Not All About Farming: Understanding Aspirations Can Challenge Assumptions About Rural Development

Abstract

Rural development is a political topic in which debate has been more focussed on externally identified needs than on demands or aspirations of the rural population and polarised between the attractions of urban income earning opportunities and the importance of rural farming communities for national food provision. The heterogeneity of local aspirations and their implications for development have barely been considered. We explore the aspirations of residents of three contrasting regions in Kenya that vary in their agricultural and off-farm potential. We argue that opportunities are a major framing influence on aspirations but there is important, and routinely overlooked, diversity within the communities which could inform future options for effective development. We outline how development initiatives could be redesigned to align more closely with aspirations. However, aspirations are a complex concept and, while our approach offered novel insights, these would be enriched when combined with household survey data.

Realising rural economic transformation: Pathways to inclusive and sustainable prosperity in post-COVID-19 Asia

“…The collection of studies in this special issue and references cited within infer that rural transformation is not all about farming ( Mausch et al, 2021 ). It is more about managing aspirations for better living, however one defines it.…”

Rural Aspirations: Reflections for Development Planning, Design and Localized Effects

“…Across the contributions of this Special Issue and their various methodological and disciplinary entry points, all levels of this interplay between local individual aspirations (Mausch et al 2021;Tabe-Ojong et al 2021;Nandi and Nedumaran 2021;Aring et al 2021;La Rue et al 2021 andCrossland et al 2021) and political aspirations (Matejcek and Verne 2021;Müller-Mahn et al 2021;Kalvelage et al 2021;Greiner et al 2021;Höllermann et al 2021;Chamberlin et al 2021) are investigated with a recognition of the influence of considerations at the other end of the spectrum (see Fig. 1).…”

“…This allows only indirect insights into any developmental support mechanisms that might be necessary. Mausch et al (2021) take a different approach and explicitly focus on how aspirations shape income portfolios across farm and off-farm income streams in their analysis of aspirational differences across contrasting regions of Kenya. Using a narrative-based approach, they highlight the importance of the perceived opportunity space in the formation of aspirations.…”

Advancing Gender Equality and Social Inclusion

“…FTA inroads with rural youth are reflected in influential studies, including a cross-country comparative analysis of rural young men's and women's aspirations (Elias et al 2018c), which was cited in background papers for the International Fund for Agricultural Development's (IFAD's) 2019 Rural Development Report (White 2019) and in the report itself (IFAD 2019). FTA has conducted research on and with youth in various countries to shed light on the contextspecific ways in which age, generation and stage in the life cycle intersect with gender to shape agriculture and natural resource management (Li 2015;Elmhirst et al 2017;Crossland et al 2021a;Mausch et al 2021). Dialogues with young women and men in Peru 14 identified both barriers and ways to support youth to pursue careers cultivating high-quality varieties of cacao, in order to help address the critical issue of inter-generational succession in this value chain.…”