Ok, Devin, this is why you needed to invite me to go with your team and help sometime. I first learned of "unintended consequences" while getting my PhD in Ann Arbor when a professor there cited the term in our course. It was perhaps original with the great Harvard sociologist, Robert Merton. I've used it a lot with my NGO teams as we planned and then intervened in dozens of developing nations through the years. Another phrase I often use with LDS groups is a quote from Paul Dunn. At a young adult conference back east we both spoke at, he worried that in the church (and beyond), we sometimes "want to help in the worst way. And that's exactly what we end up doing!" So I always seek to plan, design and carry out community development and other strategies only with partnership and collaboration within the local community. Indigenous leaders have always guided our efforts with pretty amazing results. But I confess, we messed up a bit in my early efforts precisely because, drawing upon our superior, white academic ways, we thought we knew best:)
Ok, Devin, this is why you needed to invite me to go with your team and help sometime. I first learned of "unintended consequences" while getting my PhD in Ann Arbor when a professor there cited the term in our course. It was perhaps original with the great Harvard sociologist, Robert Merton. I've used it a lot with my NGO teams as we planned and then intervened in dozens of developing nations through the years. Another phrase I often use with LDS groups is a quote from Paul Dunn. At a young adult conference back east we both spoke at, he worried that in the church (and beyond), we sometimes "want to help in the worst way. And that's exactly what we end up doing!" So I always seek to plan, design and carry out community development and other strategies only with partnership and collaboration within the local community. Indigenous leaders have always guided our efforts with pretty amazing results. But I confess, we messed up a bit in my early efforts precisely because, drawing upon our superior, white academic ways, we thought we knew best:)