Over the last decade West African villages, rural towns, and urban neighbourhoods have experienced changes resulting from democratisation and decentralisation processes. While much hope was invested in decentralisation policies in the 1990s, today there is a need to look at everyday decentralisation practices. In this volume, authors of different scholarly backgrounds focus on political, economic and cultural aspects of decentralisation. By exploring party politics, water provision, schooling, territorial division and cultural understanding the case-studies highlight core stakes and fundamental contradictions of present-day decentralisation in West Africa.

The present APAD Bulletin contains a selection of papers presented at the APAD 2010 Conference in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on the theme "Engaging Anthropology for Development and Social Change: Practices, Discourses and Ethics." Anthropological engagements face important challenges at the interface of research and development. The different ways by which anthropologists take on societal problems - either in their research capacity, as development experts, as activists, or as citizen - are inscribed in a longstanding debate. In this APAD Bulletin, the contributors deal with the central questions of how and under which conditions anthropology engages with society. The papers range from epistemological reflections and methodological queries to the anthropology of per diem and of public health, as well as to practical problems confronting anthropologists engaged in development cooperation. [PLEASE NOTE: This volume's Introduction is in English text. The remaining text is French language text only. There is no English translation.] (Series: APAD Bulletin - Vol. 34)

First published in 1961, shortly after establishment of the independent Somali Republic, the first step towards the formation of a 'Greater Somalia', brought this North-East African Muslim nation a prominence which it had not enjoyed since the British campaigns against the 'Mad Mullah' in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Somali nationalism, however, cannot be properly understood without a knowledge of the indigenous social organization. This study by a social anthropologist describes the political system of the Northern Somali nomads in their arid ecological setting, where competition for access to water and pasture, especially in the dry season, is acute and leads to frequent and often long-drawn-out feuds. In this warlike society political status depends very largely on numerical strength. Political loyalties based on kinship are organized through a form of Social Contract which distinguishes the pastoral Somali political system from otherwise similar political structures. Today this traditional organization is being challenged in areas where cultivation has recently been adopted, and in towns which are the foci of modern developments. Somali nationalism, drawing much of its strength from the unifying force of Islam, is an important factor. With the continued dedication of the majority of the population to pastoral nomadism, however, traditional clan and contractual loyalties inevitably play an important part in party politics. This analysis has proved to be of interest not only to anthropologists and Africanists, but also to students of Islamic society and of comparative political institutions.