Mosse, David

In this paper Mosse addresses the contradiction of participatory development which implies that the agency of the poor can be accomplished only through imported structures for participation, so that it simultaneously confers and denies agency to the poor. While participation have been incorporated into the discursive practice of major development organisations, such participatory theory may have little to do with field practices. This concerns, then, how development practices produce and re-affirm their legitimising theory, models and ideas. Participation is seen as one legitimising idea.