Anthropotechnological Practice and Time Politics in the Development Industry

This chapter aims to understand the particularities of the anthropotechnological approach in order to combine the ethnographic, bureaucratic and productive temporalities at work in the realization of projects aligned with this approach. Based on the case of an international cooperation project concerning sociotechnological innovation in matters of management and supervision of access to water, it begins by referring to the argument according to which the cotemporality valued by ethnographic practice makes it possible to rethink cooperation practices. The chapter focuses on time-power relationship, and the modes of action of the anthropotechnological approach on this relationship. It addresses ethnographic and bureaucratic temporalities before focusing on the interstitial position of the practitioner of anthropotechnology between the 'two worlds of designers and users' to use Geslin's expression, between their two respective temporalities. The chapter also presents Tanzanian example to show how it is, nevertheless, possible to reconcile these two temporalities by adopting an anthropotechnological approach.