Prince Claus was a German married to the Dutch queen Beatrix and as such was able to see the Dutch with German eyes and vice versa. He had a personal intercultural experience which influenced his thinking about development cooperation. Jan Pronk in his book Willens en wetens bring this again to our attention. Claus often said: 'on ne developpe pas, on se developpe', refering to the fact that people take their own learning and developement processes at hand, which you can stimulate but not orchestre or control.He also felt that there needs to be more attention for the cultural side of the development cooperation (or international cooperation). "Rethinking development means first and foremost curbing ethnocentrism". "The poly-cultural nature of the world we live in is indeed something to be treasured and kept alive."
He thinks that "it is recognised that there is a cultural dimension to development, but it is at the same time regarded as a nuisance and solutions are ought by just adding a dash of culture to our development efforts which otherwise remain valid as before. Such a conception is rooted in the economically minded cultures. Economic achievements are still at the top of their scale of values."
Though it is written 10 years ago, I wonder how much things have really changed in this regard and how much the development sector has learned about the cultural elements at play in development cooperation.
PS. somehow it feels weird not to write about the elections in the Netherlands, you see how much blogging is somehow associated with citizens journalism.
3 comments:
why not-write-about election in NL?
As it is clearly stated in the results of the election 2006, there is a POLITICAL culture changes in NL. And if we want to go deep into it, you can see the fast moving media (in this case I am including things such as tv, newspaper, internet etc.) is making politicians difficult to 'manage' their thoughts, their speeches etc. IT IS good? I don't necessary think so. But if we are looking at transparency, PERHPAS it is good ...
POLITICAL cultures ... is just as important as social cultures. And they are inter-influenced. In my opinion the political cultures in NL would affect how development money would be spent.
Cultures is such a diversified field we sometime are unaware of what they are, who they are.
Hi Joitske,
Indeed, the element of 'culture' in development is still mainly restricted to the 'cultural dance' at the inauguration of one or another project. I'm also very interested in the 'hidden agenda' of westernization, secularization and postmodernization that often comes along with development (in the sense of 'on developpe').
No doubt you know the article in Vice Versa recently about 'development: a mission in identity' here
Cindy, I don't really know what to write about elections, but there is a lot written on how online media have changed the landscape indeed.
Wouter, thanks for the link, I read it offline some time ago, but I'm interested to have a look at it again what the main points were.
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