David W. Brokensha - Anthropology Of Development And Change In East Africa

Under the General Editorship of DAVID W. BROKENSHA MICHAEL M HOROWITZ and THAYER SCUDDER

Sponsored by the Institute for Development Anthropology

Anthropology and Rural Development in West Africa, edited by Michael M Horowitz and Thomas M. Painter

Lands at Risk in the Third World: Local-Level Perspectives, edited by Peter D. Little and Michael M Horowitz, with A. Endre Nyerges

Anthropology of Development and Change in East Africa, edited by David W. Brokensha and Peter D. Little

Anthropology and Development in North Africa and the Middle East, edited by Muneera Salem-Murdock and Michael M Horowitz (forthcoming)

First published 1988 by Westview Press

Published 2018 by Routledge

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Copyright 1988 by Taylor & Francis

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Anthropology of development and change in East Africa/edited by

David W. Brokensha and Peter D. Little.

p. cm.(Monographs in development anthropology)

Bibliography: p.

Includes index.

ISBN 0-8133-7243-7

1. Economic development projectsAfrica, EastCase studies.

2. Agricultural development projectsAfrica, EastCase studies.

3. Community developmentAfrica, EastCase studies.

4. AnthropologyAfrica, East. I. Brokensha, David W. II. Little,

Peter D. III. Series.

HC860.Z9E443 1988

338.9676dc19

88-16917
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-01083-6 (hbk)

East Africa

The editors are grateful for the editing and production assistance of a number of IDA staff members, especially Sylvia Horowitz, who copyedited the entire manuscript and supervised its transformation for computer-generated typesetting. Vivian Carlip gave a second editorial reading, Cecily ONeil helped with production, the manuscript was proofread by Vera Beers-Tyler, and Peter Daly designed the map on the following page.

To the contributors, of course, goes our greatest appreciation, for their gracious cooperation in making requested revisions as well as for the content of their work.

David W. Brokensha
Peter D. Little

Peter D. Little and David W. Brokensha

Current discussions of development and change in East Africa are dominated by themes of stagnant agricultural production, ecological crisis, overextended state enterprise, and a worsening debt situation (Commins et al. 1986; Green 1985; Timberlake 1985). These premises, often only assumed to be accurate descriptions of reality, monopolize the policy dialogue among donor, government, and development planners and shape the development environment within which anthropologists currently work. This environment in certain respects differs from that of the 1970s, when the number of anthropologists involved in development activitieseither as consultants, researchers, or project managersincreased exponentially (cf. Hoben 1982). While continuities clearly exist, development anthropologists increasingly will have to be cognizant of the macroeconomic and larger institutional contexts within which rural development activities take place. Social soundness analysis, which has been the domain of the anthropologist, will have to be broadened to pay closer attention to linkages between local-level phenomena and the policy and institutional reforms that are taking place at national and international levels.

The realities of East Africa in the 1980s, a period marked by continued armed conflict and famine in certain countries, pose challenges to anthropology, and to development anthropology in particular. They challenge the very theories, methods, and practices of the discipline. What do anthropological method and theory have to say about institutional reform, food aid, agricultural price policy, and hunger (the last of which has received some attention from anthropologists: Scudder 1962 and Torry 1984)? What has been the experience of practicing anthropologists working in East Africa on development issues in the 1980s? How have the new development initiatives of the 1980s, which emphasize policy dialogue and sectoral programs, affected the work of anthropologists in the region? These and other questions with equally dramatic implications for local populations are addressed in this book.