UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Peace Corps Volunteers and the Boundaries of Bottom-up Development: Mongolia, a Case Study A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education by Hugh Erik Schuckman 2012 © Copyright by Hugh Erik Schuckman 2012 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Peace Corps Volunteers and the Boundaries of Bottom-up Development: Mongolia, a Case Study by Hugh Erik Schuckman Doctor of Philosophy in Education University of California, Los Angeles, 2012 Professor Sol Cohen, Chair From President Kennedy’s first announcement of a non-military US volunteer corps in 1961, the Peace Corps has been one of the preeminent government grassroots volunteer development agency. This study explores the history of the ambiguities inherent in this contention, pressure primarily stemming from the organization’s role as both a governmental diplomatic and a popular grassroots development agency. The genealogy of conflict stems from three ill-defined and considered elements: the grassroots volunteer, development, and the discourses of grassroots programming. In bracketing these terms, this study illustrates the ways organizational epistemology is fractured among political actors, staff, and volunteers. Though the Peace Corps organizational rhetoric has shifted these categories over the years, the organization’s political face has remained dominant in organizational attitudes and expressions. This dissertation underscores the disproportionate weight of this side of the discourse, which is simultaneously most at odds with the idea of the horizontal, grassroots rhetoric of the organization. In demonstrating the paradox of the Peace Corps’ simultaneous rhetorical role as a i grassroots development organization and US political theater, I combed archival resources such as pamphlets, reports, internal memos, and posters produced by the organization to better understand the particular messages contained in these documents. While the images and narratives concerning the grassroots volunteer, development, and programming are varied, the overwhelming message is one of unexamined US benevolence. For comparison with volunteers with actual experience with these concepts, I conducted ethnographic interviews of volunteers and staff in one Peace Corps country, Outer Mongolia. In order to contextualize the Peace Corps’ struggle with other similar governmental agencies, I also interviewed volunteers of the Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteers working in similar projects in Mongolia. Through an ethnographic semi-structured interview model of volunteers working in education, health, community economic development, and youth development sectors, I assessed volunteers’ 1.) motivations and awareness of development, 2.) understandings of “empowerment” and “participation” among current development constituents, 3.) perceptions of host-country partners culture and history and 4.) visions for re-constituting the Peace Corps. Findings suggest that while some of the volunteers reiterated the Peace Corps’ rhetorical perspectives of volunteer roles, development, and programming, many had either not considered these important aspects of their development experience or expressed views starkly opposite to that of the organization. The resulting investigation reveals not a splintered, failed program, but one internally odds with stated participatory, democratic ideals. Far from condemning this notable organization, this dissertation argues for greater organizational imagination through self- reflection among volunteers and staff about the horizon of possibilities of grassroots cooperation untethered from political rhetoric. ii The dissertation of Hugh Erik Schuckman is approved. John Hawkins Nancy Levine Carlos Torres Sol Cohen, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2012 iii This dissertation is dedicated to Gale Schuckman Born on autumn nights, the dewdrops remain dewdrops, but the wide meadows on the mountainside all shine, washed by tears of passing geese. --Mibu no Tadamine iv Table of Contents Preface............................................................................................................................................ vi Acknowledgments......................................................................................................................... xii CURRICULUM VITAE ............................................................................................................... xv CHAPTER 1 Blinded by the Light ....................................................................................................................... 2 CHAPTER 2 Literally Fiction: The Myth of the Grassroots Peace Corps Volunteer ........................................ 28 CHAPTER 3 Above and Below: Reaching for the Grassroots in Peace Corps Development Initiatives .......... 58 CHAPTER 4 Grassroots Pedagogy: A Hidden Curriculum? .............................................................................. 82 CHAPTER 5 Historical Hierarchies:Volunteers’ Grassroots Consciousness ................................................... 103 CHAPTER 6 Varieties of the Grassroots Development Experience:The Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteers ................................................................................................................................... 122 CHAPTER 7 The Collective Search for the Truth: Levers for Reshaping Grassroots Relations……………143 Appendix 1: ................................................................................................................................. 162 Appendix 2: ................................................................................................................................. 163 Peace Corps Volunteer Numbers at the End of the Fiscal Year ................................................. 163 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 164 v Preface “Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain't so.” Mark Twain, Notebook, 1898 History is a slippery eel. The history of the US Peace Corps, the US governments’ first non-military volunteer development organization, is exceptionally elusive. With over 190,000 volunteers in 139 countries since the organizations creation in 1961, no other US governmental body comes close to sending Americans to the far reaches of the globe, each partaking in indelible, individual experiences. Unlike hierarchical, project-based governmental development, the Peace Corps takes pride in placing volunteers in both urban and rural areas for two-year volunteer posts as educators and facilitators in fields such as English education, nursing, environmental protection, and youth development. Among the US government’s forays into development, the Peace Corps represents the US government’s preeminent “grassroots development” agency, a term loosely indicating an egalitarian, cooperative development effort between volunteers and host community members. Though the organization has employed this rhetoric from the beginning, these terms implications have not necessarily translated into a self- reflective manifestation of these ideals. This dissertation disentangles the history of Peace Corps organization development narratives, which often ring of politically expedient rhetoric, from realities lived by volunteers on the ground. Interviews from one Peace Corps country, Outer Mongolia, elucidate the complexity of the relationships of grassroots development and the Peace Corps organization’s rhetoric of these concepts. vi Much of this dissertation relies on the collective recollections of volunteers’ experiences. But like the organization’s history, comprising a myriad of perspectives, memory itself is a thorny issue, as I quickly found. When I began interviewing returned Peace Corps volunteers in the United States, many volunteers could remember only fragments of their experiences. At a 2011 Peace Corps Fiftieth Anniversary celebration held at the University of California, Los Angeles, for instance, few former volunteers could recall issues important to this study such as language training methods and specific work schedules with their counterparts. While generally exuberant to recount scintillating stories of their cultural experiences, volunteers reacted to my questions about their thoughts of “grassroots development” with perplexed faces. Fewer still could remember specific details of their Peace Corps job training at the time of their service. In truth, my own recollection of serving as a volunteer lies somewhere between memory and a later re-interpretation. As a Peace Corps Volunteer Teacher Trainer, I worked in a Mongolian Government Education center for two years in the southwestern province of Gobi- Altai. As an education volunteer, I was expected to participate in a scheme of “grassroots development” by building the capacity of my Mongolian counterparts. Upon my return from Outer Mongolia, however, I instantly began to narrate my excitement for service, the thrill of living in another culture for two years, and falling in love with Mongolia and her people. On the trail between the towns of “Blue Horse” and “Gelding,” I would say, I crossed inexorably from a fascination to visceral respect of Mongolians. On this particular office trip, I accompanied my Mongolian colleagues to provide educational support to smaller villages in the province.