Progress in participatory development: opening up the possibility of knowledge through progressive participation

This paper explores the cross-cultural production of knowledge within participatory development. Drawing on in-depth interviews, group discussions and participant observation with stakeholders in the first phase of the New Zealand Official Development Assistance (NZODA) participatory impact assessment pilot (PIAP), we explore how stakeholders participated and perceived their participation in the knowledge produced within the PIAP. This case study followed one stream of the stakeholders participating, which incorporated representatives from NZODA and their evaluation consultants, a New Zealand nongovernment organization (NGO) and their Indian partner NGO, the communities with which the Indian NGO works, and a facilitator of this pilot. The information generated illustrates how different frameworks and methodologies of participation enable and constrain the inclusion of culturally different expressions and constructions of power/knowledge, and how participatory development faces ongoing challenges to facilitate the inclusion of ‘alternative’ and ‘indigenous’ knowledges without their simultaneous subordination.