Objective of the project

Contexts to consider

Project plan for doctoral students

How to apply

Objective

The presented project, carried out by two doctoral students, research leader Heidi Bojsen Roskilde University and scholars attached to the International Institute of Water and Development Engineering (2IE) in Ouagadougou, sets out to investigate specific cases of practical inter- and transcultural communication processes in selected development projects concerned with water (and agricultural) development in the area of Ouagadougou

It is our aim to describe the difficulties and best practices that may be named within the communication between engineers and other project leaders and two groups with whom they often interact:

A) Landowners and inhabitants of the locations affected by the development project.

B) Project leaders and functionaries from the State administration, consultancy companies and NGOs.

The investigation will focus on the practical significance of words often used when the donor countries and recipient governments are formulating their policy and which also appear in the process of evaluation. As such, the project serves to give us a suggestion of how the notions such as “partnership” and “democratization” are in fact translated into practice in the social, cultural, geographic and economic reality of the people who are meant to be the beneficiaries of the development programme. Investigating the evaluation process will inform us about how this “translation” is perceived and evaluated by the Ministries and the donors.

Why is such an investigation important? It is important for four major reasons.

1) It will serve to provide a methodology and theoretical awareness of communication processes that will be a valuable tool for the engineers educated at 2IE and other institutions educating engineers and functionaries that will work in development projects.

2) It will not only help us to formulate the difficulty of translating political phrases of partnership and democratisation into practice analytically (and not merely as complaints or accusations against one particular party in the process), but will also give documented evidence to what communication strategies actually work. (The understanding of when something “works” may of course vary from one perspective to the next.)

These two points are mainly elucidated within the work of the two doctoral students

3) It will provide documented evidence for the importance of knowing and drawing on the knowledge of the intended beneficiaries of project – even it means changing the project plan.

4) The theses and publications of the project will provide evidence for the difficulties and best practices in a bottom up perspective and thus serve as a platform for further research, just like it will contribute to the body of knowledge that informs the decisions made in the UN and EU on development policies.

The development and substantiation of these two points are mainly the responsibility of the research leader and associates from 2IE and other partner universities.

Contexts to consider in the research project

There are more than 60 different languages spoken in Burkina Faso and different surveys suggest that merely about 15 % of the population speak and understand French. As all laws, political petitions and debates and development projects must enter the establishment through the French language, this constitutes a fundamental hurdle to the stipulated policies of democratization and partnership. Communication processes in Burkina Faso are characterized by a variety of ethnic and social languages and interests, intimate knowledge and respect for the social and cultural imaginaries, communication patterns and conditions of living are indispensable for the project workers. Due to these circumstances, it is fair to say that development practices, from the outline of policies to the practical organization of constructing water reservoirs are set in a situation of social, linguistic, economic and cultural translation. Consequently, the theoretical platform of the project will include references to selected works of literary works by West African authors, West African proverbs, local mediatised narratives and religious practices that provide information about the social imaginary in which these projects are being carried out. This to ensure that the investigation carried out by the doctoral students will depart from a heuristic platform that is not merely grounded on the traditional epistemologies of development studies as taught in academic institutions: the aim of this project is also to suggest a possible renewal of the way development is conceptualized – in practice and in academia – by letting the experience and the sagesse of the beneficiaries and the project workers have their say in the theoretical and methodological foundation.

Bibliographic suggestions:

BESETTE , G. (dir.) Eau, terre et vie. Communication participative pour le développement et gestion des ressources naturelles, L’Harmattan, PUL, IDRC, CRDI, 2007 

BOJSEN, H. Géographies esthétiques de l’imaginaire postcolonial : Écriture romanesque et production de sens chez Patrick Chamoiseau et Ahmadou Kourouma, Paris, L’Harmattan (Palinure), 2011.

CORNWALL,  A. « Buzzwords and Fuzzwords: deconstructing development discourse »,  Development in Practice, vol. 17, nº 4-5, aug. 2007.

ESCOBAR, A. Encountering Development. The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

FABRIZIO, C. et ault. (dir.) Change in Continuity. Concepts and Tools for a Cultural Approach to Development, UNESCO, 2000.

Tourneux, H. (Dir.) Langues, cultures et développement en Afrique. Paris, Karthala, 2008.

YODA, L. A. La traduction médicale du français vers le mooré et le bisa. Un cas de communication interculturelle au Burkina Faso, Groningen, Centre for Development Studies, University of Groningen, 2005.

Project Plan for doctoral students working on

 “Practical Transcultural communication: Problems and best practices in development programmes in Burkina Faso”

Research project offered by Roskilde University Denmark (RU) and The International Institute for Water and Development Engineering, Ouagadougou (2IE)

Doctoral students must be ready to stay in the listed countries for the periods specified below and will be paid a salary according to Burkinabé standards and regulations when in Burkina Faso and a salary according to Danish regulations and standards when in Europe as listed in the plan below. (Please note that changes of geographical location from this plan cannot release changes in salary). There is some funding for travelling expenses attached to attending conferences and doctoral courses. More info will be given to elected candidates.

Board, food and mandatory insurance expenses must be kept by the doctoral candidates themselves. Please beware of remarkable differences in living expenses in Denmark and Burkina Faso. Fees for VISA to Denmark and other Schengen Countries will be offered by Roskilde University.