Anthropology vs. Economics: Implications for Participatory Development Programs
My exposure to participatory programs in Uganda, and my subsequent research, led me to realize that successful participatory programs require program organizers to have intimate knowledge of local cultural and economic factors. I learned this summer that developing relationships and gaining this local understanding is hard work! As I've learned more about Anthropology, it's become evident that Anthropologists are uniquely situated to bring this local perspective to development challenges. Anthropologists are skilled at articulating the methods of participatory development programs than are Economists. I found this in contrast to my major, Economics, which is so focused on macro-level issues that it struggles to comprehend the details of local cultures. I first experienced the differences between Economics and Anthropology in this class, when I learned that my abstract, economic analyses weren't what my professor was looking for in papers. She wanted a more local approach.
I wanted to learn more about how Economics and Anthropology differ in their consideration of local factors, because I believe this has implications for the future of participatory development programs. Economists have great clout in international development circles, but their focus on general laws seems to run contrary to participatory, locally-specific programs. What does the rift between economists and anthroplogists mean for participatory programs, and can these different types of social scientists work and learn together?
Thinking and reading about these issues, I've tried to articulate how, specifically, anthropologists are more in tune with local factors than economists.
I wanted to learn more about how Economics and Anthropology differ in their consideration of local factors, because I believe this has implications for the future of participatory development programs. Economists have great clout in international development circles, but their focus on general laws seems to run contrary to participatory, locally-specific programs. What does the rift between economists and anthroplogists mean for participatory programs, and can these different types of social scientists work and learn together?
Thinking and reading about these issues, I've tried to articulate how, specifically, anthropologists are more in tune with local factors than economists.
Economic Growth Economic Liberalization Policies Randomized Control Trials Mathematical Modeling |
Economics
Much of the growth theory literature of economics espouses the notion that development is a linear process, wherein technology is constantly modernized as quality of life gets forever better (15). Economic liberalization, opening the markets of developing countries, drives economic growth for poorer countries, as they are able to participate in the greatest engine for prosperity the world has ever known, the global market. These policies are favored by the World Bank as general principles that will improve the livelihoods of the poor in developing countries (15) The way we can tell if development programs work is through Randomized Control Trials (RCTs). These trials take situations where a program is initiated in one area and not another, and compare the development results to see what the important determinants of development success are. The area where the program is not implemented is used as a control group to compare, using advanced econometric methods, with the participant group to gauge the program's effectiveness. These trials utilize large data sets so that conclusions drawn GENERAL indicators of a program's effectiveness (4). Economic growth models utilizing large data sets can be informative of the causal factors of economic growth and/or human development. All serious economic studies use large data sets including thousands of observations. This data is fitted to advanced econometric models to give estimators of influence of variables on development outcomes(14). |
Anthropology
Instead of resting on the belief that all nations can get on the development “ladder” to improve quality of life, an anthropologist would be much more interested in getting into the field to understand local causes of poverty. Maybe government corruption is a cause of poverty in some places more than others? Maybe economic inequality allows wealthier members of society to take advantage of poor, rural farmers, as I saw to be the case where I was in Uganda? Maybe education is a primary factor holding back the poor? In reality, the causes of poverty are complex, and different everywhere across the globe. An anthropologist wants to understand what complex drivers of hardship are in a specific area, and then look at what can be done to alleviate that (24). Anthropologists emphasize that economic growth is not the path out of poverty everywhere! If one-size fits all policies of economic liberalization adversely affect certain populations, what can be done to improve the lives of people in holistic, meaningful, local ways? More importantly, what do the people themselves want to see change. Anthropologists are skeptical of liberalization policies because they open the door to paternalistic, structurally unequal relationships between countries, and between citizens of differing socioeconomic status within countries. Anthropologists would prefer to preserve and adjust local, sustainable ways of living instead of opening everybody to the turbulent seas of the market economy (21) Anthropologists often distrust RCTs because they do not take local factors into consideration. A RCT may be able to produce a measure of a program's effectiveness for a large population, but this says little about what makes the program work on a micro level. Additionally, there are significant doubts about the true “randomness” of the samples used in RCTs. (4) The concerns anthropologists have with this approach mainly center on problematic data collection. Data surveys may include offensive or poorly worded questions that do not get to the heart of the intended meaning. Additionally, the questions asked in surveys might not, even when correctly asked and interpreted, be rich enough to describe the issue of interest. For instance, it is very difficult to understand a person's level of empowerment, or human development, through asking a couple of questions about education. Likewise, you cannot understand a culture's health-care processes through a few yes/no, binary questions. These are vague, difficult-to-define topics that must be dug into. Anthropologists are trained to spend significant time with the people they are studying in order to understand the underlying complexities of human development questions (25). |
Anthropology Dominated by Economics?
Differences in approach among disciplines is not an inherent problem, but, considering the hegemony economics holds in development circles over the other social sciences, it becomes problematic. Economics is crowding out other social sciences in terms of policy influence (12).
How Economics has Come to Dominate the Social Sciences
In a fascinating article, Ben Fine takes a stab at explaining why Economics has been able to maintain the pre-eminent status. Firstly, it presents itself as something akin to the natural sciences because it searches for universal, generalizable laws explaining human behavior and is based in mathematical rigor. More important however is how Economics has been able to expand its scope as it has retreated from neoliberal ideas that markets are always the most efficient ways of organizing human activity (12).
Fine says that economists recognized that there are many human behaviors not predicted by neoclassical theory. The response to this has been to explain all deviations from the behavior predicted by neoclassical theory, all cultural, religious, and local lifestyle factors as results of individuals optimizing their responses to market imperfections. Maybe there is some asymmetry of information in a market that explains why Ugandan farmers like I worked among don't seek to maximize their income in traditional ways (12).
In making this pivot, the discipline of economics essentially relies upon all the same tools it has always used – utility maximization, diminishing marginal utility, supply and demand – but is able to explain a wealth more of human behavior. Fine writes “such simple analytical advances considerably expand the ability of economics to colonize other social sciences” (Fine 2002). New fields of economics have sprouted up, such as the new institutional economics, the new economics of sociology, the new political economy, the new labor economics, the new financial economics, the new development economics, and behavioral economics, to scoop up ever more of the traditional domains of other social sciences. Economists, through increasing technological virtuosity, keep explaining more varieties of human behavior through devising new market imperfections (12).
For these reasons, I personally believe that it's imperative to draw attention to the differences between the anthropological and the economic approach, and to highlight the skills of an anthropologist are significant for supporting the participatory development programs I found so promising this summer.
Conclusion: Yes, Economists do seem to look at things from a more abstract, large-scale perspective. I think that this does not bode well for the spread of participatory development methodologies given Economics' dominant standing among the social sciences.
In the following pages, I take a closer examination at a few of the ways Economists focus on the large picture, and highlight how Anthropologists can contribute to the development debate.
Differences in approach among disciplines is not an inherent problem, but, considering the hegemony economics holds in development circles over the other social sciences, it becomes problematic. Economics is crowding out other social sciences in terms of policy influence (12).
How Economics has Come to Dominate the Social Sciences
In a fascinating article, Ben Fine takes a stab at explaining why Economics has been able to maintain the pre-eminent status. Firstly, it presents itself as something akin to the natural sciences because it searches for universal, generalizable laws explaining human behavior and is based in mathematical rigor. More important however is how Economics has been able to expand its scope as it has retreated from neoliberal ideas that markets are always the most efficient ways of organizing human activity (12).
Fine says that economists recognized that there are many human behaviors not predicted by neoclassical theory. The response to this has been to explain all deviations from the behavior predicted by neoclassical theory, all cultural, religious, and local lifestyle factors as results of individuals optimizing their responses to market imperfections. Maybe there is some asymmetry of information in a market that explains why Ugandan farmers like I worked among don't seek to maximize their income in traditional ways (12).
In making this pivot, the discipline of economics essentially relies upon all the same tools it has always used – utility maximization, diminishing marginal utility, supply and demand – but is able to explain a wealth more of human behavior. Fine writes “such simple analytical advances considerably expand the ability of economics to colonize other social sciences” (Fine 2002). New fields of economics have sprouted up, such as the new institutional economics, the new economics of sociology, the new political economy, the new labor economics, the new financial economics, the new development economics, and behavioral economics, to scoop up ever more of the traditional domains of other social sciences. Economists, through increasing technological virtuosity, keep explaining more varieties of human behavior through devising new market imperfections (12).
For these reasons, I personally believe that it's imperative to draw attention to the differences between the anthropological and the economic approach, and to highlight the skills of an anthropologist are significant for supporting the participatory development programs I found so promising this summer.
Conclusion: Yes, Economists do seem to look at things from a more abstract, large-scale perspective. I think that this does not bode well for the spread of participatory development methodologies given Economics' dominant standing among the social sciences.
In the following pages, I take a closer examination at a few of the ways Economists focus on the large picture, and highlight how Anthropologists can contribute to the development debate.