San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia: cultura presente, territorio ausente

Este estudio de caso es el resultado de un trabajo conjunto entre la Universidad Externado de Colombia, el Consejo Comunitario Ma Kankamaná de Palenque de San Basilio y la Corporación para el Desarrollo de las Comunidades Afrocaribeñas Jorge Artel. El estudio buscó identificar y analizar los procesos de puesta en valor de la identidad cultural (IC) que hasta la fecha se han llevado a cabo en San Basilio de Palenque, examinar las experiencias que estos procesos han promovido, sus principales características e identificar qué se necesita para incentivar la valorización de la IC en el marco de un proceso sostenido y equitativo de desarrollo territorial. A partir de esta observación se formulan recomendaciones dirigidas a reducir la pobreza, la desigualdad y la exclusión que afectan actualmente a las comunidades originarias de San Basilio de Palenque. Este artículo se subdivide en tres secciones. La primera describe a San Basilio de Palenque, sus principales características y rasgos culturales. La segunda explica la orientación del estudio de caso y los referentes teóricos y metodológicos que fueron utilizados. Para terminar, se presentan los resultados y conclusiones que arrojó la investigación

Theory within a Policy. Dissecting Capacity Development, Harvesting Knowledge Stances

This essay unpacks capacity development policies, discussing its core rationales and building theory out of its main conceptual assumptions. Capacity development focuses on addressing and improving the elusive terms, qualities and means of "capacity" needed for lasting development. The essay addresses the following questions: what are the core rationales of capacity development? What theoretical sources lay within capacity development? Is it possible to distil analytical synthesis from these theoretical sources? It draws upon the understanding of agency as described by capacity development. Its theoretical foundations are extracted and discussed, building a single corpus: the knowledge stance perspective is proposed to observe meso-level agency. It builds on institutional work and innovation intermediation scholarly streams. The knowledge-stances perspective on agency shows a set of knowledge stances as analytical tools. Stances of boundary exploration, boundary setting and practice work are shown as forms of enacting, positioning and expanding a practice field. Stances of knowledge exploration, intermediation and supply are shown as strategies to enlarge its cognitive base. The theoretical value of this perspective accounts for a twofold purpose. First, addressing the realms of knowledge at stake in meso-level interaction, as a means to deepen conceptual reach on the myriad of discourses currently fostering change. Second, promoting a scope of practice and research that allows framing (capacity) development beyond the project level and the donor-focused scope

Unfolding capacity: strategies of farmers' organizations as change agents

It is often said rural organizations are an important vehicle to overcome social and historical factors and social and political relations rooting poverty (Ifad, 2011). Little is known, however, about how these organizations actually bring about means for grassroot governance. This research adds to this matter, focusing on how farmers’ organizations cope with weak or ill institutional environments in their attempt to bring about local stability, following the question: what are farmers’ organizations strategies as change agents? The dissertation develops a typology of farmers’ organizations’ strategies as change agents, drawing on: i) the purposes driving farmers’ organizations; ii) farmers’ organizations’ strategies to coproduce institutions impacting local dynamics, and iii) farmers’ organizations’ strategies to create, allocate and scale local skills, capabilities and capacities. To capture this phenomenon the research follows an abductive rationale (Schwartz Shea, 2012). On the theoretical realm, capacity development plays as an interpretive reference. Capacity development is a policy tool (Voß, 2007) of international development policy, referring to autonomy deployment in the pursuit of developmental value. The conceptual approach is built on capacity development’s conceptual and practical understanding of change agency. The approach brings about literature from institutional work , innovation intermediation , the practice turn in sociology , sociology of knowledge and cognitive studies . The analysis defines a set of knowledge stances: knowledge-related patterns at the core of change agency strategies, allowing pointing at farmers’ organizations gestures as actors. On the empirical realm, the research recurs to a multi-sited study case aiming at capturing a fuzzy object (Nadai ; Maeder, 2009). It focuses on 39 Colombian cocoa-producer smallholder organizations located in institutionally deprived regions. Field results give an historical and present account of organizations’ relations with other parties, clustered thematically to describe the scope of organizations’ roles and coping strategies. Results are discussed following a typological approach (Weber, 1949). Organizations’ strategies are ‘isolated’ in order be analysed, clustered in types according to resembling features and contingent generalizations. The analysis is threefold: theoretical, adding detail to the conceptual approach; contextual, demarcating the fields in which farmers’ organizations take part; and analytical, detailing the extent of farmers’ organizations as actors: the ways organizations manoeuvre to stabilize a practice field deploying an interplay of strategies vis-à-vis boundaries, practice and institutions. Those agency gestures expressing the normative stance of the organizations specify its character of change agents. In sum, farmers’ organizations: i) perform inner-wise, ii) collaborate to extend practice fields, iii) bypass bottlenecks and re-scale their reach, iv) broke a knowledge cycle to strengthen local practice fields; and v) take part in the building of the public sphere