Hilary Munger and Dr. Jacob Hickman, Department of Anthropology
Where will you be vacationing for Fiestas Agostinas? During the weeks leading up to the most anticipated holiday in El Salvador I was asked this question by almost every individual with whom I came into contact. As a new comer to the country and its customs reusing others greetings and topics of conversation from one social interaction to the next became a common practice as I endeavored to give the impression that I understood what was going on around me. As I traveled outside the capitol to indigenous communities living in the periphery, both literally and figuratively, my assumptions of the cross cultural applicability of many subjects revealed to me the great differences between the rural and urban populations of this small country.
Tomas, an indigenous farmer living in the hills of the far north-west state of Ahuachapán, farms corn on the side of a very large hill. I met Tomas one afternoon as he walked home from a day’s work, collecting fire wood along the way. As we walked and made small talk I asked him the question that had been put me to frequently in the city that week; “-What are you going to do for Fiestas Agostinas?” He looked at me and responded as if there was a great need for me to understand what he was about to say. “Here we do not have vacations. Work is everything, without it we have nothing, we work every day. If we want to eat, if we want to live, we work. There is no time for those kinds of things.” This is a key part of the lives of the indigenous populations of El Salvador. When discussing the failure or success of a development project within one of their communities it must be understood that it is not due to laziness, the desire to not work, or a lack of dedication to their work. The question becomes, with this mentality and this work ethic what is it that leads to the failure of many community development projects? To answer this question I have collected many anecdotal experiences from women who have participated in several community development projects with various NGO’s. These women tell of their values and motivations, and show that in El Salvador, community development projects do not work as planned, when implemented through a community setting, because small groups do not consistently act as one, but rather as many small family groups with their interests. This is the case in the village of Getsemani where the family unit has the greatest moral motivation value, especially for the empowerment of women participating in development projects.
When non profits that work in rural El Salvador communities at the grass roots levels try to implement projects run for the community by the community they face a number of issues. One of the main problems is that when the community is faced with the outsider from the NGO they group together and act as one homogenous group. However, once the “other” has left the group they no longer act or view themselves as one homogenous group that desires to work together to reach one common goal. Now they become separate family units, with their own desires and goals, which are not always congruent with those decided on by the community and the “other.” It is this shift in the construct of society that leads to abandoned community development projects that development workers once thought had received the dedication and excitement from community members. In order to solve this problem development projects in the rural areas of El Salvador need to be focused at the family level and goals for each unit need to be set out with expectation that each family is going to have different desires and goals. Though it may not prove necessary to plan projects that are done individually by families, if need be for time or resources sake, to truly have the desired outcomes development projects need to be based around the importance of the family. They need to be designed with the centrality of the family in mind because it is of the highest value to participants. This is the case in the context of the village of Getsemani because they have a strong moral motivation based around the family unit.
In other areas of El Salvador the community context may be different and the people of that area may place an emphasis on other aspects of the CADs scale of moral motivation, showing a greater value of community in general, autonomy or divinity. If this is the case then the emphasis of the development project would need to be changed to meet these values of that particular group and empower that aspect of their life. To test if this theory is sound across development projects around the world we need to test the moral motivations of several communities participating in micro development projects. Then after observing the main focus of both the successful and unsuccessful development projects it could then be seen if there was a trend among projects focused on their most valued moral motivation and their most successful development projects.
To truly make the effort of empowering all members of the community these studies would need to be carried out with the goal of gaining perspectives from all adults. My research in Getsemani had an emphasis on the perspectives of adult women. However, if an organizations real goal is to empower all people they need to address both men and women in their development goals and projects.
If other developers were to adopt this practice of first understanding the value system of the communities that they work with before implementing projects I predict they will be more successful and more valued by the participants. It is through this desire, to first understand the local context before acting, that individuals, whom development projects are meant to benefit, will actually be empowered.
Given the societal context of El Salvador discussed in this paper, community development projects do not work as planned, or to full capacity, when the focus is on implementation through a community setting because groups do not form in one large group to work as a community, but rather as many small family groups with personal interests. This emphasis on the family stems from the empowerment that comes from having control and decision making power within and among the family unit. This kind of empowerment, which is the goal of most development projects, is not accomplished in rural El Salvador through simple community development, due to the deterioration of the society and its value structure, individuals no longer place importance in the community.
Attempts to strengthen the bond of the community through community based projects do not empower individuals in Getsemani because they do not value the community bond; they value the bond of the family. It is through an increase in decision making ability concerning the family and all aspects of home life that the women of the village of Getsemani are empowered.
This research was presented at the MPC Research Symposium and the Mary Lou Fulton Poster Conference.