Introducing the book "Developmental Anthropology: History, Theory, and Practical Tools"

For anthropology, development is not only a goal to strive for but also a broad subject matter in three aspects: research, application, and practice. Anthropologists often emphasize that development is not a single event but a process encompassing multiple understandings, concepts, contents, entities, levels, and regions, with a history spanning decades. Thus, development includes many different dimensions: housing, sanitation, health, clean water, education, food security, conservation, employment, empowerment, poverty reduction, the ability to influence policy-making, and many other issues. Anthropology's interest in and connection with development also encompasses different approaches and levels, which can be summarized into three basic directions. The first direction is that academic anthropologists take development issues as their subject of study (anthropological research on development). The second approach involves anthropologists applying anthropological knowledge and methods to solve practical development problems (applied anthropology in development). The third approach involves anthropologists participating in policy formulation, policy management, policy implementation, policy monitoring, and policy/program/project evaluation (practical anthropology in development).

The studies compiled in this book address all three aforementioned developmental approaches of anthropology from historical, theoretical, and practical perspectives. This is a collection of articles that will help anthropology students and readers gain a deeper and more systematic understanding of an important field of study: Developmental Anthropology.

Index

Introduction: What is development anthropology?

Nguyen Van Suu

Part 1: History and Theory

1. Reaffirming Applied Anthropology: Past, Present, and Future

Barabara Rylko-Bauer, Merrill Singer, John van Willigen

2. Challenges of Applied Anthropology

Paul Sillitoe

3. Anthropology in Development

John van Willigen, Elaine Drew, Carol Jo Evans, Elizabeth Williams

4. Discourses on development: An anthropological perspectives

RD Grillo

5. From participatory observation to participatory development: Making anthropology effective

Paul Sillitoe

6. The role of ethnographic description: The role of ethnographic description in project evaluation.

Johan Pottier

7. Anthropology and Development: Critical Frameworks

Thomas Yarrow and Soumhya Venkatesan

8. Sustainable Livelihood Frameworks: A Comprehensive Analysis of Development and Poverty Reduction

Nguyen Van Suu

Part 2: Practical Tools

9. Overview of the social impact assessment process

John Western and Mark Lynch

10. Participatory rural assessment

John van Willigen, Hussein Mahmoud

11. Action research and participatory action research

Elaine Drew, Wini P. Utari, John van Willigen

12. Collaborative research

John van Willigen

13. Cultural brokers

John van Willigen

14. Cultural action

Barbara A. Cellarius, Deborah Crooks, Patricia Kannapel, Julianna McDonald, Cynthia Reeves, John van Willigen

15. Social marketing

John van Willigen

16. Development projects and land conflicts: Some issues concerning anthropological research methods.

Nguyen Van Suu