A Study of Process Documentation for Participatory Development in Sri Lanka and Indonesia

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This study attempted to explore the possibility of process documentation, by which development process is recorded and described, especially for participatory development. In fact, participatory development tends to proceed with many twists and turns because it depends on various affecting factors which were not expected in its planning. In order to grasp such processes properly, process documentation is required for practical reasons as well as anthropology of development.After examining actor-network theory in 2002, we carried out our field trials for process documentation in 2003 and 2004. Although we have not analyzed all the data collected yet, the following points were made dear up to now.1.This study, even an experimental one, is found to be too much time-consuming for us to carry out. It needs collaboration of field researchers such as PhD students, who can spend a few years at field situations.2.From methodological examinations, we are confident that actor-network approach will contribute to process documentation. For instance, recording how the frame of participatory concept is formed, stabilized and changed, actor-network method may be able to clarify the dominant "public transcript" among powerful actors for their own legitamations and also find the "hidden" transcript" among villagers for their own appropriation.3.However, if actor-network method is employed ‘after the event' like D.Mosse's recent studies on development ethnography, it may fail to see various interactions and alternations of agency among heterogeneous actors (humans/nonhumans, nature/society). To avoid such sort-cut, we need to continue to test this method further in the field.