Local Participation in Community Based Development Projects in Ghana

The study critically analyses how the local people in Ga West municipality perceive local participation and socio-cultural factors that influence local participation. The study used the mixed method design. The lottery method of the simple random sampling technique coupled with Neuman and Neuman’s (2006) recommendation on random convenience sampling were used to sample and collect data from 187 respondents. The study revealed that local participation provides the local people employment avenues. It was revealed that developmental projects brought to their communities do not allow the local people to be involved at the planning and implementation phases. The study further revealed that women were of the opinion that projects brought to them were not feminine enough and did not build their capacity. Education, social cohesion, peace and stability were among some of the sociocultural factors that influence participation. The study again recommended that every community member should participate, regardless of their gender, ethnic group or socio-cultural differences.

Participation With Social Media

By improving ICT within the scope of administration, new terms like e-government, m-government, e-governance, e-participation appeared in the field of public administration. The concept of e-government affects municipalities—closest service units to the citizens—and with this effect developed the term e-municipality. Municipalities in Turkey began to use the new technologies for the delivery of services, and terms like e-participation and e-governance are widening rapidly. This chapter investigates whether Facebook pages are an effective tool for local participation. The social media-citizen relationship that is claimed to be more effective, especially at the local level, has been evaluated through the Facebook pages of the municipalities. This chapter focuses on the role of social media in participatory administration.

Discourses of Decentralization: Local Participation and Sámi Space for Agency in Norwegian Protected Area Management

This chapter analyzes the 2010 reform of Norwegian protected area management, which provided new arenas for influence for the Indigenous Sámi over protected areas on their lands, to explore how discourses of decentralization and participation in nature conservation shape the space for agency of Indigenous peoples. The results show that the discourses governing the reform articulate the relationship between Sámi rights and protected areas in relation to several different concepts, problem representations, and proposed solution, each with potentially different consequences for Sámi participation and influence. The construction of the concept of “participation” in the discourse of protected area management makes it possible to integrate into a system modelled after traditional, centralized organizational structures that prioritize conservation objectives over Sámi rights without fundamentally challenging relationships of power, divisions of responsibilities, or objectives for management. The paper concludes that the Norwegian discourse provides arenas for Sámi influence and participation that could serve as an example for protected area governance and management on Indigenous lands elsewhere, but that the failure to radically reconsider the principal assumptions of protected area discourses risks upholding or reinforcing asymmetrical power relations and colonial stereotypes.

Intersecting religion and ethnicity: Drawing boundaries in talk-in-interaction

People of Romani background are usually labelled as members of an “ethnic minority” and identified along dominantly ethnicized notions and markers. Discursively, this neglects individuals’ different self-perceptions and multiple belongings. This contribution looks at interactional data and material from workshops conducted in Germany as part of the EU-wide initiative RoMed (Mediation for Roma). The initiative aimed to strengthen opportunities for local participation by people of Romani background in various European cities and communities between 2011-2017. A conversation analytical approach (e.g. at practices of categorization) is used to examine excerpts from group discussions ahead of a meeting with public officials. From an intersectional perspective I look at how boundaries are drawn, blurred, or destabilized between issues of religiosity and ethnicity. The article discusses boundary-drawing as a symbolic ordering process, highlighting the hegemonic discourses which are reproduced and challenged in the investigated linguistic material. The boundaries drawn and negotiated show the delicate balance between the staging of ethnic and religious affiliations and concerns and their political mobilization.

Exploring the Relationship of Image Formation on Tourist Satisfaction and Loyalty: Evidence From China

Cultural heritage tourist destinations have emerged as a hot topic in tourism literature, but there have been relatively few studies that determine the role of the involvement of local participation in either tourism planning or the decision-making processes of tourists. The connection between local community participation (LCP), authenticity, access to local products, destination visit image, tourist satisfaction, and tourist loyalty is thus relatively unexplored in the literature. This study used a quantitative approach based on a survey with 406 respondents visiting the city of Kaiping in Guangdong, China. The proposed hypotheses were empirically tested with SPSS and Analysis of Moment Structures. The resulting outcomes indicated a positive correlation between LCP, authenticity, and access to local and destination visit image, which led to tourist satisfaction and ultimately resulted in tourist loyalty. Additional theoretical contributions, practical implications, and limitations were also discussed.

The everyday emotional lives of aid workers: how humanitarian anxiety gets in the way of meaningful local participation

Participatory approaches to humanitarianism, peacebuilding, and international development promise to listen to the voices of local aid beneficiaries. However, aid workers often listen to these voices through reductive narratives of aid beneficiaries, ventriloquizing their voice and inhibiting meaningful participation. Why do aid workers – despite humane intentions – continue to rely on reductive narratives? This paper inquires how the everyday emotional lives of aid workers make reductive narratives persist. Based on 65 semi-structured interviews in Singapore, Jakarta, and Aceh, and 40 aid worker books and blogs, I show how aid workers regularly experience emotional anxieties that question their complicity in the suffering of others and their powerlessness to do anything about it. Reductive narratives resonate and persist because they allow aid workers to cope with these anxieties. I illustrate the emotional resonance of three reductive narratives – civilizing; romanticized; and impersonal narratives – in three common practices of local participation in aid work: professionalized standards; visiting the field; and hiring locals. Given the emotional origins of reductive narratives, rational critique is insufficient for reforming or decolonizing aid work. Rather, change must also involve engaging the underlying emotions of aid workers.

Local Participation in the Development of Klayar Beach Tourism in Pacitan Regency

This study aims to analyze the process of local participation in the development of Klayar Beach tourism in Pacitan Regency by looking at the compatibility between the dynamics of increasing tourists and the participation of local communities in development. From this, it is known to what extent the contribution and participation of local communities in tourism development participation efforts. The implication of this research is an explanation related to the results of the analysis of the gaps in the stages of participation by the local community as managers. The research method is descriptive analytic by using triangulation as a data analysis technique. The results show that local participation runs in all stages of the development of the Klayar Beach tourist area from the beginning, tourism issues, planning, implementation and governance, to monitoring and evaluation. The lack of local participation lies in participation in terms of anticipating tourist arrivals at certain times and moments, in which case the local community as managers experience limitations in terms of capacity. To overcome this, the researcher suggests that efforts be made to increase local capacity both in terms of quality and quantity so that local participation efforts can run optimally in the development and sustainability process, and be able to overcome unexpected problems through the role of participation. This effort also refers to the opinion of several experts who state that local participation is one of the main keys in developing the tourism sector