Finding the Field: Notes on the Ethnography of NGOs

Markowitz, Lisa

doi:10.17730/humo.60.1.5777xq9cr9ke4k0e

Cited by 97 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…First, the study of NGOs lends itself to the feeding of ideas and experiences into debates around the importance of doing multisited, multilevel ethnography-and the challenges associated with this. A central problem that emerges in the study of NGOs is identifying what precisely is "the field" when we study an NGO (Markowitz 2001). Is it the office, the beneficiary populations and local communities, or the donor agencies?…”

Section: Productive Instabilities Around Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As noted above, there is an uncomfortable similarity in the praxis of anthropological and NGO fieldwork (Lewis 1999;Markowitz 2001). In addition to methodology and relationships with local communities, both spheres are fraught with moral stakes (Bornstein 2012;Gardner and Lewis 2015).…”

Section: Productive Instabilities Around Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We appreciate the four-level lexicon she develops here (NGOs as object, locus, area, and verb) as a powerful way to frame and move forward anthropological work in this area. Anthropologists such as Markowitz (2001) and Hilhorst (2003) have similarly focused attention on what constitutes "the field" and how to study it. We argue that NGOs offer unique opportunities to study the architecture of the contemporary neoliberal world system (Schuller 2009).…”

Section: Replymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Engagements with a Productively Unstable Category: Anthropologists and Nongovernmental Organizations

Lewis¹,

Schuller²

2017

Current Anthropology

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The category "NGO" (nongovernmental organization) is notoriously hard to fix. The term NGO-which defines these organizations in terms of what they are not-masks great diversity and assumes an unproblematic boundary. The use of the term persists, in no small part because several different types of actors involved in a range of fields depend on what we call the "productive instability" inherent to the NGO category. As a discipline, given our history and methodology, anthropology and anthropologists are uniquely poised to grapple with the ideas and practices associated with the inherently unstable category of NGO. Rather than attempting to fix the category or contest the boundaries implied by it, anthropologists are instead beginning to interrogate the meanings behind the contestations themselves.Rather than attempt precise classification or bemoan the uncertainty, we contend that the NGO category is "productively unstable." We argue that productive work lies ahead in charting similarities and differences within NGOs across aid and activism. This task mirrors an inherent messiness for both NGOs and anthropologists as we grapple with dilemmas of engagement. Such a critically engaged anthropology of NGOs also stands poised to offer useful guidance to the discipline as it struggles over "relevance" in this new century.

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Section: Productive Instabilities Around Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Productive Instabilities Around Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Replymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Engagements with a Productively Unstable Category: Anthropologists and Nongovernmental Organizations

Lewis¹,

Schuller²

2017

Current Anthropology

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“…;Dewar, 1995;Meyer, 1999;Markowitz, 2001). In part, this is because these organizations have several benefits over governmental agencies, particularly greater administrative flexibility and responsiveness, as well as relatively lower costs in administration, negotiation and monitoring (Meyer, 1992a(Meyer, , 1992b(Meyer, , 1995(Meyer, , 1996(Meyer, , 1997a(Meyer, , 1997b(Meyer, , 1999.…”

Section: Ngos As Agents Of Environmental Conservation and Community Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biosphere reserves and the “Yucatán” syndrome: another look at the role of NGOs

Frazier

2006

Landscape and Urban Planning

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“…And it remains the case that even now ethnographic studies of development organizations are relatively few in number. Arguably, there are still many more calls for ethnographies of development organizations (Cooper and Packard, 1997a;Markowitz, 2001;Watts, 2001) than there are such ethnographies.…”

Section: Ethnographic Approaches To Development Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Practice, power and meaning: frameworks for studying organizational culture in multi‐agency rural development projects

Lewis

Bebbington

Batterbury

et al. 2003

J of Intl Development

111

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Culture has received increasing attention in critical development studies, though the notion that there are important cultural differences within and between development organizations has received less consideration. This paper elaborates elements of a framework for studying organizational culture in multi-agency development projects. It draws on selected writings in anthropology and in organizational theory and suggests that these two bodies of literature can be usefully brought together, as well as on insights from ongoing fieldwork in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso and Peru. At the centre of this framework is the analysis of context, practice and power. Where development projects involve multiple organizations (such as donors, government agencies, non-governmental organizations and grassroots groups) an analysis of cultures both within and between organizational actors can help explain important aspects of project performance. The paper argues that organizational culture is constantly being produced within projects, sometimes tending towards integration, often towards fragmentation. This fragmentation, indicative of the range of cultures within development organizations, is an important reason why some projects fail, and why ideas stated in project documents are often not realized, especially in the case of the newer and more contentious objectives such as 'empowerment'.

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Finding the Field: Notes on the Ethnography of NGOs

Cited by 97 publications

References 16 publications

Engagements with a Productively Unstable Category: Anthropologists and Nongovernmental Organizations

Engagements with a Productively Unstable Category: Anthropologists and Nongovernmental Organizations

Biosphere reserves and the “Yucatán” syndrome: another look at the role of NGOs

Practice, power and meaning: frameworks for studying organizational culture in multi‐agency rural development projects

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