Cultural and social analysis
This section is structured as follows:
- What is a cultural and social analysis?
- When and why sould cultural and social analysis be used?
- How is cultural and social analysis carried out?
- Examples
- Bibliography
WHAT IS A CULTURAL AND SOCIAL ANALYSIS? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A generic definition Cultural and social analysis has its origins in sociology and anthropology. In the development field Sociology and anthropology have supported the development field as a result of the contribution of well-known specialists, such as Michael Cernea. He fostered the application of sociology and development anthropology at the World Bank in the sixties, and, since then, his many publications have highlighted the constructive role played by the social sciences in development strategies. Definition applied to country/region evaluations When applied to country/region evaluations, cultural and social analysis deals with society from the perspective of its structures and dynamics. It brings out the constituent elements of ethnicity, social and religious groups, interest groups and the characteristics supporting the common values of a society, as well as its internal contradictions. |
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WHEN AND WHY SHOULD CULTURAL AND SOCIAL ANALYSIS BE USED? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
When should cultural and social analysis be used in development topics? To analyse social changes and impediments to development Cultural and social analysis should be one of the principal tools for the design of strategies and the definition of programmes. It facilitates the understanding of the capacity of the social structure to absorb and enhance change induced by the implementation of development strategies. At the same time, it provides the means of identifying any constraints which are likely to impede these changes. This is therefore a dynamic process, in contrast to a static description of society. "The study of social structures in a context of multiple and increasing changes (…) highlights existing contradictions between various principles of structuration and organisation, as well as existing gaps between the 'official' features of society and social behaviour" (Balandier, 1985). To assess country strategies In ex ante evaluation The use of cultural and social analysis is most appropriate in ex ante evaluations, because an understanding of national societies is one of the components on which the whole co-operation process can lean. This specific use will be developed here. In all cases The social and cultural characteristics to be studied should be the ones influencing development co-operation strategies in situations where:
In intermediary and ex post evaluations The use of cultural and social analysis in ex ante evaluations does not exclude its inclusion in intermediary and ex post evaluations. The cultural and social analysis reference framework In combination with a SWOT analysis As a general approach, cultural and social analysis can complement a SWOT analysis. |
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Why introduce cultural and social analysis in country/region evaluation? To analyse specific social groups Cultural and social analysis provides a means to examine:
People who are involved in the European Union programmes and projects resulting from country strategies. They can be direct partners (such as political authorities, technicians, economic and administrative actors) and indirect ones (beneficiaries). However, they are first and foremost human entities operating in a determined social framework. A knowledge of how a society is structured (such as parental links and administrative, political, legal and religious systems), and organised (relations among social groups, between politics and civil society, and between political and economic power) is essential to the evaluation. To understand social behaviour and brakes on development Cultural and social analysis contributes to the understanding of the decisive factors which shape economic behaviour, institutional practice, and resistance to change. These elements are seldom described in statistical directories, or in official documentation, because development strategies in the past were designed without taking into account social structures and beneficiaries' perspectives. To get a global overview of society It is particularly difficult to provide methodological guidance concerning the analysis of social organisation in the context of a country/region evaluation. |
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What ate the advantages and limitations of cultural and social analysis? The advantages A cross-cutting approach Cultural and social analysis is at the intersection of various evaluation tools. It plays a mediating role between the assessment's topics and evaluation tools. New emphasis on social sciences applied to development Cultural and social analysis brings new perspectives to applied social sciences because its use is still in its infancy and references are scarce: " Through the exploration of new fields, researchers in applied social sciences are given The limitations A methodology leaving the strategic objectives unquestioned The first limitation is inherent in the suggested methodology, which consists of restricting the scope of the cultural and social analysis according to the strategic objectives. A methodology whose implementation is challenging Another aspect of a cultural and social study, which is an inherent difficulty in implementation (rather than a limitation), is the evaluator's onerous responsibility related to the conduct of research. |
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HOW IS CULTURAL AND SOCIAL ANALYSIS CARRIED OUT? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Three themes constituting the reference framework Evaluations are not designed to yield a comprehensive analysis of societies within which the European Union's strategy is assessed, but should identify the main features of these societies.
For each theme, a list of what is at stake is identified and presented in tables. These issues must be adapted to the context and put into question-form to constitute the evaluation questions. Legacies: beliefs, customs, heritage and historical background Definition "Legacies" refer to the main elements of the past which are deemed to have contributed the shaping of a given society and its current features.
Prosperous periods in the past as well as periods of suffering have contributed to the shape of contemporary societies. Some decisive moments in the history of people can affect family and social habits, without always being explicit.
How to take into account the historical background The aim of cultural and social analysis is not to list dates, nor to carry out a historian's work, but rather to be able to place the cooperation and development strategy within a significant diachronic dimension. Table of the issues in the theme "historical background"
Changes: social, legal and political organisation of society and its transformation Background The confrontation of social and political models between the North and the South, and within the South, has obviously influenced national systems.
A society is never rigid and efforts to understand the systems and values underpinning it should avoid a static approach. The recent period is characterised by an acceleration of the trading relations and the bilateral and multilateral co-operations. Some social data will have evolved under the double impact of these changes and internal evolutions within societies under study.
The understanding of the relations between socio-political changes and the European co-operation strategy is supported by a comparison between equilibrium and disequilibrium at a global scale and the changes observed within the society under study. It is useful to observe whether the changes induced by the European Union's strategy mirror the changes which have occurred in the history of the countries, or ignored them. Table of the issues in the theme "changes"
Empowerment: culture, cultural mixing and technology Definition Peoples' cultures are both shaped by the past and the various trends influencing societies. This ongoing process contributes to national identity as well as being a communication and exchange tool with other peoples and civilisations.
The cultural background is a core component of the co-operation dynamic. Flexible or rejection attitudes towards the introduction of a change are deeply ingrained in some cultures. Yet, at the same time, cultures are constantly renewed by internal and external contributions. How to take into account cultural empowerment? Preliminary readings and field observations can provide the evaluator with notions about all types of cultural innovation. They can also be a testimony of the values and aspirations of the authors, and through them, the evaluator can have an idea of the social, ethnic and religious groups constituting the society. Table of the issues in the theme "empowerment"
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. 1ST STAGE: PREPARATORY STEP 1/ Documentary research The preparation of a cultural and social analysis mission requires a preliminary documentary research which should be broad and thorough. It helps the evaluators focus on the real goals of the evaluation, ask relevant questions and check their tentative hypotheses on-site with the organisation of expert panel sessions and interviews. In other words, information should be found prior to the mission through a documentary research. The objectives of the documentary research are:
As the questions of cultural and social analysis are very large, the documentary research must be carried out efficiently. Below is a methodology for undertaking this documentary analysis. Bibliographies per country or theme A bibliographical index or publication report edited on a regular basis and dealing with all the publications dedicated to a country or a region, would be an information asset. Indeed, the reading of bibliographical indexes accelerates the identification of relevant documents for the study of a country strategy and focuses the work on its core issues. However, the evaluator must be careful with bibliographies such as books which are not systematically updated because of the rapid pace of contributions and the delays required to publish an index. Books and directories such as a handbook with country and/or theme entries In most cases, the evaluator will not find any bibliographical index. The documentary research should start with articles taken from a directory or a handbook which summarise the history of a country and update its political, economic and social current events regularly. These types of reference books can be found in French, English and in other languages. Although the interest of these articles may seem limited, they enable the evaluator to get familiar with the history of the country quickly and obtain a first set of reference bibliographies.
. Country-focused books Such books usually deal with ancient history, languages, social structures, religions, etc., without a specific focus and their quality can be uneven. However, they can be invaluable for their short yet thorough presentation of the cultural and social realities and be used to focus the documentary research on specialised bibliographies which investigate further each of the themes selected. Reference or controversial books These books or articles, specialised in a theme or subject, can be consulted for the sociology, anthropology, history, human geography, political sciences or economic fields. Reading one or more of these books dealing with each of the three themes of the cultural and social analysis is recommended. The evaluator should be acquainted with (and if possible have read) the authors who have been working on the country under study and their main contributions. This will give the evaluator a solid foundation and arguments to focus the expert panel debates on topics which are familiar and debated in the country.
Articles on large themes and subjects taken from specialised reviews Reading such articles can be time effective. Many specialised reviews can now be easily found on the Internet. Local publications, working papers and other documents produced by research institutions or observatories in the country under study During the mission, local publications which are not always available in Europe should be consulted. The evaluator should:
Local press The evaluator should regularly consult the local press prior to the mission, in order to get familiar with the topics debated. During the mission, a short press review is recommended to:
The reading of the local press is not compulsory but can usefully complement other documentation research. Official documentation of co-operation agencies The documentary research should not be limited to the bibliographical research of books and published working papers:
2/ Adaptation of the question grid to the specificities of the country The background between one country and another varies too much to be able to present a list of pre-determined questions without risking the omission of specific aspects of the context which could be crucial. The suggested series of topics and issues should be adapted to each country following the documentary analysis. 3/ Carrying-out preliminary interviews These interviews have two objectives: the provision by respondents of interesting contacts and bibliographical references, and complementary information to the documentary research which supports the construction of a precise question grid. Three categories of respondents seem important to favour:
4/ Determination of the list of experts involved in the panels Selection of the experts and appointment-making The preparation of a list of experts can be facilitated by the identification and use of 2 or 3 key informants. The expert list should exceed the number of the experts who will take part in the panel and be constituted of people specialised in the fields under consideration. The role of key informants is crucial because it supports the triangulation of the sources and eases the participation of target people in the expert panels. If 3 expert panel sessions of 6 participants each are planned, the list of experts should include at least 18 people. As cancellations may happen, it is advisable to identify more experts than needed. Appointment-making strategy The experts should be first contacted by e-mail. The message should include a short description of the mission and the sessions, and the dates. Only the experts responding to this mail and expressing an interest and availability should get more details. The experts who would not have replied to the mail should be contacted by telephone if their number is available.
2ND STAGE: DURING THE MISSION The expert panels and the interviews organised for the cultural and social analysis should not be used to collect the basic information about the socio-anthropological, institutional or historical characteristics of the country. They are implemented to validate or invalidate primarily hypotheses, to foster the debate on unresolved issues, and to highlight issues which have not been considered before. The expert panel sessions Meeting with the members of the panels Each expert should be interviewed before his/her participation to the panel sessions. During this interview, the evaluator should introduce the participant to the mission and to the issues covered by the analysis. The evaluator can also take this occasion to discuss openly with the expert's experience and approach of his/her field of specialisation, and to collect his/her general opinion about external assistance in his/her country. Questions selected from the grid can be developed during this interview, so as to compare the views of the expert during the panel sessions and the interview. Organisation of the expert panel sessions A session is organised for each of the three themes of the cultural and social analysis:
The session should last about 4 hours, with a break of 15 minutes. The objectives are:
Content of the sessions One of the expert panel's difficulties is to differentiate within the discourse of the experts the personal opinions, interpretations and analyses about a topic they have studied. Indeed, as the expert panel generates general debates which can exceed the specialisation of each expert, the participants can be encouraged to express themselves on topics they are not specialised in. Several elements can reduce the quality of the participant's expression:
Moderation of the session The moderator should be fully aware of the context, in order:
The interviews Interviews should not only be considered as a complement to the expert panel methodology. Interviews are as effective as expert panels in the collection of information. The objective of the interviews is to explore particular points debated during the panel session, or to meet other experts who could not participate in the session because of their unavailability or because the sessions were full. Three types of interviews can be differentiated:
The work programme should therefore plan enough time for these interviews, which should normally be organised before and after the expert panel sessions. The focus group Through the organisation of a focus group, the evaluator could meet the stakeholders and/or the final beneficiaries of the strategies implemented, and validate the data collected during the expert panel sessions and the interviews. The organisation of a focus group with the stakeholders or with the target population of a development policy differs from the organisation of an expert panel. Whereas experts are contacted by e-mail or telephone (which can be done from the base country), the participants of a focus group can only be contacted in-country, which requires a time-consuming investigation. As the mission's work programme is usually tight, a local informant should be put in charge of the organisation of the focus group. An interpreter should also assist the evaluation team, because local participants will not usually speak the language of the evaluators, or English. Moreover, the richness and subtlety of the participants' expression in their own language can be the object of a specific analysis, all reasons calling for a good interpreter. 3RD STAGE: AFTER THE MISSION Data analysis The data derived from the documentary analysis, the panel sessions, the interviews and the focus group are gathered and analysed with a view to contributing to the evaluation questions identified during the preparatory stage. As in other stages, the evaluators should make the distinction between personal opinions, interpretations and analyses, which does not mean that interpretations and opinions should be put aside (but that they should be taken for what they are). Drafting of the report The report will normally be divided in three parts, each corresponding to one of the 3 themes constituting the reference framework. In each of these parts, the data analysed will be distinguished from recommendations. What are the preconditions for cultural and social analysis? Human resources The evaluation team should include a sociologist or a senior anthropologist. The time span The person responsible for cultural and social analysis in the evaluation team should allow approximately 40 working days for the task. Details of these 40 days are provided in the summary table. It forecasts the number of working days in an average situation. In cases where difficulties are likely to occur which will slow down the evaluation progress, 40 to 50 days should be scheduled. Financial resources Each expert participating in an expert panel is remunerated for a day's work (corresponding to the panel session and the review of the note prepared by the evaluator). This remuneration should match national rates when the expert is a citizen of the country under study, and international rates when he/she is neither a citizen nor a resident of the country. The remuneration of an expert participating in several panels will be proportional to the number of sessions. SUMMARY TABLE OF THE PROCEDURES TO FOLLOW IN COUNTRY/EVALUATIONS
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BIBLIOGRAPHY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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