Re-mapping global development through inclusive development

• In Event: The Equity Initiative: Prioritizing Disabilities – Sharpening Focus on Inclusive Education Policy and Practice.

Proposal

Relevance to Conference Theme

The influence of international development and its projects can be found on every corner of the globe. At the same time, funders, theorists, and participants in programs have recently noted that the outcomes development could be reaching a wider diversity of stakeholders and beneficiaries.

Specifically, organizations such as the World Bank, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), United Nations Education, Science, and Cultural Organizations (USESCO) have described their efforts to become more “inclusive” in their approaches. In 2008, the World Bank published a report entitled The Growth Report: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development. This report focused on a broad-based approach to economic development through traditional financial sectors. The report lays out strategies for economic development stimulation but never identifies specifically what is meant by inclusive development. Alternatively, USAID and UNESCO have focused their efforts toward inclusive development on particular populations. In the case of USAID, inclusion focuses on traditionally marginalized populations in the US (and therefore presumably in international contexts), while UNESCO’s main thrust in its inclusive approaches focuses on gender and disability. This paper will describe how inclusive development is conceptualized by organizations in the Global North and South in order to better understand how “inclusion” is put to work in theory and practice.

Theory

Although inclusion is a theme in development discourse, there is a lack of consistent use of the term. Further, when the term inclusion is used, it is often unclear what the desired or actual outcomes of the process of inclusion are. Arocena, Goranson, and Sutz (2015) take a specific South-centric stance, emphasizing that inclusive development is an activity whereby knowledge and policy become broadly democratized, focused on diminishing societal inequalities. A pragmatic bridge from Arocena et al.’s work to is Espinoza’s (2007) mapping of equity (which focuses on differential attention for those most marginalized). Broad philosophical commitments to democratization, inclusion, equity, and equality, however, are often interpreted in different ways by different stakeholders. Further, these terms may be susceptible to cooptation by agencies and contractors wishing to demonstrate alignment with global trends (Steiner-Khamsi, 2016). To this end, this presentation will answer four questions: 1) How is the meaning of the word ‘inclusion’ defined in international development literature of the Global North and South; 2) what populations are presumed to be ‘included’ in inclusive development initiatives; 3) what are the desired outcomes of inclusive development initiatives; and 4) what indicators are used to evaluate success on such initiatives?

Inquiry

In order to draw conclusions, a meta-synthesis of recent documents in the field was conducted. Meta-synthesis is an approach that can be seen as a qualitative complement to meta-analysis. Although the core activity of meta-synthesis and meta-analysis involve drawing upon and analyzing data from existing publications, meta-syntheses provide a greater opportunity to make meaning of qualitative studies than do meta-analyses (which primarily focus on positivistic studies. This presentation will report on how inclusion is constructed and explained in international development literature. A taxonomy of themes that describe the variant approaches to inclusion that are mentioned in reports and empirical research will be presented. To attain this goal, the systematic review focuses on “key metaphors, phrases, ideas, concepts, and relations” (p. 208) of inclusivity found in the literature. This project will specifically follow the guidance of Thorme, Jensen, Kearney, Noblit, and Sandelowski (2004), who urged researchers who work in spaces that are also inhabited by practitioners and stakeholders to reach a point and draw conclusions.

Findings

Preliminary findings indicate that “inclusion” is identified by specific focus on populations. Instances of “democratization of knowledge” (see Arocena et al.) are less frequent in literature than pragmatic attempts of development projects to expand the circle of possible participants. Findings at this time are preliminary, but will be discussed in greater detail at the March conference.

Contribution

This project will contribute to the broader field in two ways. First, the metasynthesis methodology will allow for democratized conceptualization of inclusiveness, by drawing upon both peer-reviewed resources as well as organizational and other gray literature. Second, the development of an inclusive development taxonomy will allow organizations to more accurately use the word in relation to their work and provide an evaluative tool for advocates for critically analyzing the use of term by organizations.

Author

• Christopher Johnstone, University of Minnesota