Role of institutional interplay as the medium for dispute between different interpretations of “participation”: A case study from semiarid India

Abstract

AbstractThe participatory approach characterizes several contemporary programs of watershed development in semiarid farming systems in India. Underlying the extensive adoption of such programs is the notion of participation, which can have varied interpretations. This article presents a case study in which disputes around different interpretations of the concept affected the establishment and implementation of a watershed development program. The study site was Kadwanchi, a drought‐prone village in western India, which undertook watershed development under the aegis of the Indo‐German Watershed Development Programme (IGWDP). This case study investigates how the convention of voluntary labor and the debate over its significance in community participation affected the early constitution and local delivery of IGWDP. The article demonstrates that institutional interplay became a medium through which the involved actors disagreed over their respective interpretations of how participation accommodates voluntary labor. It analyzes the interactions between IGWDP and other discourses of participatory watershed management (otherwise known as patterns) through causal mechanisms. To identify those mechanisms, the study proposes the concept of transmission instruments, defined as the tangible structures that convey the stimulus of institutional change between interacting institutions.