Development Sociology: Actor Perspectives

309 Pages·2001·2.49 MB·English

by  Norman Long

DEVELOPMENT SOCIOLOGY
In this exciting and challenging work, Norman Long brings together years of work and
thought in development studies to provide a key text for guiding future development
research and practice.
Using case studies and empirical material mainly from Latin America, Development
Sociology focuses on the theoretical and methodological foundations of an actor-
oriented and social constructionist form of analysis. This style of analysis is opposed to
the traditional structuralist/institutional analysis which is often applied in develop-
ment studies.
With an accessible mix of general debate, critical literature reviews and original
case-study materials this work covers a variety of key development issues. Among many
important topics discussed, the author looks at commoditisation, small-scale enterprise
and social capital, knowledge interfaces, networks and power, globalisation and locali-
sation as well as policy formulation and planned intervention processes.
This book should be read for its desire to pursue a form of analysis that helps us to
understand better (and more realistically) the kinds of development interventions and
social transformations that have characterised the second half of the twentieth century
and will no doubt continue to characterise future development studies.
Norman Long is Professor of Sociology of Development at Wageningen University in
the Netherlands. He is the author of An Introduction to the Sociology of Rural
Development (Routledge, 1977) and co-editor of Battlefields of Knowledge (Routledge,
1992) and Anthropology, Development and Modernities(Routledge, 2000).

DEVELOPMENT
SOCIOLOGY
Actor perspectives
Norman Long
London and New York
First published 2001
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
© 2001 Norman Long
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Long, Norman
Development sociology: actor perspectives
p. cm Includes bibliographical data and references
1. Rural development. 2. Community development 3. Economic development
4. Social change I. Title
HN49. C6 L66 2001
307.1'412 –dc21
ISBN 0-203-39853-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-39947-1 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–23535–9 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–23536–7 (pbk)
TO THE THREE ‘A’s IN MY LIFE,
ANN, ALISON AND ANDREW

CONTENTS
List of illustrations ix
Preface and acknowledgements x
Introduction 1
PART I
Theoretical and methodological issues 7
1 The case for an actor-oriented sociology of development 9
2 Demythologising planned intervention 30
3 Building a conceptual and interpretative framework 49
4 Encounters at the interface: social and cultural discontinuities in
development and change 73
PART II
Commoditisation, social values and small-scale enterprise 93
5 Commoditisation and issues of social value 95
6 Webs of commitment and debt: the significance of money and social
currencies in commodity networks 115
7 Networks, social capital and multiple family-enterprise:
local to global 132
vii
CONTENTS
PART III
Knowledge interfaces, power and globalisation 167
8 Knowledge, networks and power 169
9 The dynamics of knowledge interfaces between bureaucrats
and peasants 189
10 Globalisation and localisation: recontextualising social change 214
Appendix: Cornerstones of an actor-oriented approach 240
Notes 244
Bibliography 264
Index 287
viii
ILLUSTRATIONS
Tables
7.1 Eustaquio’s compadres (1972) 146
7.2 Eustaquio’s friends (1972) 147
Figures
6.1 Commodity flows, payments and credit relations 124
7.1 Genealogy 1: The Jiménez family, 1972, indicating participants in
the multiple enterprise 144
7.2 Genealogy 2: The Jiménez family, 1998: Occupations, enterprises
and residence (see also Genealogies 2a, 2b and 2c) 157
ix