Empowerment Through Agency Enhancement: An Interdisciplinary Exploration

This book focuses on the understanding of factors and mechanisms involved in the development of agency mainly in three related contexts --- participatory development, extension work, and service transactions. The research has its starting point in the recognition of the critical role played by ＂agency＂ (commonly understood as want/will for and practice of self-determination and self-management) on the part of intended beneficiaries of services and projects for effective implementation and sustainability. It is designed to address this subject matter with its principal focus on inner capacities and orientations of human beings, posing questions as to how such capacities and orientations could be enhanced and activated in practice by external actors in the field of public policies for socioeconomic and international development. The project is organized transcending traditional disciplinary boundaries --- combining anthropological, psychological, and economic approaches and perspectives.

Mine Sato is Associate Professor specializing in International Development Studies and Applied Anthropology, currently working at Institute of Urban Innovation, Yokohama National University. She has various work experiences with international cooperation agencies such as UNICEF, JBIC and JICA as a social development specialist. Her main fields are Central America as well as Japan.

Nobuo Sayanagi is Professor of developmental and social psychology at Yamanashi Eiwa College. He is one of the few psychological researchers in the world working in the field of development aid and has been working as an advisor to Japan International Cooperation Agency’s Smallholder Horticulture Empowerment and Promotion (SHEP) approach as well as a collaborator in a number of other projects.

Toru Yanagihara is Professor Emeritus of international development studies at Takushoku University and Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Developing Economies. He has served as advisor and consultant for Japanese government and international organizations, including United Nations University, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank Institute.He has been on the editorial board of a number of academic journals, including World Development and Journal of International Development Studies.