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)

An unprecedented overview of anthropological and political science research on vigilantism in Africa which makes an important and innovative contribution to current discussions on the relationship between violent self-justice andstate and non-state agencies. Self-justice and legal self-help groups have been gaining importance throughout Africa. The question of who is entitled to formulate 'legal principles', enact 'justice', police 'morality' and sanction 'wrongdoings' has increasingly become a subject of controversy and conflict. These conflicts focus on the strained relationship between state sovereignty and citizens' self-determination. More particularly, they concern the conditions, modes and means of thelegitimate execution of power, and in this volume are seen as a diagnostics as to how social actors in Africa debate and practise socio-political order. State agencies try to bring vigilante groups under control by channelling their activities, repressing them, or using them for their own interests. Vigilante groups usually must struggle for recognition and acceptance in local socio-political spheres. As several of the contributions in the volume show, legal self-help groups in Africa therefore 'domesticate' themselves by, among other things, seeking legitimation, engaging in publicly acceptable non-vigilante activities, or institutionalizing what often began as a rather unrestrained and 'disorderly' social movement. Thomas G. Kirsch is Professor & Chair of Social & Cultural Anthropology at the University of Constance, Germany; Tilo Gratz is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Hamburg, Germany & Associate Lecturer at the University of Halle-Wittenberg.

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.