88 Book Reviews 
approach that engages in some amount of positive eclecticism rather than 
being parochial. The author's annotated bibliography is particularly helpful 
for students and economists interested in further research in this important 
area. 
One could not agree more with the author's suggestion that scholars and 
practitioners need to re-examine their theoretical views and policy 
prescriptions. Such re-examinations must be undertaken even if it turns 
upside down the very basis of conventional wisdom. Together with die 
author one would hope that the text will stimulate further research and 
evaluation and dius advance the cause of development. 
Reviewed by Obert Nyawata, African Development Bank, Abidjan. 
Social Work With Rural Peoples. Theory and Practice, Ken Collier, New 
Star Books, Vancouver, 1984 (144pp, no price given). 
This slim volume sets out to discuss the theory and practice of social work 
with rural people in North America, examining from an avowedly Marxist 
materialist perspective the nature of rural people's lives, experience and 
needs, and the impact social work can and could have on them. It is 
explicidy not a 'skills' book but a discussion of die need for social workers to 
'interpret', 'analyse' and 'construct' die realities of the rural setting so diat 
dieir practice may be effective and supportive rarfier dian irrelevant or 
oppressive. It aims to be of use to human service workers in rural areas in 
general, and to rural people themselves. 
Crucially, die audior draws attention to the need for different approaches 
to social work practice in rural areas from those typically learnt and 
experienced in die urban setting, and he points out the problems inherent in 
die (urban) 'outside expert' arriving in a rural area and expecting to be taken 
seriously. 
The author begins by oudining historical processes of economic 
development from foraging to agricultural and industrial economies. He 
draws attention to the similarity of present day foragers and agriculturalists, 
rural peoples, living on die periphery of centralised urban-based capitalist 
economies, to the position of developing countries vis-a-vis die developed 
world. Recognising diat the relationship between die developed and 
underdeveloped world, and likewise diat between the centralised urban 
sector and rural sectors within one country, are relationships of oppression, 
inequality and exploitation, he examines what role human service workers 
can play in ameliorating this situation. He argues that if such workers are not 
conscious of the reality of this exploitative economic and cultural relationship, 
dien they will by default serve to promote die process of exploitation 
by assisting people to adapt passively to the loss of their land, to family 
and cultural breakdown, and to impoverishment in general.
Book Reviews 89 
To play a valid and meaningful role in the lives of these people, social 
workers and others must understand the material conditions that have led to 
their marginalisation and the disruption of their communities, and must 
help people to find ways of reducing die negative impact of 'development' 
and of maintaining their dignity, rights and cultural identity. 
The author recognises that there is no single blueprint outlining how 
social workers should achieve this, particularly given the cultural and 
economic diversity of rural communities themselves — small nuclear family 
farmers, extended family farmers, different ethnic groupings, migrant 
labourers, the poor and unemployed — facing the rural penetration of 
advanced capitalism in different ways. The underlying necessity is for 
sensitive understanding and analysis and the capacity for widely diverse, 
flexible 'generalised' approaches, rather than narrow specialisation which 
precludes a holistic understanding of both die problems and of methods of 
tackling diem. 
To achieve such understanding, the author argues, it is essential that 
social workers live 'with the people', sharing in dieir social and work 
activities, and learning dieir priorities and problems first hand. This might 
involve learning a specific practical skill such as sheep shearing, or aspects of 
agriculture, so that the social worker is seen as having practical relevance as 
well as the more esoteric relevance of intellectual skills. This is argued to be 
particularly important when working with people who traditionally keep 
dieir problems to diemselves, even when they lack die wherewithall to 
resolve them. The social worker must be seen to be aligned closely widi die 
rural people rather dian being an apologist for die urban and alien 
centralised system. 
The message of the book is bodi a positive and a critical one. Rural 
peoples can successfully limit the predations of capitalism, and preserve 
important aspects of their lives, culture and livelihood intact, and social 
workers do have a constructive role to play in achieving this. On the other 
hand, in rural areas die insensitive and inappropriate application of 
'traditional' social work skills, values, knowledge and mediods is at the least 
irrelevant, and at worst downright destructive. 
In focusing on these issues, die author makes a useful contribution to a 
general, basic understanding of die rural situation, and he illustrates his 
points now and then with highly pertinent and vivid case studies. However, 
die main text tends to state radier than seriously to analyse his perspective on 
development, and also to become rather repetitive in the process. There is a 
tendency for the writing, apart from die case studies, to contain generalised 
abstracts rather than concrete, specific examples, and this makes for a radier 
dry presentation, and for unclear and incomplete analysis at times. For 
example, when describing foraging and agricultural communities and dieir 
kinship and otiier social formations, not one specific ethnic or cultural
90 Book Reviews 
group is mentioned by name to illustrate a point. North American Indians 
are either grouped together or described as diverse, with no concrete 
illustration. Further, there is no attempt to link the oppression of rural 
minorities and that of the urban poor, or to examine the relevance and 
appropriateness or otherwise of social work in urban contexts, let alone in 
the rural one. This narrow analysis seems to the reviewer to be a 
considerable weakness. 
Because of these limitations, it is perhaps unlikely that this book will do a 
great deal to convert those who do not share the author's perspective on 
development; and, for those already converted, it may serve to clarify and 
confirm some of their ideas, but may not take them very much further along 
the road of critical analysis (not to mention skill development): it is too 
general, too unclear, and too brief. 
But if to some degree it does promote a critical and concerned 
understanding of the rural situation, and stimulates discussion and a 
diversity of approach, then to that extent the book will have succeeded in its 
undeniably valid and constructive central aim. 
Reviewed by Helen Jackson, School of Social Work, Harare. 
Vocational Rehabilitation for Women with Disabilities, Sheila Stace, ILO 
Geneva, 1986 (38pp, Sfrs 12,50). 
This short monograph discusses the dual discrimination faced by disabled 
women seeking education, training and employment. It concludes that 
discrimination because of gender is probably of greater significance than 
discrimination because of disability, basing diis assessment on a review of 
literature in both developing and developed countries. 
Because of the wide geographical scope of die text, the author can only 
make rather general observations and proposals, and she acknowledges a 
great shortage of hard data and research on die subject which in itself reflects 
how hidden are the problems faced by disabled women. A computer search 
in die USA for references in psychology on disabled men and disabled 
women found 7 500 of die former, and only 19 of the latter. Nevertheless, 
some useful general points emerge from die review: 
"The literature discussed indicates diat underlying attitudes result in 
disabled women being offered fewer options, having lower aspirations 
and accepting a greater degree of dependency than their disability 
requires. It has also shown that vocational rehabilitation has not come 
to terms widi the real pattern of women's work and their dual role of 
homemaker and income earner." (p 24). 
The audior points out that sexist public attitudes are also internalised by die 
(predominandy male) professionals in all areas of vocational rehabilitation, 
and by disabled women themselves.