While colonial power continues to shape German interventions in the realm of reproductive health in Tanzania, these interventions are also challenged by professionals working in this field. By concentrating on the hidden transcripts of development cooperation, this paper highlights the fact that interventions are marked by doubts, criticism, and obstruction. Drawing on interviews with German and Tanzanian professionals, the author elicits the effects of challenges in German development cooperation on the articulation of colonial power and discusses the extent to which these can usefully be described as resistance. The author shows that it is crucial to identify how German professionals come to terms with their doubts, how they criticise development cooperation and with what consequences, and how resistance by Tanzanian partners is dealt with. This paper provides evidence that challenges to development interventions may disturb colonial power, but that this tends not to imply significant resistance, since colonial power takes effect despite, in the face of, and through opposition.
