8.2 Engaging with the Community
115
P8 mentioned that s/he faced difficulties “with projects that are called participatory
but are not necessarily participatory they may involve one or two people, but soon
there will be no [community] ownership of the project” (P8, social investment expert,
translated). According to P8, “a social project is only considered participatory when
its final product promotes [community] empowerment” (translated). In expressing a
critical understanding of social investment, P8 drew on working with discourses of
social investment. However, critics of social investment state that even participatory
social investment can shape communities’ decisions in favour of the company’s
interests (see for example Hickey & Mohan, 2004; Mosse, 2001).
Mosse (2001) argues that government and donor institutions are not passive
facilitators of local knowledge production and planning. Governments and international donors, such as international banks and O&G companies, have increasingly facilitated communities’ ‘participation’ in social investment (Mosse, 2001).
However, these institutions’ underlying interests of “greater productivity at a lower
cost, efficient mechanisms for service delivery, or reduced recurrent and maintenance
costs” (Mosse, 2001, p. 17) place demands on social investment programmes. In this
sense, community empowerment through participation can be shaped and directed
by corporations and companies’ social investment processes.
Donors and government agendas may implicitly influence social investment
design, promoting a paradigm shift from a participatory approach to a top-down
model of social investment (Mosse, 2001). Top-down social investment draws on
working on discourses of social investment. This type of social investment fails to
confront power relations and tends to depoliticise an inherently political process,
turning participation into a technical approach towards development (Hickey &
Mohan, 2004).
However, in my research, one social investment expert, P4, did not use working on
discourses of social investment when s/he inferred that companies had to step back
from parts of the project design and planning in order to accommodate a participatory
approach to social investment:
What we now do is: we provide more than enough time ahead of when the community
programme is going to be executed to make sure the conversations happen. So if the conversation takes one year before the community set to and now agree and are happy with all
the accommodations and come to a decision on who should do the work for them and who
should benefit from it. We were just official. So what we have learned is how the framework that allows for more than enough time for very congruent transparent allocation in the
community. At the end of the day, they go through the tension and through the pains and
through the arguments and then they will come to a consensus. At that point, we step in. (P4,
social investment expert)
In P4’s account, the company stepped back and gave the community time and space
to organise their own approach towards social investment. According to P4, the
community took over the project’s design and delivery and dealt with its inherent
tensions and conflicts by negotiating its own domestic politics before the company
stepped into the process. Only after the community had decided upon the framework
and logistics of the social investment would the company step into the process. P4
commented on how communities exercised ownership by means of negotiating the
115
P8 mentioned that s/he faced difficulties “with projects that are called participatory
but are not necessarily participatory they may involve one or two people, but soon
there will be no [community] ownership of the project” (P8, social investment expert,
translated). According to P8, “a social project is only considered participatory when
its final product promotes [community] empowerment” (translated). In expressing a
critical understanding of social investment, P8 drew on working with discourses of
social investment. However, critics of social investment state that even participatory
social investment can shape communities’ decisions in favour of the company’s
interests (see for example Hickey & Mohan, 2004; Mosse, 2001).
Mosse (2001) argues that government and donor institutions are not passive
facilitators of local knowledge production and planning. Governments and international donors, such as international banks and O&G companies, have increasingly facilitated communities’ ‘participation’ in social investment (Mosse, 2001).
However, these institutions’ underlying interests of “greater productivity at a lower
cost, efficient mechanisms for service delivery, or reduced recurrent and maintenance
costs” (Mosse, 2001, p. 17) place demands on social investment programmes. In this
sense, community empowerment through participation can be shaped and directed
by corporations and companies’ social investment processes.
Donors and government agendas may implicitly influence social investment
design, promoting a paradigm shift from a participatory approach to a top-down
model of social investment (Mosse, 2001). Top-down social investment draws on
working on discourses of social investment. This type of social investment fails to
confront power relations and tends to depoliticise an inherently political process,
turning participation into a technical approach towards development (Hickey &
Mohan, 2004).
However, in my research, one social investment expert, P4, did not use working on
discourses of social investment when s/he inferred that companies had to step back
from parts of the project design and planning in order to accommodate a participatory
approach to social investment:
What we now do is: we provide more than enough time ahead of when the community
programme is going to be executed to make sure the conversations happen. So if the conversation takes one year before the community set to and now agree and are happy with all
the accommodations and come to a decision on who should do the work for them and who
should benefit from it. We were just official. So what we have learned is how the framework that allows for more than enough time for very congruent transparent allocation in the
community. At the end of the day, they go through the tension and through the pains and
through the arguments and then they will come to a consensus. At that point, we step in. (P4,
social investment expert)
In P4’s account, the company stepped back and gave the community time and space
to organise their own approach towards social investment. According to P4, the
community took over the project’s design and delivery and dealt with its inherent
tensions and conflicts by negotiating its own domestic politics before the company
stepped into the process. Only after the community had decided upon the framework
and logistics of the social investment would the company step into the process. P4
commented on how communities exercised ownership by means of negotiating the