Critical Capacity Development: An Action Research Approach in Coastal Brazil

Capacity development is a development approach and a methodology with origins in colonization that has yet to be decolonized. The underlying assumption for the most part is that there are deficiencies in the abilities of the group in question, and does not question the possibility that the system or structure may be dysfunctional. The ongoing design and implementation of international protected area management systems in general, and the one described in this paper, continue to be based on a foundational assumption of a lack of community capacity for governance of the resources on which they depend, the “deficit” model. Emerging from the context of a community in Trindade, Brazil, the goal of the present project was to support members of a community-based organization in capacity development endeavors for needs they identified. Although the implementation of a series of courses is not a novel approach to capacity development, the commitment to critical pedagogy, the clarity of capacity development of what and for whom that was based on an assumption of capacity, defining the capacities needed and the purpose, and being guided by theory, were perhaps the more novel approaches used in this action research project. The goal of capacity development as attempted in the present research project was not to develop skills so that people may fit into an unjust structure or for ease of social control, but to support the enhancement of skills and knowledge to challenge the existing state of affairs. Instead of the insistence on Indigenous Peoples becoming willing partners in flawed governance systems, much work is needed to continue to address these significant flaws and failings, and to critically challenge the status quo.