In this article, I unpack the relationship between neoliberalism as a policy framework and as a rationality of governance by examining the daily practices of Mexican technocrats with advanced academic degrees in neoclassical economics. Neoclassical economics is implicitly regarded as the transparent technical mechanism through which neoliberal ideas are transmitted to policy. In contrast, I approach neoclassical economics as a system of knowledge for analyzing how markets work that is constituted and negotiated as it is applied to policy. Whereas existing accounts suggest that neoclassical economics effectively sanitizes politics by rendering the political technical, I argue that technical struggles are embedded in and prefigured by political struggles. I take the negotiations between political teams as a starting point from which to interrogate deep‐seated assumptions about the rigidity of neoclassical economics, and I emphasize the role of what I call “anticipatory knowledge,” knowledge marshaled by political teams in anticipation of the knowledge claims of rival teams. [neoliberalism, economics, governmentality, expert knowledge, Mexico, policy]
Anthropology in Action, 15, 2 (2008): 1-9
In the summer of 2006, a young Canadian named Kyle MacDonald succeeded in an ambitious endeavour to transform a red paperclip into a small home via a series of internet exchanges. The logic of the project was simple: by engaging in a series of asymmetric trades (potential traders had to be willing to offer something that was slightly bigger and better than the object MacDonald offered them), MacDonald would ultimately be able to secure the deed to a residence. The red paperclip was initially traded for a fish pen, which was then exchanged for a hand-made, ceramic doorknob, an object that attracted the attention of a doorknob enthusiast, who offered a gas grill in its place, and so on and so forth (see AbstrAct: This article constitutes a pragmatic consideration of how to orchestrate access to 'powerful' individuals and a theoretical reflection on what efforts to negotiate access reveal about the anthropologist's subterranean assumptions about power, collaboration and ethnographic data. Too frequently, powerful actors and the contemporary settings they inhabit appear to be obstacles to ethnographic research. In contrast, I propose that we explore the ways in which working with powerful actors can enhance, rather than inhibit, the possibilities of anthropological data collection. In this article, I present several examples from my field research in the Mexican government to show how the ethnographic encounter can be constructive of the political process, not jut an appendage to it. By directing attention to the ways in which our actual research practices (and not just our findings) intervene in the political space, we can re-orient our expectations about data and the ontology of anthropological expertise.
Anthropological research methods have been successfully leveraged to observe and interpret consumer behavior in order to inform the design, positioning, and messaging of products and services in the private, nonprofit, and governmental sectors. Anthropology is a vital complement to the mainstay of market research, quantitative surveys, because it connects disparate insights and weaves them into robust, coherent narratives that explain why consumers behave the way they do. Although the use of anthropological inquiry in the service of commercial interests has raised ethical objections, anthropologists in market research have made important methodological advances that attest to the continued relevance and value of anthropological inquiry in the evolving global economy.
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