Anthropology and Development : Understanding Contemporary Social Change

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.

“Condenses several decades of research into an accessible and well-referenced textbook that provides provoking insights into the anthropology of development.” —Highly reflexive and full of wit.

“This is a lucid, thoroughly researched and brilliantly argued book.” —Achille Mbembe, author of On the Postcolony

“A subtle, wide-ranging argument for a productive tension between the development industry and its critics on behalf of its ultimate subjects.” —James C. Scott, Yale University

“Olivier de Sardan throws a long-needed intellectual bridge over the big canyon separating European and American development anthropologies.” —Michael M. Cernea, World Bank and George Washington University

“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