Development anthropology

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Development anthropology or development ethnology is an interdisciplinary subject area of anthropology (human science) and ethnology (ethnology) with the main focus on "international development" and development aid . In this context, development refers to the voluntary social action of institutions, companies, states and individual actors who try to change the economic, technical, political or social life of a locality, especially in so-called “ developing countries ”.

With field research on site, researchers try to describe, analyze and understand various developments that have taken place in a locality and continue to take place. Influences on the local population, the environment and social and economic areas of life are to be researched.

Some theorists differentiate between the “anthropology of development”, in which development itself is the object of study, and “developmental anthropology” or “anthropology in development”, in which anthropology is used as applied research . In 1997, for example, the Colombian-American anthropologist Arturo Escobar considered this distinction to be outdated.

In 2008, the Austrian social anthropologist Christoph Campregher differentiates between three approaches to development anthropology :

  1. The instrumental, action- and policy- oriented approach is represented by scientists who are practically active in development cooperation, for example as advisors (see also action ethnology ).
  2. The critical, constructivist approach addresses the power relations between donor countries in Europe and North America and former colonies .
  3. The interactionist approach in development cooperation focuses on the scope of action of the actors involved in their different social and cultural worlds.

See also

literature

  • Thomas Bierschenk : 2014. Developmental Ethnology and Ethnology of Development: Germany, Europe, USA, working papers of the Institute for Ethnology and African Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. 150. Mainz: Ifeas; http://www.ifeas.uni-mainz.de/Dateien/AP_150.pdf .
  • Thomas Bierschenk : 2014. From the anthropology of development to the anthropology of global social engineering. Journal of Ethnology 139 (1): 73–98.
  • Christoph Campregher : Change of perspective: three paradigms of development anthropology and the actor-network theory. In: Austrian Studies in Social Anthropology. No. 3, 2008, ISSN  1815-3704 ( PDF file; 112 kB; 29 pages on univie.ac.at; info ).
  • Arturo Escobar : Encountering Development, the making and unmaking of the Third World. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1995 (English).
  • Arturo Escobar: Anthropology and Development. In: International Social Science Journal. Volume 154, 1997, pp. 497-515 (English)
  • Katy Gardner , David Lewis Gardner : Anthropology, Development and the Post-Modern Challenge. Pluto, Chicago 1996 (English).
  • John Isbister : Promise Not Kept. The Betrayal of Social Change in the Third World. 4th edition. Kumarian, West Hartford 1998 (English).
  • J.-P. Olivier de Sardan : Anthropologie et développement. Essai en socio-anthropologie du changement social. Karthala, Paris 1995 (French; English translation: Anthropology and Development. Understanding contemporary social change. Zed, London 2005).
  • FJ Schuurman : Beyond the Impasse. New Direction in Development Theory. Zed Books, London 1993 (English).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Arturo Escobar : Anthropology and Development. In: International Social Science Journal. Volume 154, 1997, pp. 497-515, here pp. 498 and 505, cited in: Marc Edelman, Angelique Haugerud (ed.): The Anthropology of Development and Globalization. From Classical Political Economy to Contemporary Neoliberalism. Blackwell, Oxford et al. a. 2005, ISBN 0-631-22879-9 , p. 40 (English; full text: PDF file; 2.2 MB; 416 pages on direitosehumanos.wordpress.com): “Why are these distinctions disputed? Even Arturo Escobar - once one of development anthropology's strongest critics - by 1997 suggested that any boundary between the anthropology of development and development anthropology is "newly problematic and perhaps obsolete" (1997: 498). [74] "Note 74:" Escobar also suggests that »[d] evolution of anthropology and the anthropology of development show each other their own flaws and limitations; it could be said that they mock each other "(Escobar 1997: 505)".
  2. ↑ Christoph Campregher : Change of perspective: Three paradigms of development anthropology and the actor-network theory. In: Austrian Studies in Social Anthropology. No. 3, 2008, ISSN 1815-3704 ( PDF file; 112 kB; 29 pages on univie.ac.at; info ).