After Development
Eric Hirsch
Project Description
"After Development" was a collaborative engagement project Dr. Hirsch carried out in the summer of 2017 with local partners in the villages of Lari and Yanque in Andean Peru’s Colca Valley. It consisted of triangulating dissemination of his ethnographic data on earlier sustainable development investments he had followed in each of those villages between 2013 and 2015 with (a) reflections from people who had received investments as part of NGO-based initiatives seeking to promote indigenous entrepreneurship and agricultural innovation; and (b) the listening and feedback of the development institution staff members that oversaw those investments. In the two six-day workshops, participants revealed flaws in NGO-style development, pointing out that the limited financial support projects offered perpetuated existing inequalities. They also made clear, perhaps with the most passion, that the 1.5 to 2-year time-scale and the limited scope of projects to individual entrepreneurs left them with a feeling first of promise for their potential roles in growing markets, and then, of abandonment as projects closed. Ultimately, the interviews, focus groups, and project designs that participants created have pushed him to continue this conversation about life after development project intervention as villagers forge new pathways forward. Dr. Hirsch, with a collaborator in Peru, are seeking to collate this field data into a memo to NGO workers. Funding: The Wenner-Gren Foundation Engaged Anthropology Grant.