Synopses & Reviews
This book re-establishes the relevance of mainstream anthropological (and sociological) approaches to development processes and simultaneously recognizes that contemporary development ought to be anthropology‘s principal area of study. Professor de Sardan argues for a socio-anthropology of change and development that is a deeply empirical, multidimensional, diachronic study of social groups and their interactions.
The Introduction provides a thought-provoking examination of the principal new approaches that have emerged in the discipline during the 1990s. Part I then makes clear the complexity of social change and development, and the ways in which socio-anthropology can measure up to the challenge of this complexity. Part II looks more closely at some of the leading variables involved in the development process, including relations of production; the logics of social action; the nature of knowledge; forms of mediation; and ‘political‘ strategies.
Following its successful publication in French, this important book will provoke much thoughtful debate within Anthropology, Sociology and Development Studies.
Review
"A subtle, wide-ranging argument for a productive tension between the development industry and its critics on behalf of its ultimate subjects. Olivier de Sardan's original intervention is wise, opinionated, and experienced."--James C. Scott, Yale University
"This is a lucid, thoroughly researched and brilliantly argued book. Steeped in the intricacies of new techniques of ethnography as well as social theorization, it explores in crystalline prose, the possibility of enlivening modes of anthropological thought and action."--Achille Mbembe, author of On the Postcolony
"Professor Olivier de Sardan advocates nothing less than a quiet revolution in the relationship between anthropology and development in Africa. Anthropology must accept the logics of African development as a primary object of empirical research and theoretical concern, meanwhile development projects must cease to justify themselves in terms of watered-down, quick-fix anthropological methods, and embrace methodologies that can pass serious anthropological scrutiny. Olivier de Sardan tackles two sets of vested interests head-on but, more than that, he offers a resolution both might find appealing and neither can afford to ignore."--Richard Fardon, University of London
Review
“Ameliorates the despair which students of development often feel once they come to understand the complexity, and the vested interests, of the aid industry.”
Review
“An authoritative and up to date overview that combines accurate and insightful overviews of the major contributions in the field with their own original and illuminating arguments.”
Review
“In our transforming, turbulent, multi-polar era, ‘development’ has definitively expanded beyond the discourses and practices of an aid industry to encompass far wider capitalist processes—as well as struggles against them. In this welcome new version of their acclaimed earlier book, Gardner and Lewis carve anthropology’s place in this brave new development world—charting and navigating change, questioning its social basis and morality, posing essential questions about who gains, who loses and why, and empowering alternatives. Essential reading for all involved with anthropology or development—and essential proof that they should engage their perspectives with each other more deeply and more often.”
Review
“This new edition of a classical book on anthropology of development and anthropology in development combines the quality of the original with fresh and up-to-date analysis. The already impressive state of arts of the first book has been extended to most of the rapidly expanding literature of the last twenty years. This book is essential for anyone interested by debates concerning the relation between anthropology and development.”
Review
“As the ‘post-modern challenge’ to development and social theory came and went, what happened to its insights and perhaps even its excesses? One thing is certain: Development continues to be a powerful cultural imaginary and set of practices, a space of power. By subjecting the ‘really existing worlds of development’ to an acutely perceptive anthropological lens, this carefully reworked volume by two of development’s most accomplished scholars re-invigorates, like no other treatise in the field, the connection between research, critique, and action in inspired and practical ways. Their deeply constructive approach to development results in a compelling Anthropology of Engagement that unveils the tactics of power while at the same time illuminating paths towards less unequal and more livable worlds.”
Synopsis
Western aid is in decline. New forms of aid, from within the developing countries themselves and elsewhere, are in the ascent, and a new set of global economic and political processes are shaping development in the twenty-first century. Katy Gardner and David Lewis have completely rewritten and updated their earlier, influential work, bringing it up to the present day. They engage with nearly two decades of continuity and change in the development industry, arguing in particular that while international development has expanded since the 1990s, it has become more rigidly technocratic. Anthropology and Development will serve as a reformulation of the field and as an excellent textbook for both graduate and undergraduates alike.
About the Author
Katy Gardner is professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics and is the author of several books including Discordant Development and Global Migrants, Local Lives: Travel and Transformation in Rural Bangladesh.David Lewis is professor of social policy and development at the London School of Economics. He is the author of Bangladesh: Politics, Economy and Civil Society and co-editor of The Aid Effect.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: The three approaches in the anthropology of development
The discourse of development
Populism, anthropology and development
Entangled social logic approaches
Conclusion: the future of the entangled social logics approach and its work in progress (research in Africa and beyond)
2. Socio-anthropology of Development: some preliminary statements
Development
Socio-anthropology of development
Comparativism
Action
Populism
A collective problematic
Social change and development: in Africa or in general?
3. Anthropology, Sociology, Africa and Development: a brief historical overview
French colonial ethnology
Reactions: dynamic and/or Marxist anthropology
From a sociological viewpoint: sociology of modernization and sociology of development
Systems analysis
The current situation: multi-rationalities
4. A renewal of anthropology?
To the rescue of social science?
The 'properties' of 'development facts'
Two 'heuristic points of view'
Anthropology of social change and development and the fields of anthropology
5. Stereotypes, ideologies and conceptions
A meta-ideology of development
Infra-ideologies: conceptions
Five stereotypes
The relative truth of stereotypes: the example of culture
The propensity for stereotypes: the example of needs
6. Is an anthropology of innovation possible?
A panorama in four points of view
Is an innovation's problematic possible in anthropology?
7. Developmentist populism and social science populism : ideology, action, knowledge
Intellectuals and their ambiguous populism
The poor according to Chambers
The developmentist populist complex
Moral populism
Cognitive populism and methodological populism
Ideological populism
Populism and miserabilism
Where action becomes compromise ... and where knowledge can become opposition...
... yet methodology should combine!
8. Relations of production and modes of economic action
Songhay-zarma societies under colonization: peasant mode of production and relations of production
Subsistence logic during the colonial period
Relations of production and contemporary transformations
Conclusion
9. Development projects and social logic
The context of interaction
Levels of project coherence
Peasant reactions
Two principles
Three logics, among many others
Strategic logics and notional logics
10. Popular knowledge and scientific and technical knowledge
Popular technical knowledge
A few properties of popular technical knowledge
Popular technical knowledge and technical-scientific knowledge
Fields of popular knowledge and infrastructure
11. Mediations and brokerage
Development agents
A parenthesis on corruption
Development agents as mediators between types of knowledge
Brokers
The development language
12. Arenas and strategic games
Local development as a political arena
Conflict, arena, strategic groups
The ECRIS canvass
13. Conclusion : The dialogue between social scientists and developers
Logic of knowledge and logic of action
Action Research?
Training development agents
Adapting to side-tracking
On enquiry
Bibliography
Index