APAD's upcoming biennial international conference will be held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The theme of the conference is ‘engaging anthropology in development and social change: practices discourses and ethics'. Major challenges of engaging anthropology are to reconnect theory and practical application, and to create a platform for dialogue between a theoretically oriented, empirically grounded anthropology, and an anthropology directly applied to development and social change. Despite important works produced by scholars inside and outside the APAD-network, anthropological knowledge and analysis are often referred to, but much less practically integrated in, development interventions. Yet at a time when the boundaries between development aid and public expenses are fuzzier than ever, anthropological analysis is badly needed to understand and, by extension, influence development and social change. While this seems to be largely accepted, today the main challenge is how and by what means anthropology may engage in development in practical and concrete ways, while respecting scientific rigor and methodological requirements.
The Euro-African Association for the Anthropology of Social Change and Development (APAD) has since its establishment been firmly engaged in strengthening anthropological research on development issues and has developed ways of combining scientific rigour and social commitment. The issue of engagement has re-emerged as a key debate in anthropology as a whole. The theme of the 2010 APAD Conference in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, is a way to return to the issue of engaging anthropology in development and social change.
You are all warmly welcome to the APAD conference in Ouagadougou!