Link to the video: Canal U de SENS
Conference organized by UMR SENS in Montpellier on September 27, 2022 around the book The revenge of contexts. Misadventures in social engineering in Africa and beyond (Karthala, 2022). Watch on the channel Canal U de SENS (in 4 parts).
Why are development projects, NGO interventions, and national public policies all subject to significant gaps between what was planned and what actually happens? This book provides a well-documented answer to this “gap problem.”
Standardized public policies, such as the development policies that are widespread in Africa, overlook the contexts in which they are implemented. In this confrontation, local actors play a major role. The multiple strategies used to circumvent official directives and protocols follow implicit “practical norms” that are ignored by international experts but can be revealed through field observation. This is a phenomenon that goes beyond development: it is as if Africa reveals, in an intensified form, a revenge of contexts that can be found across the world.
To analyze these processes, a dialogue is established between, on the one hand, particularly rich field data, and on the other, a broad body of social science literature revisited to better account for the observed realities.
The analysis is structured around several key concepts: traveling models, practical norms, modes of governance, and social logics. Entirely devoted to a rigorous analytical approach—without complacency or polemics—it nevertheless concludes by taking on the challenging question “what is to be done?”, suggesting that practical norms should be placed at the center of any intervention and that “contextual experts,” currently invisible, should be recognized and valued.
This book is a major contribution to the analysis of the unintended effects of public policies.
Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan is an emeritus research director at CNRS, a director of studies at EHESS, a researcher at LASDEL (Niger), and scientific coordinator of the Master’s program in the socio-anthropology of health at Abdou Moumouni University (Niger). Two of his many works have become international references: *Anthropology and Development* (Karthala, 1995) and *The Rigor of Qualitative Research* (Academia, 2008).