Development Through Bricolage: Rethinking Institutions for Natural Resource Management

238 Pages·2012·2.02 MB·English

by  Frances Cleaver

Development Through Bricolage
Why, despite an emphasis on ‘getting institutions right’, do devel-
opment initiatives so infrequently deliver as planned? Why do many
institutions designed for natural resource management (e.g. water user
associations, irrigation committees, forest management councils) not
work as planners intended? This book disputes the model of devel-
opment by design and argues that institutions are formed through the
uneven patching together of old practices and accepted norms with new
arrangements. The managing of natural resources and delivery of devel-
opment through such processes of ‘bricolage’ is likened to ‘institutional
DIY’ rather than engineering or design.
The author explores the processes involved in institutional bricolage;
the constant renegotiation of norms, the reinvention of tradition, the
importance of legitimate authority and the role of people themselves in
shaping such arrangements. Bricolage is seen as an inevitable, but not
always benign process; the extent to which it reproduces social inequal-
ities or creates space for challenging them is also considered. The book
draws on a number of contemporary strands of development thinking
about collective action, participation, governance, natural resource
management, political ecology and wellbeing. It synthesizes these to
develop new understandings of why and how people act to manage
resources and how access is secured or denied. A variety of case studies
ranging from the management of water (Zimbabwe), conflict and
cooperation over land, grazing and water (Tanzania) and the emergence
of community management of forests (Sweden) illustrate the context-
specific and generalized nature of bricolage and the resultant challenges
for development policy and practice.
Frances Cleaver is Professor of Environment and Development at
Kings College, London. She wrote the bulk of this book while a Reader
in International Development Studies at the University of Bradford.

Development Through
Bricolage
Rethinking Institutions for Natural Resource
Management
Frances Cleaver
First published 2012 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2012 Frances Cleaver
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilized 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.
The right of Frances Cleaver to be identified as the author of this Work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
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
Cleaver, Frances.
Development through bricolage : rethinking institutions for natural
resource management / by Frances Cleaver.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Natural resources--Management. 2. Natural resources--Co-
management. 3. Environmental agencies--Evaluation. I. Title.
HC85.C54 2012
333.7--dc23
2012001631
ISBN: 978-1-84407-868-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-84407-869-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-84977-721-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN
I dedicate this book to the memory of my dear friend
Mrs Thatshisiwe Nyoni (née Ncube) of Eguqeni and
Mpopoma.

Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Preface ix
1 Getting Institutions Right: Interrogating Theory and Policy 1
2 Introducing Bricolage 33
3 The Way We Have Always Done It 53
4 Plural Institutions: New Arrangements, Old Inequalities? 80
5 Continuity and Change: Gendered Agency and Bricolage 112
6 Piecing Together Policy Knowledge: Promises and Pitfalls 143
7 Remapping the Institutional Landscape 170
8 Transforming Institutions? 194
Index 215
Acknowledgements
Many people have influenced this book in different ways and I am
grateful to them all. I particularly thank the brave and hardy people of
Nkayi district in Zimbabwe for their hospitality and friendship over the
years, sometimes offered in circumstances of extreme hardship. I am
also indebted to all those I have lived and worked with in the Usangu
Plains in Tanzania, who have been so generous with companionship,
information and insights.
I owe a big debt to colleagues too numerous to name who have
provided intellectual support at various stages of writing, given me the
opportunity to present work-in-progress at seminars and freely shared
their own perspectives. Co-researchers on various projects have lived
through the highs and lows of fieldwork with good humour as well as
shaping and contesting my ideas. Special thanks go to those who read
and commented on various chapters of the book, in particular Simon
Duncan, Behrooz Morvaridi, Emil Sandström, Sam Wong, Tom de
Herdt and Jessica de Koning. The reviewers, Margreet Zwarteveen and
Bryan Bruns offered very welcome and incisive suggestions for improving
the book – inevitably I did not do justice to them all. Tom Franks has
been a stalwart colleague over the years of research in Tanzania, and
many aspects of this work are influenced by our collaboration. I am also
grateful to Kurt Hall, who provided invaluable intellectual and practical
support when I was in the final throes of finishing the book. Hearty
thanks also to my family and friends for their love and for staying the
course.
Preface
The ideas outlined out in this book have been long in gestation; a process
which unfolded through my early career in health service management
and my subsequent academic jobs in development studies. Here I
introduce some of the key themes of institutional bricolage by drawing
on scenarios from rural development in Zimbabwe and in Sweden.
Scene One: A Lion Spirit Ceremony in Chiweshe,
Zimbabwe
In February 1987 I was working as an administrator in a mission hospital
in rural Zimbabwe. The mission was facing a number of challenges – the
financial accounts never seemed to add up and there was some suspicion
about where the money was going. The children at the mission school
had recently rioted over bad food and oppressive discipline and the
hospital vehicles had been involved in a number of serious accidents.
The rains that year were both scanty and intermittent and people feared
for their crops; many employees were anxious and demoralized.
The missionaries attributed these misfortunes to the workings of
evil an power intending to disrupt their good work. Other local
people attributed these various problems to the displeasure of ancestral
Mhondoro spirits, who had protected the mission through years of civil
war but were now displeased at the levels of disharmony between people
living there. Accordingly, a big meeting of the spirit mediums for the
area was arranged, at which the spirits would be consulted about what
people needed to do to resolve these difficulties.1
Although it was said that white people were usually prohibited from
such ceremonies, my friend the district medical officer and I (both
white) were invited to attend. This was made possible by the brokering
efforts of the medical officer’s driver, who also briefed us on appropriate
dress (the colour red was forbidden in the presence of the spirits) and