Anthropology and Development:
Reflections
on Constraints & Opportunities for
Social Change
B. Malinowski (1929):
 ”There is a gap between the theoretical
concerns of the anthropology of the schools
on the one hand, and practical interests on
the other. This gap must be bridged over…”
(1929:22)
 ”A new branch of anthropology must sooner
or later be started: the anthropology of the
changing Native” (1929:36)
E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1946):
 ”…the anthropologist should restrict his research
to the investigation of scientific problems for the
reason that the value of social anthropology to the
arts of politics and administration must depend on
its theoretical advance” (1946:93)
 ”…an anthropologist who acts as adviser, or
consultant, to an administration should be a full
member of it. He cannot advise the administration
[…] unless he knows the bureaucratic machinery
from the inside…”
Anthropology and Social Change
 The tradition of
ethnographers/administrators
 The anthropological guilt for the colonial
legacy in the 1960s
 The professional branch of anthropologists
in development organisations 1970s
 The debate on ’development anthropology’
vis-à-vis ’anthropology of development’ in
the 1980s
Current concerns of anthropology
and development…
Anthropological practice as
’development anthropology’
 Analysis of micro-projects
– NGO-support, grassroots organisations
 Sectoral projects and programmes
– E.g. Forestry, land management
– E.g. Participation, gender
 Planning, implementation, monitoring and
evaluation
Anthropological practice as
’development anthropology’ (continued)
 Policy formulation, e.g. ”poor peoples’
perspectives”, ”gender and development” and
”rights-based approaches”
 Anthropological careers in development?
– Socio-cultural advisors and analysts in field offices
– NGOs staff on human rights and social development
more generally
– Consultants for various organisations
– Evaluators/advisors
Anthropological practice as
’anthropology of development’
 Focus on discourse and globalisation of
development
– Escobar
– Ferguson
 Anthropology of modernity(ies)
– Long & Arce
– Grillo & Stirrat
 A distinction bewteen anthropological analysis and
practical development work
 Less focus on the ethnography of development
organisations - monolithic enterprise?
Anthropology of development
organisations…
 Ethnographic analysis of development
organisations
– Ethnography of aid (Crewe & Harrison)
– Cultivating development (Mosse)
– Socially entangled logics approach (Olivier de
Sardan)
– The aid effect (Lewis & Mosse)
But…
…how to combine the approaches?
 A division of labour between researchers and
practitioners
– Status and hierarchy
– Material wealth and/or access to resources
 Develop strategic alliances
–
–
–
–
Actors at HQ
Actors in host countries
Actors at field offices
Consultancy firms
 Temporal division of labour
– Academic production and drafting policy papers
The Anthropological Lens
 Proximity and distance
– Understand organisations and actors
– Importance of withdrawing (cf. participant observation)
– Life-long learning – the organisations and universities
 Research agenda
– Research on pertinent topics (e.g. LASDEL, Point Sud)
and not merely consultancy work
– Foster critical research in host countries
– Feed back practical experience into academia…
Anthropology of development in the
era of budget support
 Less projects and programmes – more sector and
budget support
 Global ’good governance’ and local legitimacy
– Conditionality and the dissolution of the distinction
between the state and international organisations
– Universalist ambitions and solutions
– Less attention paid to local contexts
– Anonymous aid and the need for the success story
 Bad governance, corruption and when the
backlash will come - refuting culturalist arguments!
Anthropology of development in the
era of budget support (continued)
 Theory and policy
– Anthropology’s ambivalent success?
 Method and technique
– Another questionable success?
 Insider/outsider as participant observer
– Knowing the organisation from within
– Discourses and everyday practices
Local democracy and the
Bretton woods institutions
A case of urban development in
Burkina Faso
Deputy mayor
Municipal assembly
Funding prospects?
Municipal advisors
Anthropology and Development
 Contexts and concepts
 Inside and outside
 Cultural analysis – not culturalist arguments on
culture and tradition
 The politics of good governance, partnership and
Paris Declaration
 Corruption and impunity
 Non-normative position
 Ethical issues
Thank you!
Sten Hagberg
Uppsala University