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Well-Being in Development: Comparing Global Designs with Local Views in Peru

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Abstract

Disagreements over development arise in part from different ways of thinking about human well-being, an issue explored here with reference to two pieces of empirical research in Peru. The first is an analysis of ontological assumptions underpinning secondary literature on development policy at the national level. The second is the pilot testing of a combined ethnographic and psychometric approach to measuring individuals’ perceptions of well-being. Congruence and disjuncture between the different views of well-being that emerge from this analysis are systematically explored, along with the potential for reducing such gaps as a means to improving development practise. The paper also examines the link between such analysis and the role of what Mignolo refers to as ‘border thinking’ within the geopolitics of knowledge.

Les désaccords concernant le développement résultent en partie des manières diverses d’envisager le bien-être humain. Nous examinons cette question en nous appuyant sur deux travaux de recherche empirique menés au Pérou. Le premier est une analyse des hypothèses ontologiques sous-tendant la littérature secondaire sur la politique de développement national. Le second est l’essai pilote d’une approche à la fois ethnographique et psychométrique de la mesure des perceptions qu’ont les individus du bien-être. Nous examinons systématiquement les contrastes et similarités entre les différentes perceptions du bien-être révélés par cette analyse ainsi que la possibilité de réduire ces écarts dans le but d’améliorer les pratiques de développement. Cet article examine également le lien entre une telle analyse et le rôle de ce que Mignolo appelle ‘la pensée frontalière’ dans le cadre de la notion de géopolitique de la connaissance.

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Notes

  1. The WeD group was formed in 2003 with a grant from the UK Economic and Social Research Council to carry out empirical work on well-being in four countries: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Thailand and Peru. Peru's inclusion arose out of research links between staff at Bath University, PUCP (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú) and UNCP (Universidad Nacional del Centro del Perú) through which a common interest emerged in conducting multidisciplinary research relating poverty to political and cultural processes of social inclusion and exclusion (Figueroa et al, 2001). The WeD group's officially stated purpose was to develop a conceptual and methodological framework for understanding the social and cultural construction of well-being in developing countries from a multidisciplinary perspective (Gough and McGregor, 2007). WeD adopted a definition of well-being as ‘…a state of being with others where human needs are met, where one can act meaningfully to pursue ones goals, and where one enjoys a satisfactory quality of life’. A broad definition was adopted deliberately so as to offer discursive space for comparison of narrower interpretations of its meaning.

  2. These three dimensions parallel the distinction between development as ‘hope, critical understanding and politics/administration’ suggested by Lewis and Mosse (2006, p. 5). A more detailed way of thinking about the historical dimension of development is provided by the idea of national welfare regimes (Wood and Gough, 2006). Copestake and Wood (2008, p. 187) develop this idea further for the case of Peru, interpreting it as an ‘unequal security regime’.

  3. The methodology and findings are presented more fully by Yamamoto et al (2008). Unlike the research in the previous section (instigated by the author) the principle architects of the research, described in this section, were all Peruvian: social psychologists (Yamamoto and Feijoo) and a team of social anthropologists led by Altamirano and Alvarez. And although the methodology was also influenced by intensive debates with other members of WeD the broad approach remained firmly in the hand of this team, and was indeed in part replicated in the other three WeD countries. Copestake and Camfield (2009) describe the process of methodological development in more detail and outline reasons for not adopting other approaches, including the World Health Organization quality-of-life (WHOQoL) (Skevington, 2009), self-determination theory (Ryan and Deci, 2001) and satisfaction with life – or domains of life – scales (Diener et al, 1985; Cummins, 2000; Veenhoven, 2000).

  4. Exceptions include Clark (2002) and Lever et al (2005); see Gough and McGregor (2007) for a wider review. In Peru, DFID and World Bank (2003) focused on poor people's perceptions of poverty using focus group discussions. Graham and Pettinato (2002) compare subjective and observed economic well-being, Herrera et al (2006) investigates subjective perception of poverty among those above and below the official poverty line, and Schuldt (2004) relatively low subjective well-being of inhabitants of Lima. Richman et al (1987) also indirectly address issues raised here through empirical investigation into the process of acculturation of internal migrants in Peru.

  5. Two criteria influenced selection of the preferred factor solution: the statistical properties of a structural equation model linking all the variables, and congruence with the field researchers’ first-hand knowledge of the study area (this also being the basis for arriving at factor names or labels). The key criterion for aggregation across all sites was the statistical validity of the factor model thereby arrived at (and notwithstanding statistically significant differences in responses arising from the heterogeneity of respondents within the sample). In other words, the homogeneity implicit in presenting average results shown in Table 2 across the sample was found to be statistically valid. Extensive analysis of heterogeneity of responses (by age, site, gender, migration status and education) was also conducted and is reported in full in Yamamoto et al (2008). For example, despite the small sub-sample sizes, significant and interesting site-specific differences in goal importance and necessity emerged that can be related to observed features of each site (Copestake (2008b). However, it is beyond the scope of this article to report fully on findings at this level of detail here.

  6. Copestake (2008a) further explores the relevance of the concept of well-being for development policy and practice: as a discursive space for analysis of disjuncture underlying policy disagreements and conflicts, as the foundation for alternative approaches to stakeholder consultation, as the basis for personal reflexivity among development practitioners, and as critical to decisions over centralization or devolution of power. Gulrajani and McCourt (2010) elaborate usefully on the last point by exposing the ontological roots of the impasse between managerialism and the goal of political empowerment in development management.

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Acknowledgements

This article is a product of collaboration with Peruvian researchers, principally from the Pontificate Catholic University in Lima. I am particularly indebted to Jorge Yamamoto in the Dept of Psychology at the Pontificate Catholic University in Lima, who is the source of many of the original ideas presented here, and to the field research team led by Jose-Luis Alvarez of the National University of Central Peru in Huancayo. In Bath, I am grateful to Dr Allister McGregor for his leadership over 6 years of the Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD) research group. I also gratefully acknowledge feedback from two anonymous referees, and support for this work from the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). An earlier version of the paper was presented at the Latin American Studies Association International Congress on rethinking inequalities in Rio De Janeiro in June 2009.

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Copestake, J. Well-Being in Development: Comparing Global Designs with Local Views in Peru. Eur J Dev Res 23, 94–110 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2010.45

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