Trojan-Horse Aid : Seeds of Resistance and Resilience in the Bolivian Highlands and Beyond / Susan Walsh.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Walsh, Susan, 1955- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Agricultural assistance--Bolivia--Potosí (Department).

Agricultural assistance.

Agriculture--Bolivia--Potosí (Department).

Agriculture.

Quechua Indians--Agriculture--Bolivia--Potosí (Department).

Quechua Indians.

Peasants--Bolivia--Potosí (Department).

Peasants.

Quechua Indians--Agriculture.

Bolivia--Potosí (Department).

Physical Description:

xi, 326 pages : ǂb illustrations ; ǂc 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Montreal & Kingston : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2014.

Summary:

In a compelling first-hand account of development assistance gone awry, Susan Walsh recounts how national, international, and multilateral organizations failed the Jalq'a people in the Bolivian Andes during the early millennium. Intent on assisting potato farmers, development organizations pushed for changes that ultimately served their own interests, paradoxically undermining local resilience and pushing farmers off their lands. Trojan-Horse Aid challenges the idea of Western capacity-building, particularly the notion that introduced technologies related to food production are essential ingredients for sustainable livelihoods among farmers. Walsh argues that the well-intentioned organizations working in Jalq'a communities paid insufficient attention to longstanding knowledge that has supported human survival in regions where the natural world has the upper hand. Walsh goes beyond a critical review of misguided aid to offer reflections on the relationship between indigenous knowledge and resilience theory, the hopeful future of development assistance, and the contradictions in her own hybrid role as researcher and development-practitioner. In light of growing global concern over the worsening food crisis and interconnected climate extremes, Trojan-Horse Aid offers an important critique of development practices that undermine peasant strategies as well as suggestions for more effective approaches for the future. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction: Packets of Paradox 17

2 Beyond Donut-Style Research 24

3 Embedded and Invented 33

4 Deep Connections 54

5 Bouncing Back 64

6 Ecological Complementarity 71

7 An Interconnected Web 88

8 Breaking the Balance 98

9 Farmer Proletariat 118

10 Hungry in Body and Spirit 136

11 "Dipstick" Development 146

12 Old Habits Die Hard 160

13 The Monocropping of People, Plants, and Knowledge 172

14 Development with Dignity 190.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Walsh, Susan, 1955-, author. Trojan-horse aid.

ISBN:

9780773544338

077354433X

9780773544345

0773544348

OCLC:

879528728