Assumptions, Motivations and Neutrality in Rural Development: The Portuguese Paradigm

Development agents need to examine their underlying assumptions,motivations, neutrality, and their terminology, which is oftenimprecise and misleading. In addition, development is frequentlycharacterized by self-created dichotomies that obscure the veryproblems that need to be solved. The combined cooperativistand constructivist approach has proved itself successful inovercoming these problems. "A lady once said to him, ‘My maid must be pleased, Igave her my dresses.’ ‘That's nice’, he replied,‘does she give you hers?" Jean-Paul Sarrte, Saint Genet "You name it, you claim it." Max Roach, Black American jazzmusician, referring to whites, and jazz.