Editorial 
Participation: the ends of a spectrum 
It is pleasing to note that in its second year of issue our journal returns to a 
theme central to social development, that of participation. Our inaugural issue 
published a number of articles that examined participation from the perspective 
of different sectors and different target groups. The sectors of health, housing 
and resettlement, and different target groups like the disabled, women, and 
youth, were discussed. This issue returns to the theme, but looks at the issues of 
popular participation from wider and more synoptic perspectives. Both ends of 
a spectrum of views on participation are presented, ranging from, on the one 
hand, a call by Midgley, in his "Popular Participation, Statism and Development", 
to be realistic, less romantic about participation and less antagonistic 
towards the state's role in development to, on the other hand, a study by Hall, 
"Self-reliance in Practice", of completely autonomous and self-reliant urban 
associations of burial societies. The ambiguities shown in Hall's study are part 
of a wider attitude that fears government involvement as stifling to local initiative 
in development. Yet Midgley argues that the benefits which state 
involvement bring are considerable and will probably outweigh gains made 
through what he terms anarchist and introverted approaches to popular 
participation. 
Results of two studies on the state and popular participation are also 
reported in this issue. Nkunika, in his "The Role of Popular Participation in 
Programmes of Social Development", outlines methods by which national 
authorities and governments can facilitate participation, focusing on the use 
of extension staff, community development and decentralised planning, 
and relates his study to a Malawian context. He suggests that, in spite of the 
participation built into Malawian programmes, they still lack meaningful 
degrees of participation, for what is needed is a search for more appropriate 
methods of popular participation. 
In her "Zimbabwean Women in Cooperatives", Smith examines at a micro 
level the participation of women within a system supported and encouraged by 
the Zimbabwe state, that of the agricultural producer co-operative. In spite of 
the adoption of a socialist mode of production within the co-operatives under 
study she concludes that this is not a sufficient condition for sexual equality nor 
for women's full participation within the group. Her conclusions seem to
suggest that much more needs to be done at community and state levels to 
facilitate women's participation in co-operatives. The two studies, then, seem 
to support a conclusion that neither one end of the spectrum, complete 
autonomy from state and total self-reliance, nor the other end, that of state 
authority and complete control of participatory programmes, will be helpful 
positions, but state involvement has to reflect the complex realities of local 
situations alongside the genuine possibilities for local people to control their 
own destinies. 
Our final article by Muzaale, "Social Development, Rural Poverty and 
Implications for Fieldwork Practice", presents a useful overview of definitional 
questions concerning social development and rural poverty. In the light of his 
analyses of casual factors of such poverty he looks at the implications for the 
types of intervention strategies that a social development worker may adopt. 
The paper is an explication of these implications as seen by a social work 
educator, but they would seem to have relevance for all those who are involved 
with the training of social development workers.