Partnership is the illusory ideal often aspired to by exponents of popular participation in development. With good intentions, they insist that participants in development must no longer live in “worlds apart”; rather, they must become neighbors and partners in the development enterprise. In an attempt to redefine development from a grassroots perspective, some scholars have elaborated alternative development paradigms and proposed a number of approaches. The consensus is that beyond communication strategies, grassroots participation is the missing link in the development chain. In addition, the role of culture has been found to be essential as context and continuity for development. Indeed, a “cultural paradigm” that takes values and models of reality into account in any conceptualization of development has been advocated. With this “model of reality” in mind, I propose that the participatory paradigm is a myth, especially when one considers the case study of Carnival (Port. Carnaval), with respect to communication and contradictions in Brazilian development.

This chapter borrows from Oakley and Marsden's “concept of participation”—outlined in their 1984 volume Approaches to Participation in Rural Development—and their conclusion that, in terms of redistribution of power or “empowerment,” genuine popular participation hardly ever occurs. Oakley and Marsden identify three fundamental obstacles to empowerment—operational, cultural, and structural—that are not mutually exclusive.