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What insights can be gained from an anthropology of policy or expert knowledge?
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NB. Please use ethnographic examples in developing and supporting your arguments
Anthropologists have recently turned attention to contemporary knowledge practices and the working of institutional power whether in the field of finance, international law, journalism, global science research, or international aid and development, among others. The ethnographic focus here is on international institutions, professionals, expert knowledge, ‘global governance;' on the anthropology of organisations and ‘policy worlds' including those within which anthropologists themselves are positioned. This week will take selected ethnographic cases of ‘studying up' and the conceptual, methodological and ethical issues involved.
Useful readings
Institutional Power and Governmental Knowledge
Bowker, C. Geoffrey and Susan Leigh Star. 2000. Sorting Things Out: Classification and its Consequences. Cambridge, M.A.: MIT Press.
Corbridge, S, G.Williams, M. Srivastava & R.Veron. 2005. Seeing the state: governance and governmentality in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Douglas, Mary. 1986. How institutions think. London: Routledge
Ferguson, J. (1990) The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development‟, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Goldman, M. 2005. Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalisation. New Haven and London: Yale University Press
Graeber, David. 2006. ‘Beyond Power/Knowledge: An Exploration of the Relation of Power, Ignorance and Stupidity', LSE lecture. 25 May 2006. Retrieved from
http://www(dot)lse(dot)ac(dot)uk/collections/LSEPublicLecturesAndEvents/pdf/20060525-Graeber.pdf
Kipnis, A. B. 2008. Audit cultures: Neoliberal governmentality, socialist legacy, or technologies of governing? American Ethnologist, 35: 275-89. http://onlinelibrary(dot)wiley(dot)com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2008.00034.x/pdf
Li, Tania, 2007. The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics. Durham: Duke University Press.
Li, Tania Murray 2005. Beyond ‘the State' and Failed Schemes. American Anthropologist 107 (3): 383-394
Mitchell, Timothy. 2002. Rule of Experts: Egypt, techno-politics, Modernity. Berkeley, C.A.: University of California Press
Mosse, D. 2005. ' Global governance and the ethnography of international aid', in eds. D.Mosse & D.Lewis The Aid Effect: Giving and Governing in International Development. London: Pluto Press, pp1-36
Rose, N. and P. Miller. 1992. Political power beyond the state: problematics of government. British Journal of Sociology 43(2) 173–205.
Scott, James 1998. Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. New Haven & London: Yale University Press (Chapters 1, 8 & 9)
Herzfeld, Michael. 2005. Political optics and the occlusion of intimate knowledge. American Anthropologist. 107 (3) 369-376.
Anthropology of Organisations and Policy
Alvesson, Mats 1993. Cultural perspectives on organisations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gellner, D & Eric Hirsch 2001. Inside organizations: anthropologists at work. Oxford: Berg
Herzfeld, Michael. 1993. The social production of indifference: exploring the symbolic roots of Western bureaucracy. University of Chicago Press.
Heyman, Josiah 1995. Putting power in the anthropology of bureaucracy. Current Anthropology. 36: 261-287
Lewis, David and David Mosse (eds.). 2006. Development Brokers and Translators: The Ethnography of Aid and Agencies. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press
Mosse, D. 2005. Cultivating Development: Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice. London: Pluto Press.
Mosse, David, 2011. Politics and ethics: ethnographies of expert knowledge and professional identities. In Susan Wright, Cris Shore & Davide Pero (eds) Policy Worlds: Anthropology and Analysis of Contemporary Power. Oxford & New York: Berghahn (EASA Series).pp. 50-67.
Nader, Laura. 2002 [1969]. ‘Up the Anthropologist. Perspectives Gained from Studying Up', in D. Hymes (ed.), Reinventing Anthropology. Ann Arbor, M.I.: University of Michigan Press, pp. 284–311.
Power, Michael. 1997. The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shore, C. and S. Wright (eds). 1997. Anthropology of Policy: Critical Perspectives on Governance and Power. London and New York: Routledge
Shore, Cris, Susan Wright & David Pero (eds) . 2011. Policy worlds: anthropology and the analysis of contemporary power. Oxford & New York: Berghahn
Smith, Dorothy (ed) 2006. Institutional Ethnography as Practice Rowman & Littlefield
Stirrat, R.L. 2000. Cultures of consultancy. Critique of Anthropology 20 (1) 31-46.
Strathern, Marilyn (ed.). 2000. Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy. London: Routledge
Uchiyamada Yashushi. 2004. ‘Architecture of Immanent Power. Truth and Nothingness in a Japanese Bureaucratic Machine', Social Anthropology 12(1): 3–23
Wright, Susan ed. 1994. Anthropology of organizations. London: Routledge
Wedel, J., C. Shore, G. Feldman and S. Lathrop. 2005. ‘Toward an Anthropology of Public Policy', The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 600: 30–51.
Ethnographies of experts and professionals
Allahyari, R. 2000. Visions of Charity: Volunteer Workers and Moral Community. Berkeley, C.A.: University of California Press.
Argenti-Pillen, A. 2003. ‘The Global Flow of Knowledge on War Trauma: The Role of the “Cinnamon Garden Culture” in Sri Lanka', in J. Pottier, A. Bicker and P. Sillitoe (eds), Negotiating Local Knowledge: Power and Identity in Development. London: Pluto Press.
Arvidson, Malin. 2008 ‘Contradictions and Confusions in Development Work: Exploring the Realities of Bangladeshi NGOs', Journal of South Asian Development 3(1): 109–34
Friedman, J. 1997 ‘Global Crisis, the Struggle for Cultural Identify and Intellectual Pork-barrelling: Ccosmopolitans, Nnationals and Llocals in an Eera of Ddehegemonization,' In P.Werbner (ed.), The Ddialectics of Hhybridity. London: Zed Press, pp. 70–-89.
Gupta, Akhil 1995. Blurred boundaries: the discourse of corruption, the culture of politics, and the imagined state. American Ethnologist 22 (2), 375-402.
Harper, Richard 1998. Inside the IMF: an Ethnography of Documents, Technology, and Organizational Action, San Diego: Academic Press
Harper, Richard. 2005. The social organisation of the IMF's mission work. In Edelman, Marc & Angelique Haugerud (eds) 2005. The anthropology of development and globalisation: from classical political economy to contemporary neoliberalism. Oxford: Blackwell. (Ch 25 pp 323-334)
Haas, P. 1992. Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy coordination'. International Organisation, 46 (1), 1–36.
Heaton Shrestha, Celayne. 2006. ‘“They Can't Mix Like We Can”: Bracketing Differences and the Professionalization of NGOs in Nepal', in D. Lewis and D. Mosse (eds), Development Brokers and Translators: the Ethnography of Aid and Agencies. Bloomfield, C.T.: Kumarian Press.
Holmes, Douglas, R. and George E. Marcus. 2005. ‘Cultures of Expertise and the Management of Globalisation: Towards a Re-functioning of Ethnography', in Aihwa Ong and Stephen Collier (eds), Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Oxford: Blackwell. pp 235–52.
Holmes, D.R. & G.E. Marcus (2006) 'Fast Capitalism: Para-Ethnography and the Rise of the Symbolic Analyst.' in Fisher, Melissa S1962, Frontiers of capital: ethnographic reflections on the new economy, Duke University Press
Latour, Bruno. 1987. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press.
Latour, Bruno 1996. Aramis, or the Love of Technology, trans. Catherine Porter. Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press.
Mosse, D. (ed) 2011. Adventures in Aidland: The anthropology of professionals in international development. New York & Oxford: Berghahn Press
Miyazaki, Hirokazu and Annelise Riles. 2005. ‘Failure as an Endpoint', in Aihwa Ong and Stephen Collier (eds), Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 320–31.
Riles, Annelise 2004. ‘Real Time: Unwinding Technocratic and Anthropological'American Ethnologist 31 (3): 392-405
Riles, Annelise 2006. ‘Anthropology, Human Rights, and Legal Knowledge; Culture in the Iron Cage', American Anthropologist 108(1): 52–65.
Smith, Dorothy. 2006. ‘Incorporating Texts into Ethnographic Practice' in D.Smith (ed.), Institutional Ethnography as Practice. Lanham, M.D.: Rowman & Littlefield.
Lipsky, M. 1980 Street-level bureaucracy: dilemmas of the individual in public service. New York: Russell Sage.
Essay Sample Content Preview:
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Table of Contents
3 1.0 Introduction
4 1.1Anthropology of Experts
7 1.2 Challenges faced by the study of anthropology
8 1.3 Anthropology of Policy 10 1.4 Anthropology Contribution to ‘third sector’
13 1.5 Insights gained from the study of Anthropology of experts and anthropology of policy
15 1.6 Conclusion
16. Reference
1.0 Introduction
Over the past few years, anthropologists have taken a keen interest in policy studies and issues related to policies. A motivating factor for this interest has been the inspiration by research directions within anthropology. The opening of ethnographic analysis of government bureaucracies, the apparatus of the modern state, international organisations, national elites, global commodity supply chains and multi disciplinary fields have also contributed to this interest by anthropologists.
This paper will look into the effects of policies on people and the population which includes the way people react over policy regimes and the new kinds of technology assemblages created by policies. It is a well documented fact that policy has is a prominent feature in studying various fields such as international relations, public administration, political science and management studies. Policy has however been treated as unproblematic. But the question that begs is; what is a policy. Where can a person find policies. Can they be found in the speech of a politician for instance or can it be found in a party manifesto. Furthermore, is the policy found in a country’s legislation, legislator’s guidelines or court rulings. Or can it be found in clients and bureaucrats street level interactions.
Approaching policy from an anthropological point of view gradually moves from identifying a problem and formulating policies to implementing policies and evaluation of the policies. As has been mentioned earlier, there have been increased studies in anthropological science and technology over the last few years. The anthropology of experts has been a promising venture in social-cultural anthropology.
1.1 Anthropology of experts In the 1950’s and 1960’s, ‘the expert’ began to appear in a social context within ethnography particularly in discussions of ‘religious experts’ and ‘ritual experts’ (Howell, 1953). However, this interest on ‘the expert’ confined itself to religion and rituals but did not touch expertise that much. ‘The expert’ remained a social designation and never bothered to further the theorization of anthropology. This development has progressed even as studies which focused on experts and expertise have grown to be among the thriving endeavors of social-cultural anthropology at the moment (Dominic, 2008). The rebirth of the anthropology of experts and expertise has been the concentration in the region of anthropological science and technology studies (Fischer, 2003).
Ethnography of experts has got permeable membranes and broad ambitions. It has been a residence to an extensive assortment of diverse methods and problems. It is distinguishable in the way it concerns itself with experts their practice, knowledge and institutions as the ethnographic hub of anthropological apprehension. Theorization of who counts as an expert has been underdeveloped even as the ethnography of modernity continues to grow (Shore & Wright, 1997). It has failed to reach the apex of degree of technical interest the characteristics of other social-scientific fields’ i.e. cognitive psychology (Smith & Ericsson, 1997).
I would define an expert as a person who has developed his skills in semiotic-epistemic competence (Dominic, 2008), and has concerned themselves with practical activities. For instance, a car mechanic and gymnasts are experts in their crafts. This is so even if the social dimension of their expertise and the qualitative value of their expertise differ and are valued diversely from the more technocratic or widely familiar experts like lawyers, doctors, engineers or even scientists. If one is to link expertise to skills, attention, competence and practice, it becomes transparent that every human being can be viewed as an expert of some sort. It furthers the notion that every human being is an expert even if society does not authenticate them as such. When the action of knowing a skill is preferred over the actual doing of a skill, then the term ‘intellectual’ should be applied or used instead of expert (Boyer, 2005). This has been the core of recent anthropological interest. The scrutiny of intellectuals or knowledge specialists who work in professional capacities or in organizations and institutional frameworks has been the base of modern anthropology.
It has always been questioned how an anthropologist can meaningfully connect to the familiarity of another society. A contradiction in both fields could arise. However, it has been argued that even if a clash between anthropology and other disciplines may clash, anthropology is considered productive in understanding how they work. Doug Holmes and George Marcus explain it in the following words: “In our experience, ethnographers trained in the tradition of anthropology do not approach the study of formal institutions such as banks, bureaucracies, corporations, and state agencies with much confidence. These are realms in which the traditional informants of ethnography must be rethought as counterparts rather than ‘others’—as both subjects and intellectual partners in inquiry.” (Holmes & Marcus, 236-237).
In analyzing the anthropology of experts, one may most of the time find it repulsed or enthralled by the expertise of its focus. This is not however because anthropologists do not feel comfortable analyzing other areas. Anthropology of experts seeks to encroach on other domains of knowledge not innocently but because the intellectual professionalism usually and generally have got a predatory tendency towards each other. When a person is involved in a certain profession, they tend to imagine that knowledge definitely has to revolve around the ideologies of that particular profession. With such tendencies therefore, exploration of other professions and their jurisdictions becomes ‘fundamental’. The incorporation and consumption of the external analysis is important for supporting the ideologies of a profession against the invasion of other fields of specialization and the rivalries that exists within their specific jurisdictions. This encroachment of professional bodies has lead borrowing of ideas learned from the different fields and has led to re-functioning of the ideas for better and new purposes. Such has been the case of the expert who has waited for such an opportunity to be studied by the anthropologist.
Studying the ethnography of experts particularly in regards to institutions, tends to take interview forms –short formal interviews- and under very limited observation of prevalent situations. It has been argued that this para-ethnography is a good chance for anthropological necessity of the entente cordiale.
1.2 Challenges facing the study of ethnography of experts Ethnographic studies are affected by the red tape that surrounds most culture of expertise. These cultures have always had protective privileges and they can restrict ethnographic access. Monitoring the acquisition and circulation of expert knowhow becomes a major obstacle. These aspects not withstanding, obstacles that restrict intellectual property rights, existence of non-disclosure agreements that have to be perused by ethnographers and the red tape in office corporate communication are hindrance too. The high offices in the institutions always do not welcome even the well prepared ethnographers.
1.3 Anthropology of policy The world today is being driven by a huge web of policies and rationales. Making sense of all this policies and rationales has become the work of socio-cultural anthropology. Countable instances in today’s social life has remained untouched by policies, or that have no been influenced by policies. These policies have encroached the lives of every individual knowingly or unknowingly, and they have a great effect on the daily life of an individual. These policies have shaped the concepts, processes of people’s life and subjectivities. In fact the way people react to these policies is a good example of how people have been affected by the policies whether knowingly or unknowingly. Policies have become the number one organizing theory of modernity as we know it. However, in as much as policies have managed to have such a profound effect on the lives of the modern society, they have been least understood by the general public. The implication that policy has had on society and the culture of human beings everywhere in the world, especially how the policies intermingle with issues revolving agencies, governance and identity has to be brought to light. I will try to look at how policies have affected the ‘third sector’ –loose groupings of organizations- and how engaging with the sector could bring much benefit to anthropology.
The ‘third sector’ has recently been used to refer to voluntary or non-governmental organizations or the non-profit groups. Their recent growth in numbers has been described as a global associational revolution (Salamon, 1994). The third world countries as well as the developed countries have seen their existence in their societies something that has lead to increased focus amongst researchers and policy makers. These sectors have helped in playing a broad role in the mobilization of a community in issues that revolve around welfare work, self-help, and service delivery amongst other issues (Anheier & Salamon, 1997). These organizations operate on issues that revolve around political spheres, religious spheres, in workplaces, international developments and institutions.
Research on the ‘third sectors’ began in North America and Europe and it focused itself on the origins of the groups and the relationship they have with policies and it looked also into the organizational challenges that they faced. The researchers conducted suggested that scientists, economists, sociologists, and political scientists have contributed a lot in the development and growth of the third sectors (Burton, 1977). In third world countries, a ...
Name:
Course Title:
Course Code:
Course Instructor:
Institution:
Date Due:
Table of Contents
3 1.0 Introduction
4 1.1Anthropology of Experts
7 1.2 Challenges faced by the study of anthropology
8 1.3 Anthropology of Policy 10 1.4 Anthropology Contribution to ‘third sector’
13 1.5 Insights gained from the study of Anthropology of experts and anthropology of policy
15 1.6 Conclusion
16. Reference
1.0 Introduction
Over the past few years, anthropologists have taken a keen interest in policy studies and issues related to policies. A motivating factor for this interest has been the inspiration by research directions within anthropology. The opening of ethnographic analysis of government bureaucracies, the apparatus of the modern state, international organisations, national elites, global commodity supply chains and multi disciplinary fields have also contributed to this interest by anthropologists.
This paper will look into the effects of policies on people and the population which includes the way people react over policy regimes and the new kinds of technology assemblages created by policies. It is a well documented fact that policy has is a prominent feature in studying various fields such as international relations, public administration, political science and management studies. Policy has however been treated as unproblematic. But the question that begs is; what is a policy. Where can a person find policies. Can they be found in the speech of a politician for instance or can it be found in a party manifesto. Furthermore, is the policy found in a country’s legislation, legislator’s guidelines or court rulings. Or can it be found in clients and bureaucrats street level interactions.
Approaching policy from an anthropological point of view gradually moves from identifying a problem and formulating policies to implementing policies and evaluation of the policies. As has been mentioned earlier, there have been increased studies in anthropological science and technology over the last few years. The anthropology of experts has been a promising venture in social-cultural anthropology.
1.1 Anthropology of experts In the 1950’s and 1960’s, ‘the expert’ began to appear in a social context within ethnography particularly in discussions of ‘religious experts’ and ‘ritual experts’ (Howell, 1953). However, this interest on ‘the expert’ confined itself to religion and rituals but did not touch expertise that much. ‘The expert’ remained a social designation and never bothered to further the theorization of anthropology. This development has progressed even as studies which focused on experts and expertise have grown to be among the thriving endeavors of social-cultural anthropology at the moment (Dominic, 2008). The rebirth of the anthropology of experts and expertise has been the concentration in the region of anthropological science and technology studies (Fischer, 2003).
Ethnography of experts has got permeable membranes and broad ambitions. It has been a residence to an extensive assortment of diverse methods and problems. It is distinguishable in the way it concerns itself with experts their practice, knowledge and institutions as the ethnographic hub of anthropological apprehension. Theorization of who counts as an expert has been underdeveloped even as the ethnography of modernity continues to grow (Shore & Wright, 1997). It has failed to reach the apex of degree of technical interest the characteristics of other social-scientific fields’ i.e. cognitive psychology (Smith & Ericsson, 1997).
I would define an expert as a person who has developed his skills in semiotic-epistemic competence (Dominic, 2008), and has concerned themselves with practical activities. For instance, a car mechanic and gymnasts are experts in their crafts. This is so even if the social dimension of their expertise and the qualitative value of their expertise differ and are valued diversely from the more technocratic or widely familiar experts like lawyers, doctors, engineers or even scientists. If one is to link expertise to skills, attention, competence and practice, it becomes transparent that every human being can be viewed as an expert of some sort. It furthers the notion that every human being is an expert even if society does not authenticate them as such. When the action of knowing a skill is preferred over the actual doing of a skill, then the term ‘intellectual’ should be applied or used instead of expert (Boyer, 2005). This has been the core of recent anthropological interest. The scrutiny of intellectuals or knowledge specialists who work in professional capacities or in organizations and institutional frameworks has been the base of modern anthropology.
It has always been questioned how an anthropologist can meaningfully connect to the familiarity of another society. A contradiction in both fields could arise. However, it has been argued that even if a clash between anthropology and other disciplines may clash, anthropology is considered productive in understanding how they work. Doug Holmes and George Marcus explain it in the following words: “In our experience, ethnographers trained in the tradition of anthropology do not approach the study of formal institutions such as banks, bureaucracies, corporations, and state agencies with much confidence. These are realms in which the traditional informants of ethnography must be rethought as counterparts rather than ‘others’—as both subjects and intellectual partners in inquiry.” (Holmes & Marcus, 236-237).
In analyzing the anthropology of experts, one may most of the time find it repulsed or enthralled by the expertise of its focus. This is not however because anthropologists do not feel comfortable analyzing other areas. Anthropology of experts seeks to encroach on other domains of knowledge not innocently but because the intellectual professionalism usually and generally have got a predatory tendency towards each other. When a person is involved in a certain profession, they tend to imagine that knowledge definitely has to revolve around the ideologies of that particular profession. With such tendencies therefore, exploration of other professions and their jurisdictions becomes ‘fundamental’. The incorporation and consumption of the external analysis is important for supporting the ideologies of a profession against the invasion of other fields of specialization and the rivalries that exists within their specific jurisdictions. This encroachment of professional bodies has lead borrowing of ideas learned from the different fields and has led to re-functioning of the ideas for better and new purposes. Such has been the case of the expert who has waited for such an opportunity to be studied by the anthropologist.
Studying the ethnography of experts particularly in regards to institutions, tends to take interview forms –short formal interviews- and under very limited observation of prevalent situations. It has been argued that this para-ethnography is a good chance for anthropological necessity of the entente cordiale.
1.2 Challenges facing the study of ethnography of experts Ethnographic studies are affected by the red tape that surrounds most culture of expertise. These cultures have always had protective privileges and they can restrict ethnographic access. Monitoring the acquisition and circulation of expert knowhow becomes a major obstacle. These aspects not withstanding, obstacles that restrict intellectual property rights, existence of non-disclosure agreements that have to be perused by ethnographers and the red tape in office corporate communication are hindrance too. The high offices in the institutions always do not welcome even the well prepared ethnographers.
1.3 Anthropology of policy The world today is being driven by a huge web of policies and rationales. Making sense of all this policies and rationales has become the work of socio-cultural anthropology. Countable instances in today’s social life has remained untouched by policies, or that have no been influenced by policies. These policies have encroached the lives of every individual knowingly or unknowingly, and they have a great effect on the daily life of an individual. These policies have shaped the concepts, processes of people’s life and subjectivities. In fact the way people react to these policies is a good example of how people have been affected by the policies whether knowingly or unknowingly. Policies have become the number one organizing theory of modernity as we know it. However, in as much as policies have managed to have such a profound effect on the lives of the modern society, they have been least understood by the general public. The implication that policy has had on society and the culture of human beings everywhere in the world, especially how the policies intermingle with issues revolving agencies, governance and identity has to be brought to light. I will try to look at how policies have affected the ‘third sector’ –loose groupings of organizations- and how engaging with the sector could bring much benefit to anthropology.
The ‘third sector’ has recently been used to refer to voluntary or non-governmental organizations or the non-profit groups. Their recent growth in numbers has been described as a global associational revolution (Salamon, 1994). The third world countries as well as the developed countries have seen their existence in their societies something that has lead to increased focus amongst researchers and policy makers. These sectors have helped in playing a broad role in the mobilization of a community in issues that revolve around welfare work, self-help, and service delivery amongst other issues (Anheier & Salamon, 1997). These organizations operate on issues that revolve around political spheres, religious spheres, in workplaces, international developments and institutions.
Research on the ‘third sectors’ began in North America and Europe and it focused itself on the origins of the groups and the relationship they have with policies and it looked also into the organizational challenges that they faced. The researchers conducted suggested that scientists, economists, sociologists, and political scientists have contributed a lot in the development and growth of the third sectors (Burton, 1977). In third world countries, a ...
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