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AbstractIn northern Orissa, official messages about government schemes and UN millennium development goals arrive in the villages; but the subsequent action is perceived as unpredictable, with latent costs, and often not matched to community demands. Messages sent by villagers illustrate the principle of 'self‐organizing connectivity'; they travel along complex, indeterminate, social routes yet arrive in good time and without charge; and bring new ways of coping with poverty. The research suggests that significant social development gains are at risk from over‐concentration on global millennium development goal supply targets. Insufficient attention is being paid to community demands. Context sensitive and democratised social analysis as a key part of implementation is recommended. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The implications of access analysis in Papua New Guinea are that people lack the knowledge and resources to be able to handle encounters and thus that their hand must be suitably strengthened. This means strengthening the hands of the "normal" disadvantaged access applicant through the provision of information about the interrelationship of administrative rules and resource allocation. A second reqirement of an improved administrative culture for access is the education of administrators to recognize that, however, well-intentioned they may be, they act in a system in which access encounters and persisting structures interrelate very closely. Through elucidation of the role of administrative routine in the definition and maintenance of culture and gender relations, administrators may come to see through their special ideologies to the culture beyond. (International Political Science Association)

SUMMARYAn extended editorial essay examines the nature of the basic needs debate, providing a context for the discussion taken up in subsequent articles. Particular and distracting attention is usually paid in that debate to national "count‐cost‐supply" exercises—assessing physical deficits and social targets and establishing the capacity to supply and ensure service delivery. But the emphasis should be rather on the systematic study of class and other political demands and their implications for 'basic needs' project formulation and implementation. The complexity and contingency of the linkages between needs should re‐focus the debate on the critical process of exclusion and the structure of demands for minima. The concern with basic needs is more than a new fashionable slogan but might be more effective if access to political and administrative institutions was at the top of its agenda and the rallying cry became 'essential guarantees'.RESUMENExigencias políticas y garantías fundamentales: EditorialEn este extenso ensayo editorial se examina el carácter del debate sobre las necesidades básicas que ofrece un ámbito para el estudio que se hace en artículos posteriores. Se suele prestar especial atención en dicho debate, que sólo sirve para distraer a los ejercicios nacionales sobre "numero‐costo‐efectivos" evaluándose los deficits fisicos y los objetivos sociales y estableciéndose la capacidad para proveer y garantizar la entrega de servicios. Pero debiera más bien ponerse de relieve el estudio sistemático de las exigencias de clases y otros tipos politicos y sus reper‐cusiones para formular y ejecutar proyectos sobre "necesidades básicas".La complejidad y contingencias de los vínculos entre las necesidades debieran permitir un reenfoque del debate sobre el proceso critico de la esclusión y la estructura de las demandas de mínimos. La preocupación con las necesidades básicas es algo más que un nuevo tema de moda pero podria ser más eficaz si en cabeza de su orden del día se colocase el acceso a las instituciones administrativas y politicas y el grito solidario fuera "las garantías fundamentales".RESUMEExigences politiques et garanties essentielles: éditorialCe long éditorial examine la nature du débat sur les besoins fondamentaux, fournit un contexte pour la discussion entamée dans les articles suivants. Dans ce débat il est en général prêté à tort une attention particulière aux exercices nationaux "compte‐coût‐fourniture", évaluant les déficits physiques et les objectifs sociaux et établissant la capacité à fournir et à assurer la prestation de services. Mais l'accent devrait plutôt porter sur l'étude systématique des exigences politiques de classes et autres et leurs implications pour la formulation et la mise en oeuvre de projets de "besoins fondamentaux". La complexité et la contingence des liens entre les besoins devraient ré‐orienter le débat sur le processus critique de l'exclusion et de la structure des demandes pour un minimum. L'intérêt porté aux besoins fondamentaux est plus qu'un slogan à la mode, mais serait peut‐être plus efficace si l'accès aux instititutions politiques et administratives était en tête de ses priorités et si le cri de ralliement devenait "garantie essentielle".

Classic ethnographic monographs on eastern India had pinpointed profound changes in political organization. In recent decades, ethnography has avoided policy-relevant research in line with a general narrowing of research. Current donor interests in governance reform have created new opportunities. In Orissa, the authors have researched trends in governance and can confirm a major disjuncture between community structures and government rule, so supporting a trend and social analysis that others have too readily dismissed as "anarcho-communitarian". The tribal villagers studies were wary of all rule, and experienced the state as a site of humiliation rather than of empowerment. They were expected to respect the officials as "proxy parents" but would not, as uncouth aborigines, be treated in turn as "sons". The type of governance reform envisaged by donors depends on officialdom with a lighter touch. This will require ethnographic understanding and intensive inputs to counter tenacious ideas of rule over non-equivalent citizens. (DSE/GIGA)

SUMMARY It may be worth examining the developing countries' experience of urban development for lessons to apply to Britain. A major difference is that in Britain housing and related services are treated as fully established social sectoral concerns. This 'welfare monism' is institutionalised and obscures the complex relationships between employment and housing. In the Third World social service programmes are less likely to obscure the policymakers' understanding of employment opportunities, class alignment and the ambiguities of state intervention. The attempt to slow London's growth and to develop new towns shows the contradictions which arise when policies for the redirection of employment and policies for social welfare provision are treated separately, even when their relationship in practice is demonstrated.RESUME Le développement urbain: la redistribution de la privation persistanteII serait peut‐étre utile d'examiner l'expérience des pays en voie de développement en ce qui concerne le développement urbain, pour en tirer des leçons pouvant s'appliquer à la Grande‐Bretagne. Une différence majeure réside dans le fait qu'en Grande‐Bretagne le service du logement et autres services connexes sont considérés comme des organisations solidement établies s'occupant de certains secteurs sociaux. Ce "monisme des services sociaux" est institutionnalisé et obscurcit les relations complexes entre l'emploi et le logement. Dans le Tiers Monde les programmes des services sociaux risquent moins d'empêcher ceux qui initient les programmes de voir clair sur les questions des possibilités d'emploi, de l'alignement des classes, et des ambigüités de l'intervention par l'état. La tentative faite pour ralentir la croissance de Londres et développer de nouvelles villes montre les contradictions qui surgissent lorsque des projets visant à la redirection de l'emploi et d'autres concernant le budget des services sociaux sont traités séparément, même quand leurs rapports sont démontrés en pratique.RESUMEN El desarrollo urbano: la redistribución de privaciones persistentesSería interesante examinar la manera en que se lleva a cabo el desarrollo urbano en los países en vías de desarrollo por lo que tendría de ejamplar para Gran Bretaña. Una diferencia básica es que, en Gran Bretaña, los servicios para resolver problemas de vivienda y otros anejos se consideran sectores bien establecidos y completamente autónomos en el ámbito social. Este "monismo del bienestar" se encuentra institucionalizado, impidiendo ver con claridad las relaciones complejas entre el empleo y vivienda. En el Tercer Mundo es más difícil ocultar el problema del empleo, la clase social a que se pertenece y las ambiguedades de la intervención estatal. El intento de frenar el crecimiento de Londres y de crear nuevas ciudades muestra las contradicciones que surgen cuando se tratan por separado las políticas de la reorientación de los medios de empleo y las destinadas a proveer los servicios de bienestar social, aunque se reconozca en la práctica la relación que existe entre ellas.

Annotation When forces of globalisation and local culture converge, distinctive social habitats are created. Drawing on detailed case studies of South Asian, East African, Melanesian and European societies, Identity and Affect provides a contextual analysis of the formation and expression of local identities and of the affective self-constitution of social agents. The contributors examine in particular the growing fragmentation of social relations in these areas and the impact this is having on individuals and communities who, forced into an increasingly outward orientation, are initiating processes of cultural redefinition and social realignment. The different effects of colonialism on identity formation are examined in studies of communalism in Sri Lanka, untouchables in India, cargo cults in New Guinea and the substitution of food exchange for cannibalism in Kaluana. Focusing on Italians in London and south Asians in East Africa, the formation and experience of belonging to cultural diaspora is explored from the perspective of the individual and the social collectivity. The authors conclude with an exploration of some of the defining experiences of modernity, specifically how individuals in industrial capitalist societies have come to see their identity as dependent on modern forms of industrial, public sector work