“Bureaucracy Kills So Many Things”: A conversation between Maia Green and Marja-Liisa Swantz

Professor Emerita Marja-Liisa Swantz is a scholar both in Social Anthropology and Development Studies, whose connections with Africa date back nearly six decades. Her special research interests are the anthropology of religion, and women and development, but one of her greatest lasting achievements may prove to be her pioneering work in participatory action research in Tanzania which she began back in the 60s.
As mentioned in the editorial note, the following exchange took place when Maia Green(Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester) was in Helsinki as opponent to a dissertation on female infertility among the Sukuma Nyamwezi in June of this year. The conversation came about because Professor Green had been asked to evaluate some development projects in Tanzania and she encountered a Tanzanian policy whereby development planning starts in villages, and participation by villagers has been introduced in several ways. Green became interested in the role Marja-Lisa Swantz had played in the original introduction of this policy and in her thoughts on the different modes of getting the villagers’ voices heard in local government (see Green’s contribution to the Forum, this issue). They were mutually interested in the relationship between the initiatives, participatory action research (PAR) and mainstream anthropology which has generally eschewed PAR because of its uneasy fit with academic and scientific standards. The conversation has been abbreviated due to space considerations, but this final version has been approved by both participants.