David D. Gow is the Edgar R. Baker Professor of International Affairs and Anthropology and Director of the International Development Studies Program in The Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University. Formerly a consultant to the World Bank and a senior associate with the World Resources Institute, he is a coeditor of Implementing Rural Development Projects: Lessons from AID and World Bank Experiences.

Countering Development

Indigenous Modernity and the Moral ImaginationBy DAVID D. GOW

Duke University Press

Copyright © 2008 Duke University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-4148-2

Contents

Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………….ixAbbreviations………………………………………………………………………………xiiiIntroduction: Beyond the Developmental Gaze……………………………………………………11 More Than an Engaged Fieldnote Collaboration, Dialogue, and Difference…………………………212 Disaster and Diaspora Discourses of Development and Opportunity……………………………….593 Development Planning Slaves of Modernity or Agents of Change?…………………………………964 Local Knowledge, Different Dreams Planning for the Next Generation…………………………….1345 The Nasa of the North and the Tensions of Modernity…………………………………………..1716 Beyond Development The Continuing Struggle for Peace, Justice, and Inclusion……………………202Conclusion: Countering Development Indigenous Modernity and the Moral Imagination…………………240Notes……………………………………………………………………………………..261Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………….273Index……………………………………………………………………………………..295

Chapter One

Anthropology as a disciplinary enterprise does not so much harm Indian people (although there are enough individual cases of direct or indirect harm) as conduct studies on issues completely and utterly irrelevant to Indian welfare.-THOMAS BIOLSI AND LARRY J. ZIMMERMAN, introduction to Indians and Anthropologists: Vine Deloria, Jr., and the Critique of Anthropology

If anthropologists are not interested in the fate of their subjects, then what use can their knowledge have, either to the community itself or to any genuine “science of man”?-peter whiteley, “The End of Anthropology (at Hopi?)”

More Than an Engaged Fieldnote: Collaboration, Dialogue, and Difference

Anthropology as a discipline prides itself on “being there,” in the sense that the anthropologist goes to the “field” and observes and talks with people. This is anything but simple and straightforward since the anthropologist, whether he or she likes it or not, becomes an active participant in the process he or she is studying. The researcher becomes the major research instrument in the creation and collection of information. If the ethnography produced is to have any acceptance or credibility, it is incumbent upon the researcher to tell the reader how he or she went about collecting the information and also to disclose any personal idiosyncrasies that may have helped or hindered the process.

This first chapter addresses the issue by discussing key elements of my research process in Colombia. The first element is the justification for doing research at all in Colombia, particularly in rural areas, where personal security becomes a major issue. A second and more important element deals with the problems and pitfalls of trying to be a moral and engaged researcher while maintaining a certain objectivity. The third and final element, really an experiment, is an example of how to be actively engaged, moving beyond collaboration in the running of workshops and the production of texts to a more full-blooded but nuanced dialogue about meaning, difference, and responsibilities to those studied.

Who Does Fieldwork in Colombia?

I am periodically asked why I choose to do research in Colombia, the implication being that my choice is somewhat strange, even potentially dangerous. I have no smart, foolproof answer to this question. Nevertheless, it is a question that has concerned me for a decade now, one with which I continue to wrestle. Colombia is a nation at war, particularly in the countryside. This has profound methodological, political, and ethical implications for any serious researcher, but particularly for an anthropologist whose bread-and-butter, if you will, is people. Myriam Jimeno (2001) has argued that the pervasive environment of violence that characterizes contemporary Colombia has produced a climate of personal insecurity and social fragmentation. Daily life becomes less predictable and more circumscribed, thereby underscoring why anthropological fieldwork in inherently dangerous. The researcher may be defined as a spy. People may find it very difficult to understand or appreciate the research topic. Neutrality and objectivity are difficult, if not impossible. The researcher must learn to walk and talk softly, in terms of where to go and what questions to ask, and must continually define and redefine the risks and dangers, not only to himself, but perhaps more important, for those with whom he is working (Sluka 1995).

In the case of Colombia, as elsewhere in Latin America, there is a long, well-documented, and fully justified history of viewing foreign researchers in rural areas with skepticism and suspicion. Why are they there? Who are they working for? What will they do with the information they collect? Given that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has a well-established and notorious track record in the region, the assumption is that researchers are working for the “agency,” or some similar, potentially threatening entity. Not only are researchers’ motives suspect, so are the topics of their research.

In such a politically sensitive situation as that found in Cauca, no “neutrals are allowed.” As a result, fieldwork demands a certain degree of engagement on the part of the investigator, whether as scholar, critic, interlocutor, collaborator, advocate, or activist, but such engagement also exacts a price, politically and ethically, because often the anthropologist must choose to take sides, casting his lot with the powerless in their struggles with the powerful, and thus running the risk that the ethnography produced, as part of the public domain, can be used either to benefit or to harm the people described (Greene 1995).

In a review of indigenous rights movements in Africa and Latin America, Dorothy Hodgson characterizes “interlocutors” such as herself: “As scholars who share our ideas and work with indigenous groups in ongoing, constructive, and, perhaps, even occasionally contentious dialogues and debates in an effort to inform and shape their policies and practices, without directly aligning ourselves with one group or faction of the movement” (2002, 1045). She is making an important point here. While quite prepared to share her information, knowledge, and expertise with those she is studying, Hodgson is careful to avoid committing herself to any one particular group. Though this is understandable methodologically, in practical terms it may be impossible, since the willingness to share with indigenous groups is a political statement in and of itself. This is certainly the case in Colombia, and I would question the extent to which one can make these fine distinctions in arenas characterized by long histories of discrimination, oppression, and political violence. Interlocution and collaboration may be the sine qua non for undertaking any type of ethnographic research in this context. Such engagement, of course, is two-sided: while it may strengthen the researcher’s credibility in the eyes of some, it is guaranteed to make him enemies with others.

Such a decision also requires that the researcher be prepared to take a stand when the occasion demands it. In 2000, I participated in a workshop involving several hundred people to discuss the recently initiated peace process involving the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Also on the agenda was the impending implementation of Plan Colombia, the provision of U.S. military and technical assistance provided to the government for the eradication of coca fields and poppy plots. For the Nasa, many of whom were cultivating these crops, Plan Colombia was seen as being directed primarily at them, the very small producers at the bottom of a long and lucrative production and marketing chain. At the same time, Plan Colombia was viewed in many circles, correctly as it later turned out, as a means for the U.S. government to rationalize a military presence in the country directed at defeating the guerrillas. During the workshop I was interviewed by a major regional TV channel in which I was highly critical of the U.S. government and its potential role in further militarizing the conflict, an act that provided me with face (if not name) recognition in many places. At the request of the indigenous movement, I tried, unsuccessfully, to obtain funds, in both the United States and Europe, to support additional activities in support of peace. Although these efforts did not necessarily create rapport, I am convinced they did help foster some mutual confidence and respect. Even if such efforts did not necessarily open any more doors, minds, or hearts, they did contribute to a higher level of tolerance for my presence at various types of activities.

Both examples clearly demonstrate, however, the ambiguities incurred by the individual researcher who chooses to work in a highly politicized context. By publicly criticizing U.S. foreign policy for Colombia, I was consciously taking a stand against what the United States stood for, while at the same time clearly distancing myself from that policy. By seeking funding to support peace initiatives at the regional level, I was trying to accompany my political stance with something more tangible than mere moral support. In the process, of course, I shed all pretense of neutrality, in the sense that I had chosen to take sides. But had I also jeopardized my objectivity, willingness, and ability to present the facts as I saw them in a reasonably balanced and unbiased manner? Had I perhaps, consciously or otherwise, decided to write about some incidents rather than others to make my argument more convincing? While this is a potential temptation for all researchers, I think it is particularly tempting, if not outright seductive, when studying processes that one sympathizes with if not approves of. Though taking sides may facilitate the research, it also entails certain responsibilities to those one chooses to study and work with. All information is grist for the researcher’s mill, but what if some is confidential, controversial, critical, or potentially damaging? The engaged researcher walks an ethical tightrope trying to balance these various concerns to maintain some integrity.

Here I wish to describe and analyze how I went about doing the research on which this book is based, fully aware of the problems involved in foregrounding the author at the expense of the ethnography, while accepting that both are directly and symbiotically related. At the same time, I bear in mind the caveats clearly articulated by Peter Whiteley, addressing similar concerns about his life-long research with the Hopi: “What do reflexive ethnographers not tell us about their motivations, feelings, personal histories, fieldwork experiences, inchoate immediate or long-term doubts, and structured positionalities? What do they not know about themselves? The apparent ease of introducing the ethnographer as self into the text is, beyond style, more problematic than has been openly imagined” (1998, 18). While the ethnographer may choose to be selective about the subjects of his research, the temptation is to be even more selective about the presentation of self, since he runs the risk of jeopardizing (if not losing) his authority and credibility in the process. Yet this presentation is important because the ethnographer is the major research instrument, responsible for creating and analyzing the information he chooses to present (Ortner 1995). This instrument of the self is, however, also problematic, since it involves not only perceptions but also memories and creativity: “Are memories field-notes? I use them that way, even though they aren’t the same kind of evidence. It took a while for me to be able to rely on my memory. But I had to, since the idea of what I was doing had changed, and I had memories but no notes. I had to say, ‘Well, I saw that happen.’ I am a fieldnote” (Jackson 1990, 21).

Since this is the case, it is important that the reader have some appreciation and understanding of who precisely the ethnographer is without his necessarily revealing all and producing autobiography rather than ethnography. Of the several points that Whiteley mentions, two are particularly relevant to my own case: motivations and doubts. One can always put up convincing intellectual and political arguments for doing ethnographic research, but there are always other more intangible, less laudable reasons for “going to the field” year after year. There are elements of romanticism, the desire to rub shoulders with people who appear to be doing something socially worthwhile with their lives, a form of vicarious self-righteousness whereby one’s personal feelings of guilt are replaced by another’s example of virtue. There are also elements of escapism, the desire to be somewhere else where life is simpler because one is less involved and hence has less responsibility, as well as the desire to be someone else. The anthropologist in the field is different from his commonsensical, everyday person at “home.” His marginal status provides the opportunity to be more adventurous and shed certain inhibitions. I found these feelings of romanticism and escapism were often accompanied by profound feelings of long-term self-doubt. Given the mixed reception I would often get from people I knew, I used to wonder what went through their heads as they saw me approaching: “I wonder what he wants this time? Does he ever run out of questions? What on earth does he do with all the information he gathers? How can we avoid his questions without being rude, by just ignoring him?” To be totally ignored is perhaps the ultimate insult for an anthropologist in the field.

And this did happen to me, if not on a regular basis at least often enough to make me reluctantly accept that it was not coincidental. I found the research in the communities to be psychologically daunting and physically demanding: daunting because the Nasa are expert at giving outsiders the cold shoulder and demanding because of the discomfort resulting from the diet, the beds, the weather, and the long nights. Though I had survived a similar experience as a doctoral student in the Andes of southern Peru some thirty years earlier, the situation in Colombia was different for two reasons. This was a comparative study which involved four distinct research sites, three new communities as well as one of the communities of origin. As a result, when I was in the field, I was constantly on the move, never staying in any one community for more than a few days at a time. These short-term visits virtually precluded the establishment of the type of long-term friendships that could foster trust, credibility, and reciprocity.

Another factor justifying this approach was the very nature of my research. I was trying to produce an ethnography of development rather than an ethnography of displaced communities. Hence my research concentrated primarily on the process of development, specifically the production of texts, a focus that emerged in the anthropology of development literature of the 1990s (Escobar 1995a; Grillo 1997), as well as in the more applied development anthropology literature (Gardner and Lewis 1996; Nolan 2002). As it turned out, however, my focus on development process turned out to be rather short-sighted, since I could not fully understand it without giving more attention to history and politics, a reality reflected in later chapters.

Writing about oneself, like writing ethnography, can be a creative and selective process that may obfuscate rather than illuminate. It may serve to privilege the author and justify what others could find highly questionable. A case in point is Michael Taussig’s (2004) published diary detailing a two-week trip to a small town outside Cali, the capital of the neighboring province, which he has been visiting and studying for thirty years. At the time, the town was occupied by the paramilitaries who, following their chosen vocation, had been killing those local citizens whom they deemed “undesirable,” some of whom were known to the author. Taussig justifies the diary’s publication by playing on the various meanings of the word limpieza, which normally means “cleaning,” but has more recently come to mean “cleansing,” in the sense of wiping out and killing defenseless people deemed undesirable. But limpieza also has an older meaning, that of healing a person or home, and Taussig examines this double meaning: “Perhaps my diary plays on this ambiguity: that in the process of recoding and detailing this new kind of limpieza, the diary might conserve this older sense as well, displacing the malignity of the events it describes. I certainly hope so, and now, looking back … believe this to be the reason for having written this diary in the first place” (Taussig 2004, xiii). This is more journalism and autobiography than ethnography, reflecting the author’s apparent fascination with violence and his unwillingness to directly confront his own motivation for writing about it. It is difficult to justify writing about the systematic killing of people one has known and liked in the field, without expressing some feelings of guilt, remorse, anger, or regret.

Nevertheless, introducing oneself in the text may help demystify fieldwork and demonstrate just how agonistic a process it can be. How many anthropologists can say that they enjoy fieldwork? Bronislaw Malinowski spoke for many anthropologists in the posthumous publication of his infamous field journal, the frankness of which shocked many of his students and contemporaries at the time, particularly his expression of feelings of self-doubt:

Went to the village hoping to photograph a few stages of the bara. I handed out half-sticks of tobacco, then watched a few dances; then took pictures-but results very poor. Not enough light for snapshots; and they would not pose long enough for time exposures. At moments I was furious at them, particularly because after I gave them their portions of tobacco they all went away. On the whole my feelings towards the natives are decidedly tending to “Exterminate the brutes.” In many instances I have acted unfairly and stupidly. (Malinowski 1989 [1967], 69, cited in Geertz 1988, 74)

(Continues…)

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