David Brokensha, second part

0:05:05 Did joint study with Bernard in Kenya over a period of 18 years on the Mbeere; at the University of Ghana met David Apter who was a political scientist who had done studies in Ghana and Uganda from Berkeley; he ran the first Peace Corp training programme for a group of 40 teachers to come to Ghana and in 1962 invited me to direct the training programme at Berkeley; first experience of California; invited Bernard for his expertize as a geographer in Ghana and we ran 6 week course; as a result of this Apter suggested a move to Berkeley; from 1963 had an appointment with Apter and Seymour Martin Lipset who were directors of the Institute of International Studies; had an administrative post so stayed at Berkeley while Bernard still working on his PhD at Indiana; by this time my mother getting frail and had joined me; had a very pleasant house in Berkeley; Bernard joined us during vacations; after three years Apter advised me to get an academic post but there was no opening at Berkeley, partly because Apter was persona non grata with the anthropologists and partly because they had enough African anthropologists; applied to Santa Barbara, a smaller college, but very happy there as we had a lot of freedom; Charles Erasmus, the first Chairman, let us teach what we liked once the introductory courses had been done; I succeeded Charles after two year in 1969, a year of increasing student protest against the Vietnam war; in the department we had hired a South American anthropologist for two years and in his last year he became radicalized saying grades were capitalist emblems and was giving students A+ for a doll of a Vietnamese child bombed by the Americans; his contract not renewed but the students said we had fired him and I as Chair became the villain; half the students signed a petition saying that Bill Allen should be reinstated and that I should be fired; ironic as Bill Allen and I were the most radical in the department and often saw each other at anti-war rallies but I have always worked from within the system; bruising year so decided to go away

6:20:10 Bernard had been offered a post in a prestigious department of geography at Berkeley but had come to  Santa Barbara instead; he was not happy there and resigned after a couple of years; to be able to stay with me he took a library degree but no post and eventually became a lecturer in new department of environmental studies which was formed in 1974 after an oil spill; after a year I joined him getting 50% time in anthropology and 50% in environmental studies; we taught a joint course on environmental problems of the third world; most of our colleagues concentrated on North America with a little bit about Europe and Japan; we continued to teach together until we retired in 1989; Bernard handled the physical aspects while I dealt with the social environment; meanwhile I was teaching courses on social change in Africa, on minorities, apartheid, discrimination, also taught a graduate course on development; I was one of the first to do so; colleagues supported me though a diverse group; many of my students went on to teach development studies or into relevant posts; at the same time I was a director for 25 years of a non-profits institute for development anthropology with Michael Horowitz and Thayer Scudder with the aim of encouraging government agencies, World Bank etc. to use experts on our roster of development anthropologists, many from developing countries, who were available for consultation and advice; United States Agency for International Development  introduced a requirement that all projects had to have a social soundness analysis from 1978; ideally anthropologists should be involved from the start and be there monitor and evaluate at the end; USAID at one time had 60 anthropologists but unfortunately many became bureaucrats and seldom spent time in the field; when I left the Director had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru which made an enormous difference as Americans are often insular

13:23:18 On development anthropology, in Britain some anthropologists remained sceptical; 1982-4 spent in London as Director of the University of California student exchange programme and Isaac Schapera encouraged me to get an affiliation with L.S.E. but told there was some objection as I was known to be doing development; for me it has been fulfilling; colleague Ted Scudder is probably the world expert on forced resettlement of people particularly as a result of man-made dams; he was involved in Three Gorges Dam from the beginning with the Canadian contractors and through him more provision was made for schools etc. though their lives are still miserable; we are not just band aid people but believe we have had some influence on policy of World Bank etc.; World Bank's chief sociologist for a number of year was a Romanian, Michael Cernea, who wrote a book called 'Putting People First' and had been responsible for appointments of anthropologists to many senior positions in the World Bank; I am proud of that; some anthropologists, Arturo Escobar and James Ferguson, are very sceptical about development; their line seems to be that development is fundamentally disruptive and wrong; many like Escobar come from a left-wing, Marxist, point of view and believe that development is run by capitalists for capitalists; this has not been my line; going back to Rhodesia, the Government before Ian Smith was fairly racist but we worked within it to make changes; I have always been a gradualist

17:09:01 Accepted post in Kenya as an area evaluator for a special rural development programme; area of low potential near the Tana River; asked to be sent there as I knew no African social scientist would want to go there and it was like Handani in Tanzania where I had been, another marginal area; spent 15 months there the  first time and Bernard took leave and was with me for 9 months; I was employed by the Government of Kenya and University of Nairobi; some successes but the project was not adequately planned; wanted pastoralists to  form communal ranches but nobody asked them and they failed; at Bernard's suggestion we applied to do a joint study of social and ecological change in this Mbeeri division and were able to get National Science Foundation grants and came out for two periods of about a year each in the 1970's; went back again whenever we could so that over an 18 year period we monitored the changes; focused on changes in vegetation as people had told us that deforestation was occurring at quite a rapid rate, partly due to increased population, partly encouragement to make charcoal which destroyed hardwood trees; published two volume book, one a botanical dictionary of trees; very impressed by indigenous knowledge; we became instant pioneers in social forestry; 1975 Eric Ekholm wrote a book called 'The Other Energy Crisis', the main being oil, this on deforestation; became focus for our work; forestry department's response was to encourage communal wood lots which seldom worked as there was a mistaken assumption that there was a cooperative community; this was main reason for the collapse of Nyerere's Ujamaa programme which was also founded on this belief; they will cooperate within the family group but in a village there are always feuds and factions; also women expected to do all the work in raising the trees but the men took the profit when selling; tried to encourage local foresters to ask the indigenous people what they knew about trees; one example was 'melia volkensii' which we had seen growing in straight rows, obviously planted by local farmers; asked a forester why they did not grow them and told it was far too difficult to germinate and they planted eucalyptus and pine which the locals didn't like; asked a local how did it and told that goats ate the seeds and enzymes in the goat's stomach allowed the seeds found in their excreta to germinate; melia is a multipurpose tree providing shade, goats eat the fruit, and a good hardwood for building; in 1980 coedited with Mike Warren whom I'd first met as a Peace Corps volunteer 'Indigenous Knowledge and Development'; one of the first such and many contributors were influenced by Robert Chambers at Sussex; idea that indigenous knowledge was a useful add-on, not an alternative to Western knowledge; had some difficulty persuading not only the World Bank but also African scientists

26:04:05 Retired 1989 and decided to move to Engand as Bernard unwell and had no medical aid provision in U.S.; in 1995 University of California allowed me to put Bernard onto my medical aid as my long-term partner and also given pension rights; spent ten years in Britain giving talks etc.; was active with Sandra Wallman in the group on applied anthropology; did a lot of traveling, exploring the world; also enjoyed opera etc.; 1999 went to South Africa, mainly for Bernard's health, but also I am fourth generation South African; settled in Cape Town, at Fish Hoek, where we lived for five years until Bernard died; that was two years ago but Bernard told me to get on with life so now traveling round the world; I do remain somewhat involved, Martin West and Mugsy Spiegel of University of Cape Town arranged for me to be an honorary professor in the department of anthropology; very good small department; Owen Sichone my Zambian colleague very active in development and occasionally I talk to his class if he is away; stimulating department where they discuss issues such as health, AIDS, poverty and housing, all relevant to South Africa; also discuss race, a topic that people feel uncomfortable discussing; I go for the weekly seminar; the piece I have done on Monica Wilson is probably my last publication

30:45:18 Memories of Evans-Pritchard; Polly Hill; Meyer Fortes; Lucy Mair; Audrey Richards; Isaac Schapera