What do you think?
Rate this book
Participatory Development Practice: Using traditional and contemporary frameworks
From indigenous people’s groups, classroom teachers, and local and international community workers comes the desire to build community. Participatory Development Practice provides a theoretical and applied base for rethinking development practice that is deeply influenced by a ‘community’ development tradition having its roots in participation and dialogue, yet is broader than that. The book makes the link from the intra-personal to the community and beyond, into the inter-organizational and international domains now required of twenty-first century development work.
The book is framed conceptually as implicate method (starting with positioning self), micro (developing constructive relationships), mezzo (forming small participatory groups), macro (structuring participatory work within formal organizations) and meta (working with both local to global and global to local issues).
Kelly and Westoby draw on diverse traditions of thought and practice, including the written works of author-activists such as Gandhi, Freire, Fanon, and the unwritten oral traditions of female workers in Asia, and First Peoples. The result is a true and tested methodology using frameworks of good ideas born from practice wisdom, that have come from research and reflection on 70 years of combined experience.
Participatory Development Practice helps experienced practitioners, as well as scholars and students of international development, community development and social work, to reflect critically on the concepts and assumptions guiding their work. It is also aimed at corporate actors within community relations departments of major industry who increasingly interact with the public.
'This is a must-read for any development worker wanting to avoid the many pitfalls of colonial, managerial and oppressive practice – which has done such harm – but instead to practice with integrity, humility, honesty and commitment. It is a rich mix of gentle humanity and intellectual analysis. It is not easy to be a good development worker (and all too easy to be a bad one), and Anthony Kelly and Peter Westoby, from their rich experience, provide readers with the challenge of developing their own creative practice frameworks, while at the same time presenting a profound vision of what genuinely human-centered development work can be.'
Professor Jim Ife, School of Social Sciences and Psychology Western Sydney University
The book is framed conceptually as implicate method (starting with positioning self), micro (developing constructive relationships), mezzo (forming small participatory groups), macro (structuring participatory work within formal organizations) and meta (working with both local to global and global to local issues).
Kelly and Westoby draw on diverse traditions of thought and practice, including the written works of author-activists such as Gandhi, Freire, Fanon, and the unwritten oral traditions of female workers in Asia, and First Peoples. The result is a true and tested methodology using frameworks of good ideas born from practice wisdom, that have come from research and reflection on 70 years of combined experience.
Participatory Development Practice helps experienced practitioners, as well as scholars and students of international development, community development and social work, to reflect critically on the concepts and assumptions guiding their work. It is also aimed at corporate actors within community relations departments of major industry who increasingly interact with the public.
'This is a must-read for any development worker wanting to avoid the many pitfalls of colonial, managerial and oppressive practice – which has done such harm – but instead to practice with integrity, humility, honesty and commitment. It is a rich mix of gentle humanity and intellectual analysis. It is not easy to be a good development worker (and all too easy to be a bad one), and Anthony Kelly and Peter Westoby, from their rich experience, provide readers with the challenge of developing their own creative practice frameworks, while at the same time presenting a profound vision of what genuinely human-centered development work can be.'
Professor Jim Ife, School of Social Sciences and Psychology Western Sydney University
316 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 21, 2018
6 people are currently reading
14 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 4, 2025
Essential and Compelling
For any CD worker, a must read. I’ve been fine tuning my own practice for many years following this methodology…the more I learn, the more I realise I have to learn.
For any CD worker, a must read. I’ve been fine tuning my own practice for many years following this methodology…the more I learn, the more I realise I have to learn.
Displaying 1 of 1 review