HAHITAT INTL. Vol Y, No I. pp. 113-123. lY85.

Pergnmon Prchs Ltd. Printed in Great Brltaln.

Book Reviews

JOHN HARRIS (Editor), Rural Development: Theories of Peasant Economy and Agrarian Change. Hutchinson University Library 1982, 409 pp. f6.50 pb. H. J. DULLER, Development Technology. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, 25.95 pb. PETER M. WARD (Editor). Self-Help Housing: A Critique. Mansell Publishing Limited, 1982, 296 pp.

It is purely fortuitous that I happened to return to these books after working with peasant communities in Western Anatolia, but the adjustment that I had to make in leaving the live context - so that I could focus on the theoretical debate -was not an easy one. It

was necessary, and it was valuable, for the recent experience provides a frame of reference against which the theoretical arguments may be set; the kind of matrix which may be denied the majority of students of geography and economics, if not of development studies, to whom Rural Development is addressed. The book is in the form of a ‘Reader’, arising from the need for suitable references for the students on the course in development studies at the University of East Anglia. As such it suffers from some of the drawbacks of similar Readers designed to meet the needs of a specific course; particularly, a restriction of the themes considered. For example, the interests of those who read this journal might well place importance on the architectural and planning implications of transformation from small-scale, family-based peasant farming to large- scale collective or state farming. But though the question as to whether such a change is a route to greater efficiency and prosperity is one of the central issues of the book, the effects on physical planning strategies are not so much as hinted at. Yet, conducting research on the cultural aspects of peasant resettlement in Gediz, Kiitahya province, convinces me that this is a major issue, deeply reflective of the values of the peasant

community. Values - political and ideological values, that is - are expressed in almost every page

of Rural Development, but they are very much those of the authors, not the peasants. Yet values related to religion or behaviour familial responsibilities, to family de- pendents. to good husbandry or to building construction and maintenance shape the responses to technological, agrarian or social change in the Gediz region of Anatolia. They do not necessarily respond on predictable lines; they are not resistant to change, nor wholly ‘conservative’ in the peasant stereotype. But the success of some resettlement projects and the failure of others (i.e. total abandonment of some new settlements) is the result of a fine balance between the perception of material gain and the satisfaction of cultural norms. The emphasis in Rural Development is almost wholly on the former, though there are hints, by no means followed up, in Benjamin White’s article on ‘Population. Involution and Employment in Rural Java.’ Do not be misled by ‘Taking the Part of the Peasants’ by Gavin Williams; this is not a disclosure of agrarian strategems from the peasant point of view but a singularly indigestible gobbet which, nonetheless, does attempt to examine the disparities between theories of peasant farming and, occasionally, the author’s experience in Nigeria. Unfortunately the reader stubs his toe on half-a-dozen or more references for every statement made. Indeed, in the whole book the credits roll like those in a Hollywood epic.

Lenin and Kautsky, and especially Chayanov, are frequently invoked; more recently, the writings of Michael Lipton and T.J. Byres are quoted and subjected to a critique by

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Stuart Corbridge, which effectively attacks both the warring factions. Byres is contemptuous of “populist pipe-dreams”, including Lipton’s advocacy of small-scale farming, but while I find myself generally in sympathy with Lipton’s views, Corhridge’s essay finds the chinks in the structure of his theory of “urban bias”. All of which may seem abstruse if one is unfamiliar with the conflicting positions concerning strategies for agrarian reform which have been articulated in the past decade or so, in the pages of the Journal of Peasant Studies, and a number of books. Rural Development synthesises a number of them, though from an essentially Marxist standpoint. It is a useful, but by no means an agreeable read; one thing that these theorists seem never to have learned from peasants is the art of simple and economic expression.

In the villages of the Gediz area it is the aim of every peasant extended family to own a tractor; villages state the number of tractors owned as an indication of the success of their farming. Reconditioned machines require servicing, parts wear out and need to be replaced, and the price of diesel oil makes them expensive to run. Obviously, if the technology of production-in this case the tractor-if not the mode of production were collectivised, the cost of cultivation would be far less. For the villagers, however, the tractor is used like a car, giving them greater mobility, a means of taking both family and produce to the market at Yeni Gediz, while the servicing tractors and trailers provide spin-off employment for young mechanics in the town. This kind of problem - which does not lend itself to a simple cost-benefit analysis - is not avoided in H.J. Duller’s Development Technology. His book is also directed to the student: the author is Professor of Development Economics at the University of Leiden. Professor Duller is Dutch but he writes fluent, relaxed and idiomatic English which is a pleasure to read. while his intelligent book deserved better production than his publisher chose to give it. It has the merit of being a consistently argued work but Duller is not one to accept any theory on trust. He is committed to the view that the future for the poorer countries does depend on technological advance, but while he brings much evidence to support his argument he also gives equal measure to the misapplications of advanced technology and to the inefficiencies or dissatisfactions that occur when man is made idle by machines.

“Nothing is easier than to be radical for another country” P. Streeten observed, and his aphorism is quoted by Duller by way of introduction to a chapter on ‘Contradictions and dependencies’. He is sensitive to the ironies of western admiration for “barefoot doctors. acupuncture. miniblast furnaces and biogas”, when it is Chinese success in nuclear arms that commands &‘the respect of technologically impotent nations.” And equally, he is aware of the resentment of formerly colonised nations of the exploitation of technological imperialism of the West, no matter how defensible the arguments for limitations of scale and consumption of resources might be.

Theorists in the fields of technology, and of development studies, are much given to neat. encapsulating phrases, some like “alternative technology” or “small is beautiful” entering popular usage; others, like Streeten’s “indigenous scientific capability” or

Leibenstein’s “X-efficiency” (the ‘difference between the optimum and the actual relationship of input to output’) less likely to gain general popularity. Duller scrutinises them all but comes down on the side of Streeten and Leibenstein. In spite of the problems of adjustment in the “human rather than the technological sphere” - the “give us the jobs and we’ll finish the tools” syndrome - he believes that the conclusion is unavoidable that “development efforts must aim at the self-reliance of the technological resources in the Third World. Such know-how will be brought to bear on the problem posed by the adapted technology of their own industries”. This is a rich work, benefitting from the author’s extensive reading and made to appear simple by his writing style. One needs to refer back frequently and this fact reveals a lack of provision which substantially weakens its usefulness: the index is totally inadequate. Apart from a mention of concrete mixing for building, and a reference to Nairobi’s fl,OOO norm for house construction costs that none can afford, Professor Duller makes no reference to housing or other forms of architecture in the Third World, even though a great deal of capital is invested in the industry. Here the adaptive techniques that he seeks may already be found.

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Examining indigenous housing in the Gediz region, the Oxford Polytechnic/ODA team found that timber joints were not used in the construction of the large, timber-framed, two-storey dwellings that accommodated both extended families and farm animals. Instead, their builders used oversize nails: morticed joints, they stated, took too long to make, and in this kind of community where farmers were also builders the time was better used on the land. There seems to have been little lost in structural strength: the infilling rather than the frames collapsed in the Gediz earthquake.

It was the 1970 earthquake and its aftermath of recovery that changed the economic base of the region, and the access to new technology. One aspect in particular - the priority given by affected families to send one male to Germany on the “guest-worker

programme” in order to assist them swiftly in overcoming their losses - changed their perceptions of employment and prosperity. Even so, guest-workers sent back their money to be invested in building, and returned when they could afford to. It seems that Gediz did not lose its population to Germany or to the major Turkish cities in the way that some regions did. Though figures are non-existent and research difficult, interviews suggest that the gecekondu about which Geoffrey Payne writes in Self-Help Housing: A Critique were not populated by many people from Ktitahya province. I cite these illustrations from recent field-work because they show how circumstances are always specific to local conditions no matter how susceptible they appear to be to generalised principles.

This specificity of examples applies to self-help housing no less than to other aspects of environmental condition and change. In the instance of the geGekondu settlements of Ankara, Payne shows, the mahalle (or ‘quarter’) method of administration under elected, unsalaried muhturs and their councils of elders provided a flexible and responsive system for urban consolidation and development at a localised scale. A system which applies to rural districts, it is well suited to the accommodation of rural settlers in the new mushroom communities of the cities. But Payne also shows that low economic growth coupled with the activities of low-income land speculators, the emlukci. and the power of the taxi-dolmus operators and the building materials suppliers had deleterious effects on the geGekondus, with middle-and upper-income groups invading former settlements. Stabilised land prices, government loans on building construction and effective public transport would ameliorate the problems, he contends.

Two papers in Self-Help Housing consider the notorious example of squatter settlements in Mexico City, which have doubtless added a million population since the field work on them was completed. “Whose problem does it solve?” asks Priscilla Connolly, who concludes that the ‘traditional’ self-build processes no longer supply an answer to the city’s housing problems. She advocates state intervention and public investment, noting that squatter housing is becoming by no means a cheap solution. But she also records that over 20% of housing in the Metropolitan Area has been produced by some form of government intervention, double the proportion in 1970. This is a responsibility of governments, Peter M. Ward maintains, but one which they have generally failed to meet. His study of three settlements in Mexico City examines the process of consolidation - or not - over an extended period of time, noting that successful consolidators are those who have created an investment surplus. He discusses the implications of the customary forms of intervention - sites and services schemes, core units, squatter upgrading, home loans and technical assistance - and advocates. cautiously, the possibility of permitting the poor to speculate on land by providing double-size plots on which they could, in time, realise a profit. This seems like a one-time round solution however, providing no such opportunity for the later wave of immigrants.

Mutual aid and self-help programmes on an organised community basis inevitably means the transfer of power to local initiative. This may mean conflict with the interests of government, especially when these are diverging from the concerns of the poor. The ramifications of a ‘showpiece’ puebZo joven, Villa El Salvador in Lima - in terms of community autonomy and political power - are discussed in a paper by Richard Skinner; others also look at the success and failure of assisted schemes in El Salvador

(Central America) and Lusaka, Zambia. The latter, by Richard Martin, reveals how indigeneous practices such as collective verbal decision-making or, at another level, the non-fencing of plots were integrated into a World Bank supported project. As little interference with the existing fabric of the settlement (‘George’, the subject of another and detailed report) was made as was possible, commensurate with upgrading of services, including roads, electricity and water lines. Nevertheless some 2,000 house- holds were obliged to move. Martin is not insensitive to the ‘adversary relationship’ established when disputes occurred, nor the effects of official control which the project necessitated: one-third of the tenant families ‘vanished’ in the process.

Opposing attitudes to the nature of authoritarian control underlie part of the dispute between John C. Turner and his critics. It is not however. an issue discussed by Hans Harms and Rod Burgess who focus their critiques on the capitalist contexts in which squatter settlements and self-help housing occur. Turner’s early involvement in the subject and his early advocacy of self-help, particularly his Lima experience. is well- known and has been highly influential. Though the literature on rapid urbanisation is vast, there is scarcely a work that does not owe some of its argument and evidence to the prior studies made by Turner. Inevitably, and indeed, rightly, the basis of Turner’s theories has recently been under scrutiny and in some respects the most important aspect of Self-Help Housing: A Critique is the critique of Turner by Harms and Burgess. Harms seeks to explain self-help housing in terms of crisis points in capitalist development and to place housing need within the structure of capitalism, using the experience of Germany from 1844 to the 1970s. and the United States of America in the 1930s and 1940s as his models. He argues that. by removing the costs of labour from housing through self-help, labour power is devalorised, unpaid labour is increased, and wage demands are lessened; self-help reduces the need for public subsidies, is economically expansionary for consumption demands and encourages a petty bourgeoisie mentality to speculate with housing; and, it individualises discontent, isolating people from each other. All of which is, in his view, unacceptable. While there is truth in all this, my thoughts return to new housing in parts of Gediz where plot sizes have been large enough both for the extension of buildings by self-help, and for their use as small-holdings within the local market economy. There is some recent evidence of speculation which is vastly outweighed by the permanence of settlement. Far from isolating people, the com- munities are strongly knit. Admittedly, Gediz is not Ankara or Istanbul. But it is the strength of family bonds. the values attached to community integrity, and pride in the achievement of the builder and his relatives, which projects most powerfully in the Gcdiz

situation. Is it different in the new working class contexts of urban settlements? No evidence is

offered, for again, community values have no place in Rod Burgess’s scrutiny of Turner’s self-help housing advocacy, which is from a rigidly Marxist standpoint. His carefully argued expose of Turner’s ‘confusion’ over product, utility and market-value. his ‘classical error’ of equating use-value with utility are flaws in his concept of housing, but his fundamental failure in Burgess’s view is not to recognise the housing problem as a structural condition of the capitalist mode of production, which dominates both the rural and the urban contexts. Self-help housing, like intermediate technology, Burgess and his fellow critics maintain, attempts to level out .&the symptoms of a structural malaise and, to maintain the xtutus quo as the crisis in global capitalism deepens”.

There are no case studies cited in Rod Burgess’s 20,000-word critique. and no recognition that circumstances alter cases. Fundamentally the same as a paper he gave at the School of Oriental and African Studies (London) in 1977, this argument shows no signs of tlexibility in the face of social change. John Turner’s article on ‘Issues in Sclf- Help and Self-Managed Housing’ is in answer to Burgess’s critique, though he does not attempt to reply to the criticisms point by point. Instead, hc clarifies his own evolving position as it was developed in the light of his growing experience. Much of this is familiar through his previous writing and lectures. To Turner, “most resources that are available for investment in the (whole) housing process are either in user’s hands or

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depend on their will”, . obvious in the Third World, but evident over time even in our own

largely suburban context. His position is, as he has always stated, “conservative anarchist” and the chances of a rapprochement between himself and his Marxist critics are slim indeed. “Change will only come about through the simultaneous and complementary action of people ‘at the grassroots’ and those in positions from which they can influence or make government decisions” he argues pragmatically, “even the smallest opportunities must be seized.”

And of course, changes are occurring. While the stack of books on squatter settlements continues to grow and as these articles are being read, the reality makes them out of date. Since Geoffrey Payne’s article was written the Turkish example has altered: muhtars are now elected by the mahalles but are paid by the Government and are, in effect, public servants. They are required to see that, for the time being, the gecekondu do not expand, while new measures to support the previous waves of immigrants to the cities are introduced. The taxi-dolmus no longer run and public and authorised private bus services operate between geGekondu and Ankara city centre. All settlers are entitled to deeds for their house plots which may be registered after architects’ offices have surveyed the sites and declared them to the government. For the householders a government plan of house upgrading is being implemented. Admittedly, this means the inhibition of further squatter settlements, but improving opportunities in the regions may stem the flow to the cities. Thus, in the Gedez region a partial change-over to animal husbandry, improved markets and road communications and an expanding mining industry contribute to the relative prosperity of the area.

Of course, the Gediz example which I have used here as a counterpoint to the theme of these three books, only fits where it touches. We need our debates, we need our attempts at overview, but the reality of current experience can be a powerful mediator to the smugness of armchair criticism.

Paul Oliver Oxford Polytechnic, UK

FREDERICK C. CUNY, Disasters and Development. Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford UK 1983. 278 pp. illus.

There is no evidence that there are more natural disasters in this century than in any other, or that they are occurring with increasing frequency; it merely seems like it. News media, both the press and television, bring reports of disasters into our homes within hours of their impact; charitable organisations make their appeals to which we respond, perhaps to assuage our guilt at being safe and far away from them. Continental plate theory has entered the classroom; geophysicists stand on the edge of craters before our eyes; feature programmes are made of major catastrophes. All this media attention has made us more aware of the scale of natural disasters and carefully selected photographs, and texts of the appeals, ensure that we are conscious of the human suffering involved. But, as Frederick Cuny points out in his book, media reports may be exaggerated or harmful in the effects they have on readers and viewers while responses to appeals frequently result in immense quantities of unwanted commodities being sent to disaster areas to create more problems for relief bodies. Stereotypical images of ‘panic’ or ‘disease’ are perpetuated by inaccurate reporting while voluntary agencies are obliged to emphasise emergencies that can be graphically portrayed in order to raise funds. The kind of vulnerability analysis and pre-disaster planning which is the responsibility of government is not easily communicated visually.

Disasters and Development was commissioned by Oxfam America and was supported in part, by the Tinker Foundation and others. Its author, Fred Cuny, is the head of Intertect, probably the most experienced of all consultancy firms concerned with disasters. His unrivalled involvement in the field means that he has had first-hand