Trading Up: Reflections on Power, Collaboration, and Ethnography in the Anthropology of Policy

Abstract

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.

Public Finance Management: Dynamics of Public Servant-Political Leadership in the Livestock Sector in Malawi

“…The Chi-square test revealed a significant association (X 2 = 182, p = .000) between public finance Similarly, public servant finance leadership (the Treasury) has the least power (mean score = 3.89) in making public investment decisions in the livestock sector in Malawi (see Table 3). The findings are consistent with Schwegler (2008) who argues that power is not a one-way street to mean "power does not reside in the hands of one person but with others too", which fosters collaboration of established institutions or individual powers to achieve the common or different goals in the end (Krueger, 1996). Each stakeholder had a non-political aspect: POL = 29.2%; PSL = 21.3%; and PFM = 24.7%.…”

The meaning and uses of privatization: the case of the Ethiopian developmental state

“…In the anthropological tradition of 'studying up' (Nader 1972), I approach the Ethiopian developmental state from above rather than below, analysing the kinds of 'epistemological frictions' (Schwegler 2008) that emerge from (sometimes tense) miscommunications arising from the interview process. Taking up categories such as 'privatization', 'public/private' and 'neoliberalism' as ethnographic objects, my aim is to demonstrate how government perspectives on the meaning and uses of privatization emerge from circulating ideas and beliefs about the 'inherent' role of state and business in the development process.…”

Pleasure policies: debating development plans in southern California's Wine Country

“…Here, we are in dialog with work in the 'anthropology of policy' to consider and evaluate the Plan (e.g. Abram, 2003;Cochrane, 1980;Davis-Floyd, 2011;Geilhufe, 1979;Hinshaw, 1980;Okongwu & Mencher, 2000;Schwegler, 2008;Shore & Wright, 1996, 1997Shore, Wright, & Però, 2011;Wedel, Shore, Feldman, & Lathrop, 2005;Wright & Shore, 1995). We trace competing economic and political interests and differing social and ethical positions entailed in the Plan by placing policy -its evolution and functionas our unit of analysis.…”