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While ethnographic research can be carried out from a variety of political positionings, we plead for a ‘critical reformist’ stance, on the intersection of pure, applied and radical anthropology. We trace this positioning back to Max Weber and Karl Popper, for whom the essence of social science was to critically accompany policy processes by identifying all intended and unintended outcomes of policies. We also situate it in relation to various strands of contemporary policy ethnography. Our approach starts from the conception of a policy, reform, intervention or project as a space of confrontation of a variety of strategic groups at all stages in the policy cycle. The principle of epistemic equity tells us to give equal weight to all actors’ representations and practices. We also argue that the dimension of ‘going public’ needs to be given as much weight as the dimensions of fieldwork and writing in ethnographic research. The conception of social engineering as a political arena will also help researchers to think more strategically about how and when to engage with different types of publics in different stages of the research process.

Development anthropology and social engineering: a plea for critical reformism