Alternative Visions of Change: Jigsaw Funding, Patchwork Professionalisation and Rural NGOs in a Neoliberal Era

Study of civil society networks bound within the wider neoliberal restructuring project has impressed upon development discourse an appreciation of the encroachments of neoliberal processes and practices into every aspect of grassroots activism. Perhaps more importantly, of late it has also highlighted the ability of local activists to 'work' the spaces created by neoliberal governance to contested ends. This thesis unpacks the ways in which professionalisation, theorized at the specific site of its operation, co-opts, constrains, supports and depletes activism, and, most importantly, how the professional subjects shaped through these processes occupy the opportunities created. Specifically, the thesis will investigate how the professionalisation of an ecologically-centred and community-based NGO shapes its staff’s ability to 'exist, speak and act as development alternatives' (Bebbington et al., 2008) and how their ecological focus alters this process”.