Incorporating “Positive Deviants” into Community Development Projects: A Case Study from Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Colombia

Abstract:

Community development engineering projects conducted by different organizations frequently follow similar design cycles to incorporate stakeholder engagement, develop capacity, and allow for feedback. During this cycle, community appraisal is a key step for understanding the social, environmental, and economic context in which the project is occurring and is often done through stakeholder engagement methods, contacts with local governments, and secondary-source literature reviews. However, such community appraisal methods fail to incorporate “positive deviants”, or individuals who are successfully achieving development goals at the grassroots level despite being faced with the same challenges as the rest of the community, into project design and implementation. These positive deviants present an opportunity to collaborate with local community leaders who are well-versed in community challenges, available resources, and local capacity. In this study, we present a case study of artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in the Andes municipality, Antioquia, Colombia and local initiatives to overcome community-identified environmental hazards. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, surveys, and site visits, we identify community perception of environmental hazards and local, grassroots initiatives that have been developed to achieve environmental objectives. This study demonstrates the importance of identifying positive deviants during the community appraisal phase of a project, allowing community members to raise project ideas that can be beneficial at a community level, and proposes ways forward to continue collaboration with identified positive deviants.