(Re/Co)Constructing the Filipino praxis in development work for agriculture and rural development in a grounded theory
Ernesto C Collo Jr | Benjamina Paula G. Flor
Discipline: media studies
Abstract:
The COVID-19 phenomenon presents new challenges, including uncharted
territories and opportunities, in which development work may be understood,
planned, and practiced. As a Filipino-centric inquiry, this study attempts to
challenge current assumptions on development work. Centering on civil society
organizations in Luzon, Philippines where 12 trailblazing development workers
within the agriculture and rural development sector co-participated in intensive
sequential e-dialogues, this study serves as a (re)discovery of their roles as sites
of emergent agency during a public health crisis.
These preliminary findings established the foundations in the (re/co)
construction of a substantive theory called (Post-)pandemic Resilient and
Inclusive Community Engagement and Communication for Development
(RICE C4D) through the rigors of the sociocultural and critical traditions of
communication theory, interwoven into Kathy Charmaz’s constructivist grounded
theory. RICE C4D proposes four emergent critical components: sociocultural
leadership (component 1) that acknowledges a new breed of community actors;
multi-stakeholder coaction (component 2) that recognizes the complementary roles
of emergent communication and (in)formal coalitions; strategic rural participation
(component 3) that encourages the genuine engagement of rural and urban
communities in the planned and judicious practice of development work through
granular community immersion as legacy spaces and virtual communication as
digital spaces leading to the creation of an online village; and emergent solidarities
(component 4) that fosters the power of agency toward the (re)creation of
physical and social spaces for development and the purposive pivot to digital
spaces for communication.
As a reflexive journey and with the goal to be of eventual practical utility
during and beyond the pandemic, this grounded theory welcomes dialogical
dialectic encounters, collaborative (re/co)construction, and continuing
reimagination of our common future.
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