Doing Business Without Development Anthropology: The Consequences of Non-collaboration in Baja California

                                 Allen Jedlicka                                                                   Barbara Bonnekessen
                       University of Northern Iowa                                              University of Missouri, Kansas City

This paper discusses a failed business development project in Mexico's Alta California, arguing that the assistance of methods used in development anthropology could have improved the chances of success for this project. In this project, the development consultant connected U.S. growers of cut-flowers to subsistence farmers who wanted to establish an export-growth  businesses for the U.S. market. In the spirit of minimal consultant interference, the consultant set up the business relationship and left---only to come back to a failed project some months later. The farmers had been discouraged by the unrealistic interest demands of a local bank, had never followed through on their agreement with the US growers, and both
sides were disappointed in the resulting failure. The paper argues that a more thorough understanding of the local community and its cultural (including economic) relationships, an understanding only achievable through the participant-oriented methods of development anthropology, could have led to the formulation of a more successful project.

Keywords: development anthropology, business, collaboration, ethnocentrism, participant-driven development