Revolutionizing development : reflections on the work of Robert Chambers / edited by Andrea Cornwall and Ian Scoones.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This book tells the story of development studies in practice over the last fifty years through the work of one remarkable individual, Robert Chambers. His work has taken him from being a colonial officer in Kenya through training and managing large rural development projects to a fundamental critique of top-down development and the championing of participatory approaches. The contributors eloquently demonstrate how he has been at the centre of major shifts in development thinking and practice over this period, popularising terms that are now at the centre of the development lexicon such as vulnerability, multi-dimensional poverty, sustainable livelihoods and 'farmer first'.

Robert Chambers played a major role in the massive growth in participatory approaches to development, and particularly the application of participatory methods in development research and appraisal. This has led to fundamental challenges to development practice, ranging from approaches to monitoring and evaluation to institutional learning and professional training. There is probably no-one who has had more influence on approaches to development in the past decades. Revolutionizing Development offers a unique overview of these contributions in thirty-two concise chapters from authors who have been intimately involved as collaborators, critics and colleagues of Robert Chambers.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Notes on Contributors (p. ix)
• Acknowledgements (p. xv)
• Acronyms and abbreviations (p. xvii)
• Photographs (p. xxi)
• 1 Patting the Last First: Reflections on the Work of Robert Chambers (p. 1)
• Part 1 Conceptualizing Development
• 2 Challenging Development Priorities (p. 23)
• 3 Beginners in Africa: Managing Rural Development (p. 31)
• 4 The Path from Managerialism to Participation: The Kenyan Special Rural Development Programme (p. 39)
• 5 Foxes and Hedgehogs - and Lions: Whose Reality Prevails? (p. 45)
• 6 Administration and Development (p. 53)
• 7 Participation in International Aid (p. 59)
• 8 Power and Participation (p. 67)
• 9 Reframing Development (p. 75)
• Part 2 Rural Development, Poverty and Livelihoods
• 10 Exploring Sustainable Livelihoods (p. 85)
• 11 Putting the Vulnerable First (p. 93)
• 12 Seasonality: Uncovering the Obvious and Implementing the Complex (p. 101)
• 13 Refugee Studies (p. 107)
• 14 Farmer First: Reversals for Agricultural Research (p. 113)
• 15 Agricultural Development: Parsimonious Paradigms (p. 121)
• 16 In Search of a Water Revolution: Canal Irrigation Management (p. 129)
• 17 The Last Frontier: The Groundwater Revolution in South Asia (p. 135)
• 18 Trees as Assets: Legacies and Lessons (p. 141)
• 19 Finding a Sustainable Sanitation Solution: Scaling up Community-Led Total Sanitation (p. 149)
• 20 Technology and Markets (p. 155)
• Part 3 Methodological Innovations
• 21 Village Studies (p. 165)
• 22 "Whose Knowledge Counts? Tales of an Eclectic Participatory Pluralist (p. 173)
• 23 Learning to Unlearn: Creating a Virtuous Learning Cycle (p. 181)
• 24 The Use of Participatory Methods to Study Natural Resources (p. 187)
• 25 Participatory Numbers (p. 197)
• Part 4 Practising Development: New Professionalism
• 26 The Personal and the Political Ramesh Singh (p. 205)
• 27 Poverty Professionals and Poverty (p. 211)
• 28 Changing Attitudes and Behaviour (p. 217)
• 29 Networking: Building a Global Movement for PRA and other Participatory Methods (p. 225)
• 30 Institutional Learning and Change (p. 233)
• 31 Participation, Learning and Accountability: The Role of the Activist Academic (p. 241)
• 32 Development Professionalism (p. 249)
• 33 Appreciation and Reflections Robert Chambers (p. 257)
• Appendix: List of Robert Chambers'Publications (p. 261)
• References (p. 281)
• Index (p. 303)

Author notes provided by Syndetics