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Development (as a field of action) and anthropology (as a field of knowledge) involve incommensurate objectives which rest on radically different techniques of comparison and result in contrasting states of affect. Whilst development is based on models that float free of context and are expected to travel across space, anthropological knowledge is gained from located ethnographic research which primarily generates context-specific knowledge. And whilst qualitative ethnographic material is used in anthropology to generate theoretical insights, in development, quantitative data or ‘indicators’ are compared in order to measure relative success or failure at the end of an intervention. Crucially, whilst anthropological comparison generates critical theory that is often used to critique development by politically engaged anthropologists, development’s lack of engagement with difference generates ‘travelling tales’ which are deliberately free floating. This allows ideas and practices to move across space without challenge, engaging an appreciative audience and telling a convincing story. From this, we suggest that in comparing development and anthropology, an important though as yet little discussed difference is that of the ‘affect’ generated by these different comparative techniques: whilst development stories generate (naïve) hope, anthropology’s critique generates anger/cynicism. This makes the anthropology of development an inherently uncomfortable field of study and casts new light on Ferguson’s (1997, Anthropology and its evil twin. In International development and the social sciences: Essays on the history and politics of knowledge (eds) F. Cooper & R. Packard, 150–175. Berkeley: University of California Press) assertion that development is anthropology’s ‘evil twin’. The chapter is based around two examples of development tales: gender training and ‘the female entrepreneur’.

Dealing with death and bereavement in the context of the Covid-19 Pandemic will present significant challenges for at least the next three months. The current situation does not allow for families andbcommunities to be involved in the process of death in ways in which they would normally hope or expect to be. In addition, mortality rates will disproportionately affect vulnerable households. The government has identified the following communities as being at increased risk: single parent households; multi-generational Black and Minority Ethnic groups; men without degrees in lone households and/or in precarious work; small family business owners in their 50s; and elderlyhouseholds. Our study focused on these groups. This report presents a summary of findings and key recommendations by a team of anthropologists from the London School of Economics who conducted a public survey and 58 cross-community interviews between 3 and 9 April 2020. It explores ways to prepare these communities and households for impending deaths with communications and policy support. More information on the research methodology, data protection and ethical procedures is available in Appendix 1. A summary of relevant existing research can be found in Appendix 2. A list of key contacts across communities for consultation is available on request. Research was focused on “what a good death looks like” for people across all faiths and for vulnerable groups. It examined how communities were already adapting how they dealt with processes of dying, burials, funerals and bereavement during the pandemic, and responding to new government regulations. It specifically focused on five transitions in the process of death, and what consultation processes, policies and communications strategies could be mobilised to support communities through these phases.

In this article I discuss the relationship between migration and happiness via the life stories of members of a Bangladeshi family who for several generations have been involved in transnational migration between their rural home in Sylhet and a city in Northern England. Rather than to seek definitive answers concerning whether or not migration makes my interlocutors happy—as we shall see, the answers to this are highly subjective and ever changing—my intention is to ask what we might learn about both migration and happiness by considering how journeys purportedly undertaken in order to increase well-being so often lead instead to sadness, loss, and dislocation. In particular, I use Sara Ahmed’s framing of “happiness projects” to address the contradictions and ambivalence that lie at the emotional heart of transnational migration.