Examines adaptation as a dynamic diffusion of innovations process in which adopters change innovations according to their individual needs. Adaptation may be explained by three factors: (a) the differing interpretation of innovation components by individual adopters, (b) an individual's level of adopter innovativeness or readiness to accept change and [c] the generative learning process whereby an individual relates new information prior knowledge and experience. Adaptation may occur unconsciously at the beginning of the diffusion process. Those who study the adaptation process should begin at the initial awareness state when potential adopters are forming their opinions and ideas about an innovation. Author uses an example involving a group of Kalahari bushmen first considering a sample of soft drink that they are told can quench thirst.
INTERPAKS, Offers an analysis of the conventional literature on adoption practices and adoptive categories. Examines the theoretical basis, and the empirical validity of adoption categories, as well as the extension worker's reliance on adoption categories for the dissemination of information in development activities and in research. Observation has led to the conclusion that adopter categories which can be empirically identified have been erroneously used in practice while the theory on which they are based is questionable. Draws attention to some of the dysfunctional effects of this largest grouping and the trickle down strategy used in extension for rural development. The analysis calls for a different approach to the categorization of the farming community. The main aim is to start with the people and then categorize the social system according to some important variables which will result in a homogeneous target group being isolated for specific extension activities.
Hatfield, Colby R. (author) and Moris, Jon R. (author)
Format:
Conference paper
Publication Date:
1982
Published:
International
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 95 Document Number: C07422
Notes:
INTERPAKS, In: Report of an exploratory Workshop on the Role of Anthropologists and Other Social Scientists in Interdisciplinary Teams Developing Improved Food Production Technology, Los Banos, Laguna, Philippines: International Rice Research Institute, 1982. p. 43-61., Provides a discussion of the role of the social scientist in the development and implementation of the technologies with the Maasai project in Tanzania to give some understanding of the constraints to success. First discusses two interrelated technologies: scientific and managerial. Explores the various roles played by the social scientist in these technologies over the project's lifetime. Discusses the conflicts that arose from these tasks.
19 pages., via online journal., There are about 500 million small-scale farms in low-income countries on the planet. Farmers have been slow to adopt a threefold set of sustainable agronomic practices known as “conservation agriculture” (CA) that have been shown to double productivity. Our study of a novel CA project in Nicaragua, organized based on principles that counter convention, may point to improved ways of understanding and managing sustainable innovations in low-income countries. In particular, by connecting core ideas from the innovation literature to the literature that explores the role of intermediaries such as NGOs, our case study suggests that the efficacy of NGOs to facilitate the adoption of sustainable innovations by small-scale farmers in these settings may be enhanced if NGOs employ non-centrist approaches in order to address the critical uncertainties associated with such innovations. We discuss how our findings contradict some of long-standing arguments in the literature, and their implications for theory and practice.
