HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Ulrich Schiefer (born September 10, 1952, in
Lauffen am Neckar Lauffen am Neckar (, ) or simply Lauffen is a town in the district of Heilbronn, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is on the river Neckar, southwest of Heilbronn. The town is famous as the birthplace of the poet Friedrich Hölderlin and for its q ...
) is a German rural and development sociologist and
anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
. His main interests are development policy and international development cooperation, especially their impact on
sub-Saharan Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...
Africa.


Biography

Ulrich Schiefer studied sociology with Christian Sigrist and
Song A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usu ...
Du-yul at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in
Münster Münster (; ) is an independent city#Germany, independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a ...
,
Social anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...
with Rüdiger Schott and Ulrich Köhler,
Sinology Sinology, also referred to as China studies, is a subfield of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on China. It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the Chinese civilization p ...
with Ulrich Unger as well as
Communication studies Communication studies (or communication science) is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in differ ...
. After his
Magister degree A magister degree (also magistar, female form: magistra; from , "teacher") is an academic degree used in various systems of higher education. The magister degree arose in medieval universities in Europe and was originally equal to the doctorate; ...
in sociology (1977) on
Agricultural cooperative An agricultural cooperative, also known as a farmers' co-op, is a producer cooperative in which farmers pool their resources in certain areas of activities. A broad typology of agricultural cooperatives distinguishes between agricultural servic ...
s in the
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, he worked as a United Nations
volunteer Volunteering is an elective and freely chosen act of an individual or group giving their time and labor, often for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency ...
in
urban Urban means "related to a city". In that sense, the term may refer to: * Urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas * Urban culture, the culture of towns and cities Urban may also refer to: General * Urban (name), a list of people ...
and
regional In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...
planning in
Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, is a country in West Africa that covers with an estimated population of 2,026,778. It borders Senegal to Guinea-Bissau–Senegal border, its north and Guinea to Guinea–Guinea-Bissau b ...
. On his return, he studied the establishment of colonial commercial and administrative structures and their transformation in the post-colonial period in Guinea-Bissau for his Doctorate (PhD) (1984). In 2000, he obtained his
Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...
(state doctorate) in Münster on " Dissipative Economy: Development Cooperation and the Collapse of African Agrarian Societies“. In 2013, he obtained another habilitation in sociology at the ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon.


Professional career

From 1986, he was the
research assistant A research assistant (RA) is a researcher employed, often on a temporary contract, by a university, research institute, or privately held organization to provide assistance in academic or private research endeavors. Research assistants work under ...
at the Institute for Sociology at the University of Münster, where he led the
field research Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct fi ...
of the project "Agrarian Societies and Rural Development Policies in Guinea-Bissau" which was directed by Christian Sigrist and funded by the
Volkswagen Foundation The Volkswagen Foundation (German: ''VolkswagenStiftung'') is the largest German private nonprofit organization involved in the promotion and support of academic research. It is not affiliated to the present company, the Volkswagen Group. It wa ...
. This was followed by the establishment of a national research center in Guinea-Bissau. Basic research on the changes of war-traumatised agricultural societies and post-colonial development models as well as applied research for development agencies formed the starting point for new theoretical and methodological approaches to development policy. He advised several
international organisations An international organization, also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is an organization that is established by a treaty or other type of instrument governed by international law and possesses its own leg ...
, particularly in the fields of
Regional development Regional development refers to a broad category of policies aimed at reducing regional disparities within an economy or across economies by devoting resources to underdeveloped areas. Regional development can be national or international in natur ...
, planning and evaluation, organisation and network development. He carried out field research in Guinea-Bissau,
Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...
,
Cape Verde Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...
and
Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...
and supported the introduction of the planning and evaluation methodology he developed in the successor states of the former
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
as well as in Portugal. The main focus of his academic teaching activities are development and humanitarian interventions and their impact on the disintegration of African societies as well as organisational development. From 2002 to 2013 he was lecturer (
Privatdozent ''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualifi ...
) at the Institute for Sociology at the University of Münster and in 2014 guest professor at the
University of Graz The University of Graz (, formerly: ''Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz'') is a public university, public research university located in Graz, Austria. It is the largest and oldest university in Styria, as well as the second-largest and second-old ...
. Since 1993 he is professor at the ISCTE (-IUL) in Lisbon, focusing on
African studies African studies is the study of Africa, especially the continent's cultures and societies (as opposed to its geology, geography, zoology, etc.). The field includes the study of Africa's History of Africa, history (pre-colonial, Colonisation of Af ...
and organisational development. From 2011 to 2016, he was coordinator of a Master's course in African Studies and a Postgraduate Course in Organisational Development in Public Administration at the ISCTE (-IUL). Since 2016 he is director of the doctoral course in African studies.


Research


Field research in Africa

As the last countries in Africa, the
Portuguese colonies The Portuguese Empire was a colonial empire that existed between 1415 and 1999. In conjunction with the Spanish Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It achieved a global scale, controlling vast portions of the Americas, Africa ...
reached their independence after a ten-year
war of independence Wars of national liberation, also called wars of independence or wars of liberation, are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) ...
, which was only ended by the
Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution (), code-named Operation Historic Turn (), also known as the 25 April (), was a military coup by military officers that overthrew the Estado Novo government on 25 April 1974 in Portugal. The coup produced major socia ...
in Portugal in 1974. Development aid together with
Military aid Military aid is aid which is used to assist a country or its people in its defense efforts, or to assist a poor country in maintaining control over its own territory. Many countries receive military aid to help with counter-insurgency efforts. Mi ...
, played an important role in the conflict between the rival
Great Powers A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power ...
in the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
for their spheres of interest in Africa. The inflow of international development aid, especially to Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, also opened up opportunities for the
social scientific Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the f ...
research of these societies by international scientists. The violent decolonisation led to long-lasting
Civil war A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
s in Angola and Mozambique and to a
Coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...
in Guinea-Bissau in 1998, followed by a one-year
Civil war A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
. Ulrich Schiefer conducted various interdisciplinary research projects, among others, on the potential for development of war traumatised African agrarian societies and the development strategies of post-colonial states in
West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...
, especially in Guinea-Bissau. The emergence of colonial trade and administrative structures and their continuity after independence provided the background for the continuity of the colonial
counter-insurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN, or NATO spelling counter-insurgency) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the ac ...
strategy in the development planning of the postcolonial state. He pointed out the failure of externally induced development strategies on African agrarian societies in numerous detailed investigations, among others, on post-harvest protection, on the development of industry and handicraft, on transport, on agrarian cooperatives, on the development cooperation of Portuguese civil society and on the impact of structural adjustment measures on the situation of African families. His fundamental criticism of development cooperation establishes a direct link between the development strategies – including their operational implementation through the project approach – and the collapse of African societies.


Theory of dissipative economy

The development strategies of the last decades have not led to the desired successes. Instead, numerous states in sub-Saharan Africa are in a continuous process of social disintegration. With his mainly sociological research on development, Schiefer wants to contribute to a theory of social collapse. He asks how far international aid is responsible for the destabilisation and collapse of post-colonial states and societies. On the basis of more than fifteen years of research, he analyses this nexus using the example of Guinea-Bissau. He reconstructs the overall socio-political developments, and examines the effects of development aid specifically on agrarian societies. Given the obvious failures of both theory and practice of development cooperation, based on the terminology and inspired by the work of Ilya Prigogines, Schiefer conceived the concept of "dissipative economy". In the seventies the chemist
Ilya Prigogine Viscount Ilya Romanovich Prigogine (; ; 28 May 2003) was a Belgian physical chemist of Russian-Jewish origin, noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility. Prigogine's work most notably earned him the 19 ...
studied the theory of non-equilibrium dynamics. Almost all the laws of classical physics were concerned with closed systems of equilibrium, which in practice are nearly non-existent. He studied open systems that continually exchange energy or matter with their environment, i.e. are not in
thermodynamic equilibrium Thermodynamic equilibrium is a notion of thermodynamics with axiomatic status referring to an internal state of a single thermodynamic system, or a relation between several thermodynamic systems connected by more or less permeable or impermeable ...
. In open systems spontaneous structures can form. Their existence depends decisively on the system parameters. Already small variations can destroy the order and the system goes over into a chaotic phase. Prigogine created the term dissipative structure. Since then, many scientists have confirmed that this model is applicable to any open system. In 1977 Prigogine received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his contribution to the theory of equilibrium irreversible dissipative structures. Schiefer's dissipative economy translates this approach to development cooperation and humanitarian aid. It thus provides an explanatory approach for the emergence and continuation of almost similar organisational landscapes in many, often very different, so-called developing countries. The development agencies, from the large international and national organisations to the small non-governmental organisations, thus appear as dissipative structures. They function only through the provision of a regular inflow of development aid. The funding of the internal players is guaranteed by an external inflow of money by the external agencies. These ensure their outflow through project funding and the like. These funds flow into a national economy mostly concentrated in the cities. There, they are then largely used in an unproductive manner. This whole sector of the economy which is dependent on a continuous external input Schiefer defines as dissipative economy.


Work on unsolved problems in Africa

Meticulous studies show the destructive and often irreversible effects of the international development policy, mainly based on technology transfer, on agrarian societies. The consequences are: decline in productivity, food crises, rapid urbanisation, political instability, forced migrations and violent conflicts which provide the background for post-colonial state failures and social disintegration in sub-Saharan Africa. This approach contributes to the theory about the collapse of societies. It describes the interactions between the development agencies and the respective national elites and their connection to the internal dynamics of African societies. Together with Marina Padrão Temudo, he introduced the concept of resilience into the debate on the disintegration and destruction of African agrarian societies. They investigated their resilience in times of crisis, in particular their ability to accommodate war refugees over extended periods of time. In this way, they showed an alternative to the establishment of refugee camps, which are often incubators of further violence and social destruction. Since 2008, he and Ana Larcher Carvalho have been conducting research on the link between development policy, migration and
Food security Food security is the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, healthy Human food, food. The availability of food for people of any class, gender, ethnicity, or religion is another element of food protection. Simila ...
. In 2015 he began to research about the
communication Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...
in and with African agrarian societies. Since 2017 they initiated international research on the nonadaptation of technology in African societies
Natas Project


Integrated planning and evaluation of projects (MAPA)

Schiefer developed an integrated planning and evaluation system for development and social intervention projects, "MAPA" (Method for Applied Planning and Assessment). MAPA handbooks have been published in four languages and are used in many countries. This system, based on a participatory approach, allows for the operational integration of evaluation and planning and provides an alternative to the Project cycle management criticised by Schiefer.''Projekti MAPA Udhezues praktik per planifikimin dhe vleresimin e integruar te projektit''
– PDF 768 kB
Social Science Open Access Repository
/ref>


Publications

* ''Integrated Evaluation of Change. A new perspective for planning and evaluation in multiple intervention environments''. Periploi, Lisboa 2008, . * with others: ''Facilitação – Gestão de Processos Participativos''. Principia, Cascais 2006, . * with others: ''MAPA – Manual de Planeamento e Avaliação de Projectos''. Principia, Cascais 2006, . * ''Von allen guten Geistern verlassen? Guinea Bissau: Entwicklungspolitik und der Zusammenbruch afrikanischer Gesellschaften''. IAK, Hamburg 2002, . * with Reinald Döbel: ''ПРОЕКТ МППА, Практическое руководство по Комплексному Проекту Планирования и Оценки, Авторы: Ульрих Шифер, Раиналд Дёбель, При содействии Лючинии Бал, еревод Татьяны Терещенко.''2002. * with Reinald Döbel: ''Projekti MAPA Udhezues praktik per planifikimin dhe vleresimin e integruar te projektit''. KES/FKSHC, Prishtine 2001, . * with Reinald Döbel: ''MAPA – Project. A Practical Guide to Integrated Project Planning and Evaluation''. OSI-IEP Publications, Budapest 2001, . * with others: ''A Cooperação da Sociedade Civil Portuguesa na Área da Solidariedade Social, CEA-ISCTE + Ministério de Solidariedade e Segurança Social (2 vols.)''. Lisboa, 179 + 218 p. * with Olavo Borges de Oliveira und Philip J. Havik: ''Armazenamento tradicional na Guiné-Bissau. Produtos, sementes e celeiros utilizados pelas etnias na Guiné-Bissau: Fascículo 1, Beafada; Fascículo 2, Mandinga; Fascículo 3, Nalú; Fascículo 4, Balante; Fascículo 5, Fula de Quebo''. Bissau – Lisboa – IFS, Münster 1996. ood Security and Compound Storage in Guinea-Bissau * ''Guiné-Bissau zwischen Weltwirtschaft und Subsistenz – Transatlantisch orientierte Strukturen an der oberen Guinéküste''. ISSA, Bonn 1986,


References


External links


Ulrich Schiefer at ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon

The Non-adaption of Adequate Technologies in African Societies - Research Project

Ulrich Schiefer at wordpress

MAPA manual (english)

pordentrodaafrica (Colaborador e investigador)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schiefer, Ulrich 1952 births People from Lauffen am Neckar German sociologists 21st-century German anthropologists Living people African studies Area studies scholars