Wednesday, October 13, 2010: Personal Shifts and Development Paradigms

My orientation at the Centre for Environment Education (CEE) began with a presentation by the head of the organization. While the content of the presentation was both highly informative and quite valuable within the context of our class work, what captivated me the most was not the information itself but rather the effect that this presentation had on the way I identified with development communication.

During my undergraduate degree in Political Science I was highly interested in issues of international development. However, much of my knowledge of development communication and the work done by non-governmental organizations up until this point was predominantly theoretical in nature. Most of the literature that I had read stated that non-governmental organizations would enter a country, identify a need or problem area, come up with a solution, implement that solution, and then leave. This was an approach that I came to identify quite heavily with during my undergraduate studies, and it formed an integral part of how I conceptualized and identified with development issues. In contrast, the approach outlined during this presentation was very different. It spoke of the need to identify problems in conjunction with local stakeholders. The problem solving and implementation stages were identified as stages of collaboration rather than unilateral intervention. This approach, which centred upon listening to stakeholders and facilitating two-way communication between all involved parties drastically changed the manner in which I perceived development – from a product driven approach to a process driven one.

The
 presentation was invaluable for me because it not only challenged these deeply held assumptions, but also forced me to re-evaluate what my role in development should be. Under my existing paradigm I had visions of a job that involved jet setting around the world, finding people with problems and creatively solving their difficulties for them. Instead, his presentation served as a reality check, forcing me to understand that it was not possible (and indeed quite arrogant) to believe that I could approach a problem as an outsider and offer people a solution which would magically solve their problems. While these lessons had been alluded to in the pre-residency readings, I felt that the presentation given by the director of CEE really brought the point home, and ultimately helped me to change the way I identified and conceptualized my role within a development context.