Traveling Models and Practical Norms

Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan is among the founders of LASDEL, Laboratory for Study and Research on Social Dynamics and Local Development, in Niamey. He is also Professor of Anthropology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. His latest publications include "Cash Transfers in Context. An anthropological perspective", (ed. with E.Piccoli), Berghahn 2018.

• Introduction: Anthropology of Social EngineeringChapter 1. Traveling Models and the Test of ContextsChapter 2. An Exploratory Concept: Practical NormsChapter 3. Case Study: Practical Norms in a Public Service (Niger)Chapter 4. Behind Practical Norms: The Plurality of Social LogicsChapter 5. The Delivery of Goods of General Interest: Modes of Governance and Delivery ConfigurationsChapter 6. The Bureaucratic-Statist Mode of GovernanceChapter 7. Towards Reform from WithinConclusion: The Perspective of Discordance, an Anthropology of Dissonances, Gaps, Contradictions and DiversitiesReferencesIndex

“This is a very worthwhile book … it brings together a new and very coherent argument around development. The sheer scale of Olivier de Sardan’s ground-level immersion in the issues over five decades lends the book an incomparable rigor and depth.” • David Lewis, London School of Economics“This is a valuable book by a leading anthropologist of development, statecraft, and bureaucracy in West Africa. It is clearly something of a culmination of a distinguished career, filled with insights gleaned from decades of work.” • Kevin Donovan, The University of Edinburgh