Trojan-Horse Aid: Seeds of Resistance and Resilience in the Bolivian Highlands and Beyond

by Susan Walsh

Overview

In a compelling first-hand account of development assistance gone awry, Susan Walsh recounts how national, international, and multilateral organizations failed the Jalq'a people in the Bolivian Andes during the early millennium. Intent on assisting potato farmers, development organizations pushed for changes that ultimately served their own interests, paradoxically undermining local resilience and pushing farmers off their lands. Trojan-Horse Aid challenges the idea of Western capacity-building, particularly the notion that introduced technologies related to food production are essential ingredients for sustainable livelihoods among farmers. Walsh argues that the well-intentioned organizations working in Jalq'a communities paid insufficient attention to longstanding knowledge that has supported human survival in regions where the natural world has the upper hand. Walsh goes beyond a critical review of misguided aid to offer reflections on the relationship between indigenous knowledge and resilience theory, the hopeful future of development assistance, and the contradictions in her own hybrid role as researcher and development-practitioner. In light of growing global concern over the worsening food crisis and interconnected climate extremes, Trojan-Horse Aid offers an important critique of development practices that undermine peasant strategies as well as suggestions for more effective approaches for the future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773544345
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	12/04/2014
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Susan Walsh is executive director of USC Canada. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Illustrations follow page xiv

Prologue: When Making Other Plans 3

1 Introduction: Packets of Paradox 17

2 Beyond Donut-Style Research 24

3 Embedded and Invented 33

4 Deep Connections 54

5 Bouncing Back 64

6 Ecological Complementarity 71

7 An Interconnected Web 88

8 Breaking the Balance 98

9 Farmer Proletariat 118

10 Hungry in Body and Spirit 136

11 "Dipstick" Development 146

12 Old Habits Die Hard 160

13 The Monocropping of People, Plants, and Knowledge 172

14 Development with Dignity 190

Epilogue: Paradox, Resistance, and Resilience 200

Appendices

1 Overview of Field Research and Methods 215

2 Analysis of Primary Research Methods 217

3 Interculturalism 228

4 Chimpa Rodeo and Mojon Demographic Data 233

5 Chimpa Rodeo and Mojon Infrastructure and Animals 235

6 Chimpa Rodeo and Mojon Field Crops Produced 237

Notes 239

References 273

Index 309

Editorial Reviews

"This compassionate memoir is filled with insights into the daily and structural contradictions of the development business, with a clarity that can come only from the rarest of people - a thoughtful and reflective practitioner. From the Bolivian highlands, Susan has given us an even-handed, informed, and lucid critique of the development industry and all it touches, herself included. A must-read for anyone with ambitions of being practically involved in international development." Raj Patel, bestselling author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System


"Susan Walsh transports readers to the Bolivian highlands, offering us a rare, first-hand view of how development “assistance” can go awry. The result, however, is a compelling and ultimately hopeful tale of indigenous farmers’ resilience in the face of a

From the Publisher