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- Convenors:
-
Almut Schneider
(HES-SO Valais-Wallis and Goethe University Frankfurt)
Elisabeth Tauber (Free University Bolzano)
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- Discussant:
-
Judith Okely
(Oxford UniversityUniversity of Hull)
- Format:
- Workshops
- Location:
- 0.6
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 27 August, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Ljubljana
Short Abstract:
Ethnographic research in modern institutions as seen internally, externally, from in between, as "implementations". What modes of adaptations or "code-switching" can be found? What is the anthropologist's role between open-ended ethnographic description and "useful application"?
Long Abstract:
Ethnographic research centering on institutions and organisations plays an increasingly significant role in our discipline, not only because more and more anthropologists are working as consultants. Within this growing field, the focus of the workshop will be on "modern" institutions (e.g. schools, hospitals, prisons, army, employment centres, public service institutions, etc.), and seeks ethnographic examples of situations, regardless of specific regions (inside or outside Europe), where people are involved with modern institutions 'cross-culturally'. For example, people "inside" institutional contexts dealing with different "outside" realities or people from "outside" approaching institutions inherited from colonial/postcolonial implementations.
What are the concrete and intended articulations of places, people and specific forms of social relations and knowledge? Who is adapting how and to whom or what? How do institutions and people react to these adaptations? What other approaches are being attempted as in, for example - to borrow from a linguistic concept - people code-switching when moving between the inside and outside of institutions. How are internal, institutionalized discourses perceived in contexts of cultural diversity?
Finally, one might ask what the role of anthropologists is here? Where does an open-ended ethnographic description (model) end and where does a specific "useful" application as 'expert knowledge', with clearly targeted outputs start? How can anthropologists react to the practical needs and interests of an institution? Does the increasing need for collaboration (mutuality) that anthropologists identify cause dilemmas similar to those encountered in recent debates on audit and accountability?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 27 August, 2008, -Paper short abstract:
This paper uses archival sources and ethnographic data with Bush House BBC journalists to explore how the BBC services attempt to negotiate the Sri Lankan war, and how in fact the BBC World services far from being a dispassionate global observer has become a key part itself of Sri Lanka’s ethnically fractured landscape.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper I examine one of the world's most enduring institutions the BBC World Service, through its two regional language Tamil and Sinhala services broadcasting to Sri Lanka. This paper uses archival sources and ethnographic data with Bush House BBC journalists to explore how the BBC services attempt to negotiate the Sri Lankan war, and how in fact the BBC services far from being a dispassionate global observer has become a key part itself of Sri Lanka's ethnically fractured landscape. The paper examines how journalists in the Tamil and Sinhala services - small fry within the larger BBC but highly powerful within the Sri Lankan media landscape - continue to reproduce ethnically structured audiences even as they attempt to negotiate them. Thus the paper also uses the BBC to reflect on a much deeper malaise within Sri Lanka.
Paper short abstract:
The paper describes different aspects related to the activity of EU experts working in Romania. I am particularly interested in the interactions of their individual cultural background with Brussels' institutional culture and with the "code of conduct" of Romanian public servants.
Paper long abstract:
Having to comply with EU accession requirements, but confronted with socioeconomic difficulties, East European Countries "import" foreign experts by "twining" or "technical assistance" projects.
The main objective of my paper is to present some aspects related to individual attitudes of professionals confronted with the EU institutional culture model, which consists of overall standards for activity and communication (even terminology).
From their position, EU-employees are confronted with multiple cultural pressures, which lead to different behaviours ranging from acceptance to resistance. On the one hand, an EU expert has to embrace an EU code of conduct (often different their prior background) but also a Eurojargon, which can have unusual consequences. An example of using Eurojargon in average communication was a question addressed to me by an English-speaking EU expert: "Gabriel, can you organise (i.e. "bring") a headphone?"
On the other hand, the "exotic" environment of the hosting country could not be disregarded by a professional compelled to work both on the wide and the deep scale of a foreign society. Subsequently, another objective is to show how the representation of Romanian social, political and economic landscape - acquired by the foreign experts prior their arrival in Romania - changed when confronted with the on-field situation (the attitude and background of the indigenous people to work with) and what the impact on their actual missions was.
As a former "native" member (project assistant) of such a technical assistance team, I present some results of this fieldwork based on empirical data gathered through interviews and participant observations of different foreign experts working in Romania.
Paper short abstract:
This research paper is based on one and a half years of participant observation at a primary school in Turkey. The ethnographic data overwhelmingly indicate that in the process of trying to meet high expectations coming from the school authority, teachers’ roles and obligations became so dominant as to downplay and pressurise their ‘selves’.
Paper long abstract:
This research paper is a study of changing conceptions of personhood in Turkey. It focuses on a private primary school, which encourages values of entrepreneurialism, individualism, and creativity, and stands in contrast to the state system promoting conformity and equality. Based on one and a half years of participant observation at Bakis School, an upper middle class primary school in Istanbul, the study investigates how teachers raised in a conformist educational system develop a sense of 'individualism'.
The ethnographic evidence indicates that Bakis School reproduced as well as challenged the value systems underlying Turkish society. With its alternative educational model, Bakis called into question the nation-state's attempts to promote a concept of personhood revolving around conformism, obedience and citizenship, and promoted the idea of a person being an independent individual endowed with 'rights'. The extent to which teachers and parents comprehended these ideals forms a key part of the analysis and I also discuss how even the school administration vacillated between opposing conceptions of personhood. The ethnographic data overwhelmingly indicate that in the process of creating an alternative educational system from scratch and trying to meet high expectations coming from the school authority, teachers' roles and obligations became so dominant as to downplay and pressurise their 'selves'. Interestingly, in order to be able to raise children as independent individuals, the teachers needed to be interdependent people obedient to authority and this resulted in a complex and often conflicting interplay between their ideals and their day-to-day experiences.
Paper short abstract:
This paper deals with my experience of a feasibility study for the implementation of a wharf in Vanuatu (South Pacific), how the local notion of "place" is imbricated with post-colonial institutions and how it enters into conflict with the technical priorities of the wharf builders.
Paper long abstract:
Building on a six months experience as a consultant for an engineering group, with the aim to identify a suitable site for the implementation of a new wharf on the small island of Tanna (South Vanuatu), I analyse my expertise in the scope of an "audit" - not on accountability but on the feasibility - of the three different sites studied and of such a study in itself. The expertise, being framed in terms of 'social needs' and 'feasibility', taking also into account other social matters like 'preservation of cultural sites' and seeking the 'approval of the communities' raised, not surprisingly, a number of misunderstandings on the side of the silent partners and the beneficiaries of the project.
Having previously done three years of "open-ended" ethnography in the country, this experience made me particularly aware of the political and ethical stress under which the anthropological method finds itself in an "applied" context. My long experience with the local culture almost turned into something of an obstacle when confronted to the necessity to take into account the requirements of aid agencies and governmental directives.
Forthcoming, another trip to Vanuatu will be the occasion to present the results of the study to governmental and non-governmental institutions as well as to local leaders. The outcome of this presentation will be analyzed as to how the results of the report have been received by the institutions and the local people.
Paper short abstract:
The paper discusses questions of anthropological involvement in a social services organisation. It analyses how in situations of pressure to adjust an external image to the professional one, the reflection of own practices of code-switching can contribute to insight into organisational strategies.
Paper long abstract:
I have been involved in volunteering and researching strategies of survival of a NGO that labels itself a Romani NGO and provides social services in the Czech Republic. I let the organisation use me for whatever work was needed, gradually moving to more expert and external positions. I am going to explore the tensions between the strengthening presentation of the organisation in line with the official discourses of professionalism and social exclusion, and between the internal life of the organisation with conflicts around the legitimacy of authority and the influence of family structures. The organisation is run by a Romani woman, Anna, who gradually employed her two sons and some friends and thus became an important provider of socio-economic resources for these people. However, the new social services law and a pressure for efficiency forced her to take on more professionals, mostly non-Romani staff. Two conceptions of authority have clashed - the informal one of Anna, and the authority of a few professionals, who consider some of "Anna's people" being inefficient. Having this competitive disadvantage in mind, the public relations strategy tries to create an image of high professionalism.
To what extent can an anthropologist disclose organisational strategies in a situation of strong competition and control of organisational reputation? How should an anthropologist act if s/he is constantly asked to confirm organisational credibility, knowing that it does not conform to the mainstream image (as well as his/her own) of the organisation using public money? To resolve the dilemma I will use Pels' (2000) claim about the right of anthropologists to "guard the secret". I will describe the inconveniences of active involvement and identification with an organisation and will balance them with assets that can be gained through the reflection of the researcher's involvement in the practice of code-switching.
Paper short abstract:
Through the example of the administration of the shrine of a Moslem saint in North India, this paper deals with the adaptation of contemporary Islam to the mode of governance of Hindu civilization on the one hand and its relation to the secular and modern Indian State on the other.
Paper long abstract:
This contribution deals with the adaptation of the administration of a Muslim shrine to the Indian context in which Muslims represents only 13% of the population. For centuries the shrine was managed in agreement with the mode of governance of its locality, inherited from Hindu society. But with the beginning of the 20th century, the institution had to bend to the requirements fixed by the Indian Union. The latter, in a modern and secular attitude, intervened by setting up a legal framework for the management of the various places of worship. Now, each religion had its own law, which was supposed to be more respectful of the particular value systems. Since about sixty years, the 'ministry for Pious Foundations' tries to manage the shrine in terms of this law but the effect is minimal, because all the shrine's agents resist this "integration", imposed by the state. Thus, the shrine's administration tries to preserve its customary mode of functioning that successfully adapts Muslim practices to a Hindu context. In this paper I will show how and why this institution resists the law of the State, all the while the imposed mode of operation claims to be more respectful of the Islamic law than the traditional mode of management. Indeed the latter, being based on Hindu values, seems to be more successful when it comes to "interculturality" than the organisation imposed by modern law.
Paper short abstract:
This is an ethnographic account of an anthropologist, who turns into a consultant working for the media research company in China. The paper examines the problem of a double play in terms of ‘translating’ between the discursive practices of anthropology and Chinese media corporation, and discusses the role of anthropologist in modern institutions.
Paper long abstract:
Increasingly, anthropologists are being engaged in consultancy for corporate concerns. This raises important questions regarding the appropriation and disciplining of anthropological knowledge and expertise. What kinds of roles are anthropologists expected to play? What critical insights can we bring to the corporate world as anthropologists?
These questions arose out of my experience as a consultant for China's biggest media research company between 2002 and 2003. I was, at that time, also writing up my PhD thesis. There, I had double roles to play. As an anthropologist conducting research, I was interested in presenting a more complex view of Chinese media and so-called 'audience' beyond state or commercial discourse. Yet, as an 'expert', it was my job to take part in the commercial discourse to create the 'audience' and find ways to extract exchange values out of them. There were also the interests of the state and local academics to contend with, not to mention the contradictory pulls between being a participant observer trying not to interfere with what was going on, and being the consultant actively shaping the situation.
The question is, then, how could I remain true to my project and training as an anthropologist, while serving the interests of my employer who was ultimately the super addressee of the 'expert'? This paper discusses the efficacy and relevance of anthropologist working in the corporate world as an anthropologist, trying to make our ethnographic accounts more accessible and 'useful' for the people in modern institutions.