Revolution of the Mind
This chapter examines KALAHI-CIDSS—a carefully planned and ambitious World Bank-engineered project, rolled out in thousands of villages and suburbs across the Philippines. It is designed not only to deliver basic services to poor villages but also to change the way villagers think and act. Exploring the course the project took in a Siquijor village, the chapter considers who participated, why and how, and the ways in which the project was variously received and evaluated by residents. It also considers the project’s goal of empowerment. By drawing on neoliberal assumptions suggesting people are responsible for their own poverty, the project eclipsed structural causes of poverty. This reinforced a tendency for residents to read their inability to attain high levels of consumption as a personal failure.