From the AnthropologyofDevelopment to the AnthropologyofGlobal Social Engineering Thomas Bierschenk Department of Anthropology and Modern African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Forum Universitatis 6, D-55099 Mainz Abstract. With thetransformation of development policy to global structural policy,the ‘old’ anthro- pology of development must become an anthropology of global social engineering. This involvesthe challengeoffocusing on the entire policy chain –from the production of development policy models in the context of the development agencies, to the different points of translation (for example,state ministries in the recipient countries and large international NGOs)and local intervention. From this perspective, the new development policy emerges as one of the contemporaryforms of producing the world. Interesting approaches existinGermany for such an ethnography of global social engineering. They have considerable implications for the entire discipline and its knowledge production practices. [Ethnography,Globalization, Epistemology, Development, Social Engineering] From the 1980s, adynamic anthropology of development emerged in Germany,the focus of which was the ethnographicstudy of development projects and brokers and research on the local consequences of development aid (Bierschenk 2014). The strengths of this ‘old’anthropology of development lay in its deconstruction of linear ideas about the implementationofdevelopment projects. One premise was anon-nor- mative conception of development: development is simply what the actors in the field designate as such and the social world in which they move. In accordance with Mal- inowski’s fundamental methodologicalparadigm for anthropology,Ialso treat ‘devel- opment’anemic, or actor’s concept, in this text. This German anthropology of development is integrated into averystrong Eur- opean network. It shares with European colleagues an approach comprising, to use the happy phrase coined by Crewe and Axelby (2013), an anthropology of develop- ment based on anthropology in development: many of its proponents have personal practical experience in the development world. Quite distinct from this German-Eur- opean network, an applied orientation exists in German-language development anthropology that rarely features at international level and focuses predominantly on the ethical issues surrounding development policy (Antweiler 2004; Bliss 2004, see http:/entwicklungsethnologie.org/); it is not being treated in this paper (however,see Bierschenk 2014). Nevertheless,the relationship of many German anthropologists to ‘development’is characterized by aparadox: until well into the 1980s the question as to whether ‘devel- Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 139 (2014) 73–98 2014 Dietrich Reimer Verlag 74 Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 139 (2014) opment’was actually alegitimate object for anthropology was highly disputed within the discipline. This dispute has, in effect, been resolved in the last three decades during which German anthropology caught up with global developments (Bierschenk, Krings, and Lentz 2013). German anthropology has become an anthropology of globalization while German anthropologists remain primarily interested in the local impacts of the globalizing forces ‘out there’. Today,German anthropology is mainly an anthropology of “Local Action in Africa (and elsewhere, TB) in the Context of Global Influences” (to refer to the title of acollaborative research programme at the University of Bayr- euth from 2000 to 2007). The anthropology of development in Germany has become differentiated in the course of this process. Instead of auniform research object, i. e. ‘development’, today,individual global policies are researched in transnational policy fields: for example, agricultural and environmental policies (Münsterand Münster 2012; Weisser et al. 2013), education policies (Fichtner 2010), health policies (Dilger and Hardon 2011; Kroeker 2012; Park 2012), gender policies (Feuerbach 2011), child policies (Alber 2012), cultural policies (Röschenthaler and Diawara 2011), immigra- tion and isolationist policies (Drotbohm 2011), legal policies (Eckert et al. 2012; Ran- deria 2003), resource policies (Hoinathy and Behrends 2014), security policies (Kirsch 2010), administrative policies (Werthmann and Schmitt 2008), etc. At the same time, development anthropology in Germany has unbounded itself: it is no longer ahyphe- nated anthropology but has arrived in the ‘center’ofthe discipline, so to speak, as one field within the anthropology of globalization. This anthropological interest in development and global structural policy corre- sponds to the relatively clearly defined occupational field of the anthropologicaldevel- opment expert –which is identified as acareer aspiration by many undergraduate stu- dents and an area of professional activity actually attained by quite afew of them (Barthel and Bierschenk 2013). The battle for the recognition of anthropology’s use- fulness for development by development practitioners, which has been waged in Ger- many since the 1970s, has been largely won. There is widespread consensus today that development projects and policies need to be based on detailed knowledge of the social dynamics on which development interventions are based, and that, for the countries of the global South, anthropology is often the only disciplinethat can deliver this type of knowledge. The paradox lies in the fact that the unbounding and mainstreaming of develop- ment anthropology in Germany largely coincide with avague sense of unease with the concept of ‘development’. This unease is not being explored theoretically,however.It does not originate from areflective examinationofpost-colonialtheory(which re- ceives verylittle attention in Germany,see Ziai 2010b; Münster 2012). Indeed, it is not even expressed in written form; it tends to arise more in conversations and, more- over,implicitly.What appears to be involved here is alegacy of the vague discomfort about modernism that was characteristic of German anthropology up to the 1980s (Gingrich 2005; Haller 2012). The paradoxical effect of this is that even the many young anthropologists in Germany who are nowstudying the forms and effects of glo- Thomas Bierschenk: Anthropology of Development 75 bal social engineering are reluctant to allowtheir research to be described ‘anthropology of development’. Anthropologists are also hardly involved in the rare interdisciplinary German centers and courses for development research. If these centers and courses are not already monodisciplinary, they tend to be dominated by economists, and/or poli- tical scientists or geographers who do not generally perceive anthropology as an inter- esting dialogue partner. In this contribution, Iwill argue that the transformation of development policy since the 1980s from aproject-based approach focusing on capital transfers to global structural policy impacts the anthropology of development.1 The age of ‘development’ which began after the Second World Wardid not come to ahalt after 1990 (contrast Ziai 2010a). The central development agencies, e. g. World Bank, KfW (the German government development bank), GIZ (German Federal Agency for International De- velopment), Brot für die Welt (Bread for the World, Protestant Development Service) continue to exist, and the volume of financial transfers has increased, and still exceeds remittances and foreign investments in Africa.2 Moreover,the main targets of global structural policy remain the states and societies of the global South. However,after 1990, the development-policy approaches expanded: the keywords associated with this expansion include sectoral approaches,budgetaryaid, structural policy,good govern- ance, new public management,Millennium Development Goals, etc. With this change in development policy,the ‘old’anthropology of development must also expand to include the ethnographic research of global policies and become an anthropology of global social engineering. Methodologically,this involves the chal- lenge of focusing on the entire policy chain –from the productionofdevelopment policy models in the context of the development agencies, to the different translation points (for example, state ministries in the recipient countries and large international NGOs) and local intervention points. From this perspective, the new development policy emerges as one of the contemporary forms of producing the world –along with others such as, for example, market, finance, media, religion. Interesting approaches exist in Germany for such an ethnography of global social engineering. They have con- siderable implications for the entire discipline and its knowledge production practices. 1 Empirically,this contribution is rooted primarily in African Studies, afact that will become clear from the examples presented and literature cited. It builds on previousreflections (Elwert and Bierschenk 1988; Bierschenk, Elwert, and Kohnert 1991, 1993; Bierschenk 2008, 2014), my practical experience in the development world (mainly with ILO and GIZ) and it incorporates many (mostly French-language) discussions on this topic held in the context of APAD (www.association-apad.org/), see, in particular,Olivier de Sardan 2001, 2005). Fortheir critical comments on earlier versions of this text, Iwould like to thank Andrea Behrends, Nora Brandecker,Sarah Fichtner,Jeannett Martin, Ursu- la Rao, EvaSpies and Katja Werthmann. Iwould also like to thank Susan Cox for the translation from Germanand Alessa Wilhelm for research and