Anthropologists and other social scientists, mostly from from Europe but also Africa and North America, explore how men and women deal with the governance of mundane issues such as waste management, access to water, health care, and land in various contexts. One goal is to strip the normative furniture from the concept of governance; another is to united francophone and anglophone scholars. The topics include the decentralization of the health care system in Cameroon, civil servants and corruption in Malawi, reclaiming politics in the bureaucratic space of a Burundian refugee camp in Tanzania, and drinking water supply systems in the Maradi region of Niger. The 13 studies were selected from presentations at a May 2002 conference in Leiden, the Netherlands. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)