The DOI matches its Crossref record; 32 of the 32 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The devil's in the theory: A critical assessment of Robert Chambers' work on participatory development
Open accessAbstract
The practice orientation of Robert Chambers' work on Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), which aims at enabling local people and communities to take control over their own development, has received much attention in development circles. This article attempts to shift the emphasis away from PRA's practice towards its theoretical underpinnings. The article argues that PRA's practice/empiricist orientation causes it to be insufficiently theorised and politicised. As a result, questions about inclusiveness, the role of PRA facilitators, and the personal behaviour of elites overshadow, or sometimes ignore, questions of legitimacy, justice, power and the politics of gender and difference. The article draws on arguments and debates involving Habermasian 'deliberative democracy' and post-structuralist notions of power.
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Cites
Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy
Habermas, J. (1996) · The MIT Press eBooks · doi:10.7551/mitpress/1564.001.0001 · Cited by 9,998
Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy
(2014) · Justice Interruptus · doi:10.4324/9781315822174-11 · Cited by 5,486
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
(2006) · Habermas · doi:10.4324/9780203020166-5 · Cited by 4,779
(2001) · Lancaster EPrints (Lancaster University) · Cited by 4,566
The origins and practice of participatory rural appraisal
Chambers, R. (1994) · World Development · doi:10.1016/0305-750x(94)90141-4 · Cited by 2,524
Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory
Weedon, C., & Fraser, N. (1992) · Feminist Review · doi:10.2307/1395284 · Cited by 1,974
Moral consciousness and communicative action
(1991) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.28-3821 · Cited by 1,877
Habermas and the public sphere
(1992) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.30-1196 · Cited by 1,798
Chambers, R. (1997) · Practical Action Publishing eBooks · doi:10.3362/9781780440453 · Cited by 1,568
Participatory rural appraisal (PRA): Analysis of experience
Chambers, R. (1994) · World Development · doi:10.1016/0305-750x(94)90003-5 · Cited by 1,262
Cited by
‘Power is not an evil’: rethinking power in participatory methods
Gallagher, M. (2008) · Children's Geographies · doi:10.1080/14733280801963045 · Cited by 288
Spatialising Participatory Approaches: The Contribution of Geography to a Mature Debate
Kesby, M. (2007) · Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space · doi:10.1068/a38326 · Cited by 182
Ansell, N., Robson, E., Hajdu, F., & van Blerk, L. (2012) · Children's Geographies · doi:10.1080/14733285.2012.667918 · Cited by 76
Commentary: Working Across Distant Spaces: Connecting Participatory Action Research and Teaching
Pain, R. (2009) · Journal of Geography in Higher Education · doi:10.1080/03098260802276599 · Cited by 19
Conti, C., Hall, A., Kok, K., Olsson, P., Moore, M.-L., Kremen, C., Laila, A., Gordon, L. J., Barnhill, A., te Wierik, S., et al. (2025) · One Earth · doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2025.101178 · Cited by 11
Metadata
- Authors
- Kapoor, I.
- Venue
- Third World Quarterly
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2002-02
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 101-117
- ISSN
- 0143-6597 (ISSN-L)
- 1360-2241
- OpenAlex
- W2100335669
- Cited by
- 264
- References
- 32
- FWCI
- 64.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
