Anthropology of Development

The Anthropology of Development is the critical applied and policy-oriented branch of modern anthropology in WBCS Anthropology Paper 2 (Unit 9). It investigates how development policies, projects, and ideologies interact with local cultures, marginal communities, indigenous identities, and gender structures. Rather than viewing development merely as an uncritical economic good, anthropological inquiry scrutinizes development both as a target of critique (Anthropology of Development) and as a practical domain of participatory intervention (Anthropology in Development).

This study note provides complete, structured, and exam-focused coverage across all 3 syllabus sub-units:

• 9.1 Critique, approaches, issues of women development, cultural factors of development, displacement and rehabilitation, sustainable development, alternative to development (post-development).
• 9.2 Role of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in development.
• 9.3 Role of anthropology in development (Applied, Action, and Practicing Anthropology).

9.1 Development: Critiques, Approaches, and Core Issues

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1. Conceptual Distinction: Development Anthropology vs. Anthropology of Development

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Anthropologist Arturo Escobar and Ralph Grillo drew a fundamental distinction between two divergent anthropological orientations toward development:

2. Major Theoretical Approaches to Development

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3. Issues of Women in Development: WID, WAD, and GAD

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The integration of women into development policy evolved through three distinct paradigms influenced by feminist anthropology (Ester Boserup, Caroline Moser):

 WID (1970s)                  WAD (Late 1970s)               GAD (1980s Onwards)
 Women in Development   ──>   Women and Development   ──>   Gender and Development
 (Add women & stir)           (Neo-Marxist Critique)        (Power, Relations & Patriarchy)

Critical Issues of Women’s Development in India:

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1. The “Triple Burden”: Women simultaneously perform reproductive labor (childbearing, care work), domestic labor (cooking, fetching water and firewood), and productive labor (unpaid family farming, low-wage casual work).
2. Feminization of Poverty and Agriculture: Male out-migration leaves women managing fragmented farms without statutory land ownership (Pattas), preventing access to institutional bank credit or subsidies.
3. Technological Displacement: Agricultural mechanization (harvesters, weedicides) historically displaced female manual labor tasks (weeding, transplanting, threshing) without providing alternate employment.

4. Cultural Factors in Development

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Anthropology demonstrates that cultural values, social institutions, and cognitive worldviews are not irrational obstacles to development, but mediating frameworks that determine project success or failure:

• Socio-Cultural Institutions as Enablers or Inhibitors:
  • Kinship and Reciprocity: Traditional mutual-aid systems (e.g., Jajmani network, tribal labor exchange like Madad or Gotong Royong) can be mobilized for community cooperation.
  • Sacred Groves and Ecological Taboos: Sacred groves (Sarna among Mundas, Kavu in Kerala) enforce local conservation ethics, which top-down state forestry often disrupts.
• Barriers Created by Ignoring Cultural Sensitivities:
  • Dietary and Religious Beliefs: Imposing high-protein beef or pork supplements in culturally taboo communities.
  • Sanitation Projects: Building standardized concrete latrines that violate local purity-pollution norms regarding domestic space and defecation (causing latrines to be repurposed as grain storages).
• Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) / Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK):
  • Local communities possess centuries of empiric agro-ecological wisdom (e.g., Khonar Bachan weather proverbs in Bengal, indigenous terrace water harvesting like Apatani wet-rice fish farming in Arunachal Pradesh). Projects that ignore ITK consistently fail.

5. Development-Induced Displacement and Rehabilitation (DIDR)

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In post-independent India, massive developmental projects (multipurpose dams, opencast coal and iron mines, industrial corridors, wildlife reserves) have caused massive forced evictions, known as Development-Induced Displacement and Resettlement (DIDR). Over 40% to 50% of all displaced persons in India belong to Scheduled Tribes, despite comprising only 8.6% of the population (The Resource Curse).

Michael Cernea’s Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction (IRR) Model:

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World Bank anthropologist Michael Cernea formulated the internationally recognized IRR Model, identifying 8 Interlinked Impoverishment Risks inherent to forced displacement:

                  MICHAEL CERNEA'S IRR MODEL (8 RISKS)
                                    │
    ┌───────────────┬───────────────┼───────────────┬───────────────┐
    ▼               ▼               ▼               ▼               ▼
1. Landlessness  2. Joblessness  3. Homelessness 4. Marginal-   5. Food
                                                    ization        Insecurity
    │               │               │
    ├───────────────┼───────────────┘
    ▼               ▼               ▼
6. Increased     7. Loss of Common  8. Social Disarticulation
   Morbidity        Property (CPR)     (Community Breakdown)

Case Studies in India:

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• Sardar Sarovar Project (Narmada River): Displaced hundreds of thousands of tribals (Bhil, Tadvi, Pavra); analyzed by anthropologists and activists (Narmada Bachao Andolan) highlighting the failure of land-for-land rehabilitation.
• Hirakud and Rourkela Dam & Steel Complex (Odisha): Successive waves of multi-generational displacement of Santhals, Mundas, and Hos without socio-economic restoration.
• LARR Act, 2013: Replaced the colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894, mandating mandatory Social Impact Assessment (SIA) and detailed Rehabilitation & Resettlement (R&R) provisions.

6. Sustainable Development

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• Definition (Brundtland Commission Report - Our Common Future, 1987):

  “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

• The Three Pillars (Triple Bottom Line):
  1. Environmental Integrity: Ecosystem balance, biodiversity protection, renewable resource utilization.
  2. Economic Viability: Equitable resource distribution, poverty reduction, livelihood security.
  3. Social Equity & Cultural Diversity: Social inclusion, human rights, and preservation of local cultural heritage.
• Anthropological Critique of Mainstream Sustainable Development:
  • Anthropologists criticize corporate “greenwashing” and managerial sustainability that treats nature merely as “natural capital.”
  • Real sustainability requires recognizing Indigenous Ecological Stewardship, community property rights, and low-carbon indigenous lifestyles that do not exploit ecosystems for hyper-consumerism.

7. Alternatives to Development (The Post-Development Critique)

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Pioneered in the 1990s by Arturo Escobar, Gustavo Esteva, Wolfgang Sachs, and Majid Rahnema, the Post-Development school argues that:

• “Development” is not an objective reality, but a discursive construct invented by the West (initiated by US President Harry Truman’s 1949 Inaugural Speech classifying the Southern hemisphere as “underdeveloped areas”).
• Development has failed because it deprives communities of cultural autonomy, converts self-reliant peasants into poor consumers, and destroys biological ecosystems.
• Core Demand: We do not need Alternative Development (better managed projects); we need Alternatives TO Development.

Indigenous Alternatives to Development:

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1. Buen Vivir / Vivir Bien (South America): Indigenous Andean philosophy (Sumak Kawsay) emphasizing living in harmony with community and Mother Earth (Pachamama), rejecting GDP growth as the measure of human happiness.
2. Ubuntu (Africa): “I am because we are”—community solidarity, relational being, and shared wealth rather than individual capital accumulation.
3. Swadeshi and Gram Swaraj (Gandhian Alternative in India): Production by the masses rather than mass production; self-reliant village republics; ecological trusteeship (Aparigraha).
4. Radical Ecological Democracy / Eco-Swaraj (Ashish Kothari): Grassroots political autonomy, ecological resilience, and localized economic democracy.

9.2 Role of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Development

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1. Conceptual Framework & Typology of NGOs

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Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are non-profit, voluntary, citizen-based groups organized at local, national, or international levels to address humanitarian, developmental, advocacy, and environmental needs.

2. Functional Strengths of NGOs from an Anthropological Viewpoint

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1. Proximity and Grassroots Empathy: Unlike bureaucratic government departments, NGOs operate directly within communities, communicating in local vernacular dialects and respecting cultural nuances.
2. Innovation and Flexibility: Free from rigid bureaucratic red tape; capable of piloting innovative, participatory socio-economic experiments (e.g., SEWA’s micro-banking for unorganized women).
3. Capacity Building and Social Capital: Fostering community institutions like Self-Help Groups (SHGs), Village Forest Committees (VFCs), and User Water Groups.
4. Subaltern Advocacy and Watchdog Function: Exposing state corruption, human rights violations, and illegal displacement; spearheading landmark rights-based legislations (RTI Act 2005, MGNREGA 2005, Forest Rights Act 2006).

3. Anthropological Critique of NGOs (The “NGO-ization” of Resistance)

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Critical anthropologists (Arundhati Roy, James Petras, David Mosse) have highlighted several structural limitations:

1. Depoliticization of Subaltern Struggles: NGOs often transform structural political battles (against land grabs or caste exploitation) into technical, funded “projects,” blunting radical peasant mobilization.
2. Donor-Driven Agendas: Heavy reliance on foreign funding agencies and corporate CSR funds forces NGOs to tailor their work to donor priorities rather than genuine community needs.
3. Lack of Democratic Accountability: Unlike elected panchayats, NGO leaders are self-appointed and answerable upwards to funding agencies, not downwards to the people they claim to represent.
4. Encroachment upon State Responsibility: By providing piecemeal charity clinics and schools, NGOs can inadvertently enable the state to retreat from its constitutional welfare duties.

9.3 Role of Anthropology in Development

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Anthropology plays a transformative role in the development arena across three applied domains:

                      ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE DEVELOPMENT SECTOR
                                         │
        ┌────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────┐
        ▼                                ▼                                ▼
 APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY             ACTION ANTHROPOLOGY              PRACTICING ANTHROPOLOGY
 • Consultant / Policy Advisor    • Sol Tax (Fox Project)          • Independent Practitioner
 • Culturally sensitive planning  • Participant intervention;      • SIA, Project Monitoring,
 • Social Impact Assessment (SIA)   community self-determination     Indigenous Rights Advocacy

1. Key Methodological Contributions of Anthropology to Development

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1. Social Impact Assessment (SIA):
   • Quantitative economic surveys measure only monetary loss. Anthropological SIA measures qualitative social costs: disruption of kinship safety nets, psychological trauma of eviction, loss of common property access, and religious shrine submergence.
2. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) / Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA):
   • Anthropologists pioneered participatory tools (resource mapping, seasonal calendars, transect walks) that empower local villagers to analyze their own reality, plan interventions, and monitor progress (Robert Chambers’ “Putting the First Last”).
3. Contextualizing Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS):
   • Translates local ecological wisdom (soil categories, seed preservation, traditional medicine) into modern scientific development planning.
4. Cultural Brokerage & Translation:
   • Anthropologists act as cultural translators bridging the communication gap between bureaucratic planners/engineers and local indigenous populations, preventing intercultural miscommunication.

2. Historical Pioneers in Development Anthropology

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• Sol Tax (1950s) – Action Anthropology:
  • Conceived during the Fox Project among the Meskwaki (Fox) Indians of Iowa.
  • Argued that anthropologists should not merely observe or advise passively; they must actively assist communities to achieve self-determined goals, combining academic research with practical action without imposing outside values.
• Michael Cernea (World Bank):
  • Institutionalized sociological and anthropological analysis within international development financing.
  • Formulated the Involuntary Resettlement Policy (Operational Directive 4.30) and the IRR Model, making cultural and socio-economic restoration mandatory for infrastructure loans.
• David Mosse (Cultivating Development, 2005):
  • Conducted insider ethnography of participatory development projects in tribal Western India, exposing how “project success” is socially manufactured through policy narratives rather than actual field transformation.

Model Questions for WBCS Mains Practice

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10-Mark Short Notes

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1. Distinction between Development Anthropology and Anthropology of Development.
2. Evolution from WID to GAD in feminist development discourse.
3. Michael Cernea’s Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction (IRR) model.
4. Arturo Escobar’s concept of ‘Alternatives to Development’.
5. Role of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) in development planning.

20-Mark Long Questions

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1. Critically analyze the theoretical critiques of Modernization theory from the perspective of Dependency and Post-Development theories. How does anthropology conceptualize human well-being beyond GDP growth?
2. Discuss the socio-cultural, economic, and psychological consequences of Development-Induced Displacement on Indian tribes. Evaluate the adequacy of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (LARR), 2013.
3. Examine the role of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in rural and tribal development in India. Critically evaluate their functional strengths and structural limitations from an anthropological standpoint.
4. What is Action Anthropology? Elaborate on the role of an anthropologist as an evaluator, researcher, and social advocate in planned development projects.