Development Practitioners in Action

What does a development practitioner look like? Located within deliberative development paradigms, this book addresses this question by examining some of the key attributes, behaviours and character dispositions of development practitioners. Such mentality and behaviours enable development practitioners to effectively co-design and co-create lasting development interventions with and alongside people.

This important book is rooted in field practices from KwaZulu-Natal to the Kalahari, from Eastern Cape to Gippsland. It is coloured by practical experiences in public health, community theatre, agriculture extension, rural business development and participatory action research.

The treatise contends that central to the work of a development practitioner is the ability to see and hear people, and also to use people’s wisdom in translating and applying development knowledge. Linje Manyozo proposes a pedagogy of seeing: of empathy and feeling as the foundation stone for capacitating development practitioners to be more humane, compassionate, understanding and to exercise a certain level of indigenous intelligence beyond their formal training.

The treatise is not a field guide on how to do community participation; rather, it is about enriching development fieldworkers with a supplement to the formal training. People’s wisdom is about opening up a practitioner's heart to see, feel and share the people’s perspective in co-curating lasting development solutions.