Жан-Пьер Оливье Де Сардан

Jean-Pierre OLIVIER de SARDAN works in Niger (he has Nigerien and French citizenships), and is among the founders of LASDEL, Laboratory for Study and Research on Social Dynamics and Local Development, in Niamey (www.lasdel.net). He is also Professor of anthropology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and Emeritus director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France).

He has authored numerous books in French on African issues, concerning a specific society and culture in Sahel (see "Les sociétés songhay-zarma", Niger, Mali, 1984); local powers and local arenas (see "Les pouvoirs au village: le Bénin rural entre démocratisation et décentralisation", with T. Bierschenk, 1998 ; and "Une ethnographie de la culture électorale au Niger", 2015); and medical anthropology (see "Une médecine inhospitalière. Les difficiles relations entre soignants et soignés dans cinq capitales d'Afrique de l'Ouest", with Y. Jaffré, 2003 ; and "Une politique publique de santé et ses contradictions. La gratuité des soins au Burkina Faso, au Mali et au Niger", with V. Ridde, 2014.).

His recent book ("La revanche des contextes. Des mésaventures de l’ingénierie sociale, en Afrique et au-delà", 2021, Karthala, or "Traveling models and Practical Norms. The Misadventures of Social Engineering, in Africa and Beyond", Berghahn 2025), which is the most elaborate one, synthesizes the research conducted by LASDEL over the past 30 years on social engineering in Africa, while opening a dialogue with the scientific literature in development anthropology, sociology of organizations, political science and public health

He is particularly concerned by the delivery of public goods and services, various modes of governance, and the implementation of public policies in Africa, in relation with development institutions or national states and bureaucracies, as shown by six books he has published in English on these topics: "Anthropology and development", London, Zed Books, 2005; "Everyday corruption and the State. Citizens and public officials in Africa", edited with G. Blundo, London, Zed Books, 2006; "States at Work. The Dynamics of African Bureaucracies", edited with T. Bierschenk, Leyden, Brill 2014; "Real Governance and Practical Norms in Sub-Saharan Africa The game of the rules", edited with T. de Herdt, Routledge, 2015; "Cash Transfers in Context. An anthropological perspective", edited with E. Piccoli, Berghahn 2018.

His book "Epistemology, fieldwork and anthropology", Palgrave, 2015 (previously published in French: "La rigueur du qualitatif, Les contraintes empiriques de l’interprétation socio-anthropologique, ", 2005), deals specifically with methodological and epistemological issues, concerning the policy of fieldwork and the empirical constraints of anthropological interpretations. Ethnographic approaches and qualitative methods are particularly suitable for in-depth and processual investigations on such topics, as evidenced by his concept of “practical norms’ which allows grasping the unexpected effects of external interventions and the informal regulations of non-compliant practices of local actors, and understanding the “revenge of the contexts” in front of standardized models of change.

He has been also dialoging for many years with development practioners and public authorities in Niger, in order to promote rigorous qualitative diagnosis as a way towards reforms from the inside, grounded in local contexts.

His last book ("L’enchevêtrement des crises au Sahel. Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso", 2023) brings together, around an unpublished chapter, various articles published in African and French newspapers on the social and political situation in the Sahel. It combines social science analysis with the views of a committed citizen.

He has of course published numerous articles in international scientific journals, in French (in L’Homme, Revue Française de Sociologie, Terrains, Journal des Africanistes, Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines, Politique Africaine, Revue Tiers Monde, Revue Internationale d’Etudes du Développement, Afrique contemporaine, Critique Internationale, Revue Canadienne d’Etudes du Développement, Ethnologie française, Autrepart, Anthropologie et Société, Revue Projet, Incidences, Global Africa) and in English (in Human Organization, Sociologia Ruralis, Current Anthropology, Critique of Anthropology, Anthropology and Medicine, Visual Anthropology, Africa, Africa Spectrum, The Journal of Modern African Studies, IDS Bulletin, Health Research Policy and Systems, BMC Health Service, Routledge Handbook of African Politics, Research, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, The Oxford Handbook of the African Sahel).