‘What can we say when the English used has gone so high-tech?’: institutionalised discourse and interaction in development projects in a rural community in Kenya

Abstract

The paper draws on data from a large study on communication modes between a rural community and development agents in Nyanza Province, Kenya. The initial motivation was the effect of institutionalised discourse on the development agenda. Interest was on development agents as cultivators of development discourse, and the extent to which they can be said to be honest cultural brokers, who mediate between institutionalised discourse of the Western donors and African language-based discourse understood by local aid beneficiaries. It is then argued that rather than colonising local discourse practices, it is the institutionalised discourses that are transformed to fit in with local discourse practices of the local communities. The paper argues that the resulting discourse enables the participants to use language agentively in the quest of voice and actorhood, which would be difficult if not impossible if development discourse was restricted to institutionalised language only. The paper concludes that the resulting African language-based hybrid discourse is socially transformative in the sense that it broadens participation and inclusivity in the development agenda, as well as ensuring that (unequal) power relations based on knowledge of institutionalised language are minimised if not curtailed.