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Coping mechanisms and their unintended consequences: a realist approach to a rural technology transformation programme

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Abstract

The role of agents in creating unanticipated conditions for social reproduction is the theme of this paper. This theme is based on the realist dialectic theory which indicates that social change occurs through the struggle between opposing forces. The opposing forces highlighted in this paper relate to the goal of a rural technology programme of raising standards of living of a rural community on one hand, and financial constraints on the other. The findings indicate that within the constraints set by the financial problems, the agents concerned have managed to find room to manoeuvre to create unanticipated beneficial consequences which have sustained the organization. On the future of the technology programme, the paper however cautions that there is no necessary relation between the causal powers of the current coping mechanisms and future concrete empirical outcomes which will largely depend on the nature of contingent factors.

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  1. Department of Geography, University of Transkei, Umtata, South Africa

    S. Yirenkyi-Boateng

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Yirenkyi-Boateng, S. Coping mechanisms and their unintended consequences: a realist approach to a rural technology transformation programme. GeoJournal 43, 153–162 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006832829972

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