set in motion and maintained through increasing involvement in commodity markets and through a series of interventions involving the transfer of technology, knowledge, resources and organisational forms from the more ‘developed’ world or sector of a country to the less ‘developed’ parts. In this way, ‘traditional’ society is propelled into the modern world, and gradually, though not without some institutional hiccups (i.e. what are often designated ‘social and cultural obstacles to change’), its economy and social patterns acquire the accoutrements of ‘modernity’.

On the other hand, Marxist and neo-Marxist theories of political economy stress the exploitative nature of these processes, attributing them to the inherent expansionist tendency of world capitalism and to its constant need to open up new markets, increase the level of surplus extraction and accumulate capital. Here the image is that of capitalist interests, foreign and national, subordinating (and probably in the long run undermining) non-capitalist modes and relations of production and integrating them into an uneven web of economic and political relations. Although the timing and degree of integration of countries into the world political economy has varied, the outcome is structurally similar: they are forced to join the brotherhood of nations on terms not determined by themselves but by their more wealthy and politically powerful ‘partners’. Although this type of theory contains within it a variety of schools of thought, in essence the central message remains much the same, namely, that patterns of development and underdevelopment are best explained within a generic model of capitalist development on a world scale.⁸

These two macro perspectives represent opposite positions ideologically – the former espousing a so-called ‘liberal’ standpoint and ultimately believing in the benefits of gradualism and the ‘trickle-down’ effect, and the latter taking a ‘radical’ stance and viewing ‘development’ as an inherently unequal process involving the continued exploitation of ‘peripheral’ societies and ‘marginalised’ populations. Yet, on another level, the two models are similar in that both see development and social change emanating primarily from external centres of power via interventions by the state or international bodies, and following some broadly determined developmental path, signposted by ‘stages of development’ or the succession of different regimes of capitalism. These so-called ‘external’ forces encapsulate the lives of people, reducing their autonomy and in the end undermining local or endogenous forms of cooperation and solidarity, resulting in increased socioeconomic differentiation and greater centralised control by powerful economic and political groups, institutions and enterprises. In this respect it does not seem to matter much whether the hegemony of the state is based upon a capitalist or socialist ideology, since both entail tendencies towards increased incorporation and centralisation.

Both models therefore are tainted by determinist, linear and externalist views of social change.⁹ My summaries of their viewpoints simplify and perhaps caricature their arguments, but a careful reading of the literature will, I believe, bear out the conclusion that they do in fact share a common set of paradigmatic beliefs. This contention is also supported by the existence of similar assumptions that underpin the commercialisation (i.e. modernisation) and commoditisation approaches to agrarian development (see Vandergeest 1988, and Long and van der Ploeg 1988).

A brief view of recent structural analysis

While the shortcomings of these earlier structural models – especially their failure to explain adequately the sources and dynamics of social heterogeneity – are now widely acknowledged by political economists and sociologists alike, much current social theory remains wedded to universalism, linearity and binary oppositions (Alexander 1995: 6–64). This not only applies to the analysis of development processes (see Chapter 2 for a detailed critique of notions of planned intervention) but also more generally to theoretical interpretations of contemporary socio-cultural change (see Chapter 10). For example, many writers on postmodernity succumb to a ‘stages theory’ of history when they write of the transition from ‘Fordist’ to ‘post-Fordist’ forms of production (i.e. from mass production to flexible specialisation) as if this were a simple unidirectional process in tune with other socio-cultural changes. Implicit here is an ideal typical view of what it is to be ‘postmodern’. One example of this is Don Slater’s (1997: 174–209) use of a postmodernist lens for looking at the ‘new times’ in which we are living. Slater’s interpretation pivots on the somewhat dubious assumption that the movement to post-Fordist patterns of organisation is congruent with other dimensions and representations of change, such as the shift from ‘organised’ to ‘disorganised’ modes of capitalism, from commodity ‘exchange-value’ to the increasing importance of ‘sign-value’, and from social identities based on criteria of work and citizenship to those based on global lifestyles.¹⁰ One is left wondering whether at this level of abstraction the empirical complexities and variabilities of contemporary life can ever be adequately addressed.

What clearly is missing in this is the attempt to analyse in depth the intricate and varied ways in which new and old forms of production, consumption, livelihoods and identity are intertwined and generate heterogeneous patterns of economic and cultural change. Two different though equally challenging attempts to offer such an analytical framework are Marsden et al.’s (1993) re-conceptualisation of rural changes in the UK (Constructing the Countryside), and Smith’s (1999: 131–191) analysis of processes of socioeconomic restructuring in regions of Spain and Italy in his book Confronting the Present.

Other contemporary theorists have focused on reformulating structural analysis in order to take more explicit account of globalisation. For example, Preston (1996: 273–93) distinguishes three ways in which the global system has been theorised: (1) from a postmodernist market-oriented, knowledge-based and global consumption/lifestyles point of view; (2) through the application of Marxist/dependency theory to explain shifts in the global patterns of capitalism and changes in the fortunes of particular economic and political power blocs (such as the demise of the Soviet system and the rise and later vicissitudes of the East Asian countries); and (3) through an attempt to develop new interpretations of structural change by identifying what he designates ‘a logic of ever greater global interdependence’ between groups occupying specific niches in the global scene that aim to identify common problems (such as those relating to global environmental and/or world trade issues) and press for the establishment of negotiated global agreements and regulatory frameworks (Preston 1996: 292).

On the other hand, other scholars have concerned themselves with the ‘declining coherence of national…economies and national regulatory states’ (Buttel 1994: 14). The proponents of this line of analysis argue that new capitalist ‘regimes of accumulation’ and ‘modes of regulation’ are generated when internal contradictions, technological developments and the global political economy threaten existing national and local institutional frameworks as well as the viability of the prevailing economic and political order. In these critical situations, it is argued, new modes of organising capital accumulation and social reproduction develop.¹¹

As several authors (e.g. Jessop 1988: 151, and Gouveria 1997) point out, these processes of restructuring should not be viewed as disembodied from social action, since they are a product of past and present social struggles. But, by and large, the principal protagonists identified in these struggles are those representing individual nation-states and transnational bodies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank or the World Trade Organisation (WTO). These latter types of institutional actors seek to give order to the global economy and to manage any turbulence that may arise. In so doing they attempt to steer national government policies away from the ‘developmentalist project’ of the past towards a more ‘robust’ neo-liberal economic regime (for a fuller account of this process, see McMichael 1994).¹² Such a perspective, of course, fails to give significant attention to the multiplicity of other social actors and interests involved in such restructuring processes. Nor does it appreciate the extent to which, under certain circumstances, so-called less ‘powerful’ actors can make their voices heard and dramatically change the course of events, as was witnessed at the recent 1999 Seattle meeting of the WTO when hundreds of people took to the streets and successfully blocked the assembly’s unequivocal acceptance of the principle of free trade.

Preston’s appraisal of structural analysis leads him to a similar conclusion: namely, that what we need is a move away from structural explanations in favour of a more ‘agent’ or ‘actor’-focused analysis. It is here that his argument (Preston 1996: 301–3) coincides with my own longstanding advocacy of such a perspective (Long 1977a, 1984b and 1992). The next section elaborates on the implications of such a theoretical shift.

An actor-oriented approach

Although less well articulated in the literature on development until relatively late in the twentieth century, there has always been a kind of counterpoint to structural analysis in development sociology. This is what I have called the ‘actor-oriented approach’. Nourishing (either explicitly or implicitly) this interest in social actors is the conviction that, although it may be true that important structural changes result from the impact of outside forces (due to encroachment by the market, state or international bodies), it is theoretically unsatisfactory to base one’s analysis on the concept of external determination. All forms of external intervention necessarily enter the existing lifeworlds of the individuals and social groups affected, and in this way they are mediated and transformed by these same actors and structures. Also, to the extent that large-scale and ‘remote’ social forces do alter the life-chances and behaviour of individuals, they can only do so through shaping, directly or indirectly, the everyday life experiences and perceptions of the individuals and groups concerned. Hence, as James Scott expresses it:

Only by capturing the experience in something like its fullness will we be able to say anything meaningful about how a given economic system influences those who constitute it and maintain or supersede it. And, of course, if this is true for the peasantry or the proletariat, it is surely true for the bourgeoisie, the petite bourgeoisie, and even the lumpen proletariat.

(Scott 1985: 2)

A more dynamic approach to the understanding of social change is therefore needed which stresses the interplay and mutual determination of ‘internal’ and ‘external’ factors and relationships, ¹³ and which recognises the central role played by human action and consciousness.

One way of doing this is through the application of actor-oriented types of analysis, which were popular in sociology and anthropology around the late 1960s and early 1970s. These approaches range from transactional and decision-making models to symbolic interactionist and phenomenological analysis. One advantage of the actor approach is that one begins with an interest in explaining differential responses to similar structural circumstances, even if the conditions appear relatively homogeneous. Thus one assumes that the differential patterns that arise are in part the joint creation of the actors themselves. Social actors, however, must not be depicted as simply disembodied social categories (based on class or some other classificatory criteria) or passive recipients of intervention, but as active participants who process information and strategise in their dealings with various local actors as well as with outside institutions and personnel. The precise paths of change and their significance for those involved cannot be imposed from outside, nor can they be explained in terms of the working out of some inexorable structural logic, such as implied in de Janvry’s (1981) model of the ‘disarticulated periphery’.¹⁴ The different patterns of social organisation that emerge result from the interactions, negotiations and social struggles that take place between several kinds of actor, not only those present in given face-to-face encounters but also those who are absent yet nevertheless influence the situation, affecting actions and outcomes.

Having said this, however, it is necessary to underline the shortcomings of several kinds of actor-oriented approach promoted in the 1960s and 1970s, especially by anthropologists (see Long 1977a: 105–43). In an attempt to combat simple culturalist and structuralist views of social change, these studies concentrated upon the innovative behaviour of entrepreneurs and economic brokers, on individual decision-making processes, or on the ways in which individuals mobilised resources through the building of social networks (see Chapter 7 of this book). Yet many such studies fell short because of a tendency to adopt a voluntaristic view of decision-making and to stress the transactional nature of actor strategies which gives insufficient attention to examining how individual choices are shaped by larger frames of meaning and action (i.e. by cultural dispositions, or what Bourdieu (1981: 305) calls habitus or ‘embodied history’, and by the distribution of power and resources in the wider arena). And some studies foundered by adopting an extreme form of methodological individualism that sought to explain social behaviour primarily in terms of individual motivations, intentions and interests.¹⁵

Another brand of actor-oriented research (especially prevalent among political scientists and economists, but also taken up by some economic anthropologists such as Schneider (1974) is that which uses a generalised model of rational choice based on a limited number of axioms, such as the maximisation of preferences or utility. While the former types of actor analysis tend to treat social life and especially social change as essentially reducible to the constitutive actions of individuals, the rational choice approach proposes a ‘universal’ model whose ‘core features encode the fundamental properties of human behaviour’ (Gudeman 1986: 31, who criticises this approach).¹⁶ The principal objection to this, of course, is that it offers an ethnocentric ‘Western’ model of social behaviour based upon the individualism of ‘utilitarian man’ that rides roughshod over the specificities of culture and context.

The central significance of starting from ‘lived experience’

In contrast to these types of actor approach, Unni Wikan (1990) presents a fascinating interpretation of everyday Balinese social practice. Her ethnography is remarkable for the way in which it unmasks the conventions and contrivances of Balinese public cultural displays and ritual performances – so often the object of anthropological interest – to reveal a rich and versatile repertoire of ways of coping with the crises, hardships and heartaches of daily living. She concludes that ‘[u]nless this composite and complex nature of social order is also represented in our anthropological accounts, we risk depicting Balinese as engrossed in public spectacle, as people without hearts and without compelling personal concerns’ (Wikan 1990: 35).

The same critical observation is pertinent to the field of development, where we also need to get behind the myths, models and poses of development policy and institutions, as well as the reifications of local culture and knowledge, to uncover ‘the particulars of people’s “lived-in worlds” ’. That is, we need to document the ways in which people steer or muddle their ways through difficult scenarios, turning ‘bad’ into ‘less bad’ circumstances. As Wright Mills (1953) once commented in a slightly different context, sociological explanation requires addressing both ‘public concerns’ and ‘private dilemmas’.

The advantage of an actor-oriented approach is that it aims to grasp precisely these issues through a systematic ethnographic understanding of the ‘social life’ of development projects – from conception to realisation – as well as the responses and lived experiences of the variously located and affected social actors (cf. a similar formulation by Olivier de Sardan 1995: 50–4). Central elements of this ethnographic endeavour focus on the elucidation of internally-generated strategies and processes of change, the links between the ‘small’ worlds of local actors and the larger-scale ‘global’ phenomena and actors, and the critical role played by diverse and often conflicting forms of human action and social consciousness in the making of development.

‘Compelling personal concerns’ and the straw man of methodological individualism

While most writers dealing with questions of development intervention and changing livelihoods readily recognise the importance of what Wikan (1990) describes as ‘compelling personal concerns’, these are often transposed into simple structural statements about the vulnerabil...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: Theoretical and Methodological Issues
• Part II: Commoditisation, Social Values and Small-Scale Enterprise
• Part III: Knowledge Interfaces, Power and Globalisation
• Appendix
• Notes
• Bibliography