Whose Logic? Whose Values?

One of the most valuable attitudes to have when working in a different culture is understanding cultural differences. Recognizing your own biases due to your deeply rooted values and beliefs.

Often this difference of beliefs and logic can be the cause of mis-communication and failed attempts at reducing poverty. On the surface of culture are superficial signatures. Greetings, food, mannerisms, clothing etc. Down below the surface are the really important aspects that shape the visible actions. History, traditions, gender roles, values and beliefs, religion. The underlying causes are harder to understand and to identify, but are the most crucial in dictating the decisions people make. Households have reasons for what they're doing that we don't always understand. As outsiders, we may come up with great ideas and solutions for problems, but they might not be the problems the people are having.

Family Planning Example
There have been projects aimed at promoting family planning to reduce birth rates. Adults were taught birth control methods as well as explaining the downfalls of having many children. The intervention didn't work however. Households continued to be large in numbers, and people continued to have many children. After prodding deeper into the causes for this sustained action, people were having large families to ensure or create social capital. Due to the lack of social networks and welfare systems, households would continue to have children until they got three boys, and then they would start to apply what they had learned.

So the real problem that needed addressing wasn't family planning, but it was social networks. Social safety nets was what households valued, far more than decreasing family size.


This goes to show that people make decisions for a reason, and sometimes their logic is different than ours. What may appear to make no sense from the outside, may be their way of mitigating risks in the future. This amplifies the importance of taking time to understand farmers' needs and values. Finding out what they value, and then addressing those issues.


I chose this example to tie it into my post Setting the Stage. I mentioned the problem of a large child population (46%). Only when you understand why the case is the way it is, can you even start to plan how to fix it.