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ANTHROPOLOGYOFORGANISATIONSREADER
INTRODUCTION:REINSTITUTIONALISATIONS
AlbertoCorsnJimnez
UniversityofManchester
Everysomanyyearsanthropologistsbecomeselfconsciousabout theworldof
organisations. It seems as if the discipline needs to catch itsbreath and gain
reassuranceaboutitsintellectualusefulnessinandforthecontemporaryworld.
Thehistory of thediscipline is full of such reflexive gestures and epochal re
awakenings.Theyareoftenreminiscentofolderdebates,aboutanthropologys
colonial heritage (Asad 1973) or its service to industry and capitalism (Baritz
1960;Burawoy1979).They takedifferentshapesand forms,mostly todowith
theusesofanthropology(Tax1964;e.g.Gildschmidt1979;HillandBaba1998).
The
pragmatism
underlying
the
exercise
tends
to
circumscribe
also
the
scope
of
theselfevaluation,withtheinstitutionalworldsofpolicymakingandbusiness
close to defining the very spirit of the project (Hinshaw 1980;Holzberg and
Giovannini1981;Bate1997;Linstead1997;Lewis1999;OkongwuandMencher
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2000). All in all, in their differentways, such periodical reexaminations are
indicativeofanthropologys largeruneasinesswith theapplicationsof its trade
(Eddy and Partridge 1978). Power and its institutions, itwould seem,make
anthropologistsuncomfortable(Wright1994:20).
Perhaps this helps explainswhy the institutionalisation of power hasbeen a
centralconcernoftheanthropologyoforganisationsfrom itsearliestdays.One
couldalmostrebrandthedisciplineastheinstitutionalethnographyofpolitical
philosophy.Anthropologys first incursion in industry, from thehandofElton
Mayo, was motivated and inspired by the latters conservative political
philosophy. Solidarity, cooperation, spontaneous association, were all
categories of social analysis appliedbyMayo to thedescription of shop floor
sociality as counterpoint to his dissatisfactionwith the politics of democratic
governance (see Bendix and Fisher, this volume). The consequences of this
surreptitiousslidingofpoliticalphilosophyintotheanthropologicalvocabulary
have been farfetched and not always noted. Today, the entanglement of
organisationallifeinthebureaucratisationofdemocraticprocesshascaughtthe
attentionofscholarsundertheheadingofgovernmentality(Burchell,Gordonet
al. 1991; see alsoHeyman, this volume). But the study of theways inwhich
politicalanddistributivejusticegetsinstitutionalisedhasalwaysbeenaconcern
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oforganisationalethnographers,indeed,adrivingmotivationoftheirwork,and
it hasbeen one ofmy aims in putting together this volume to resurrect this
tradition.
This introduction thusaims toprovidean introduction to thevolume through
the lensofatheoryofsocialandpoliticalreinstitutionalisationsofdistributive
justice (cf. Douglas 1986). I do not provide an account of the history of the
development of the anthropology of organisations for there are already good
accountsathand(Schwartzman1993;Wright1994),andbecauseIfeelthetimeis
right for a political rereading of organisational ethnography in institutional
terms.Twofurtheraims,relatedtoandderivedfrommymainaim,aretostress
theanalyticalpurchaseofcomparativeethnography (HolzbergandGiovannini
1981) and to bring attention to the ongoing displacements and re
institutionalisationsofknowledgeinorganisations.
Myuseof the terms redistributionand reinstitutionalisation isunusualyet
centraltothetheoreticalperspectivethatIaimtodevelop.Thoughmuchofwhat
follows is dedicated to the task of fleshingout these terms, it is important to
provideaworkingdefinitionattheoutset.Iusetheterm redistributionasan
alternativetosocialrelationshipsandtherelationalanalyticatlarge.Iexplainin
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detail my scepticism towards the relational analytic below. Briefly, re
distributionpointstotheway inwhichsocial lifeandknowledgegetsshuffled
aroundplacesandpersonsindifferentdistributiveguises:anattempttodescribe
analytically theway inwhichmorality flowsasa social fund.Redistributions
mark the way society appears to itself at differentjunctures and points of
inflection:how itaggregates into specific forms toprovideprovisional (moral)
accounts of itself. Social relationships are in this sensebut one, perhaps the
preferred,mode of social selfconsciousness among anthropologists: the form
thatsociallifetakestoananthropologicaleye.
Redistribution has a ring of political philosophy to the term, and this is
deliberate. Redistributions aremoralmoments,where political values, social
idiomsandquestionsofjusticefoldontooneanother,makingspaceforequity
to appear. This can happen in various guises.A current example are ethical
forms,where society holds out amirror to itself and looks at its own image
through the refracted lens of ethical idioms, such as transparency or trust,
exampleswhichIelucidatelateronintheintroduction.
Thetermreinstitutionalisation,ontheotherhand,aimstocapturetheworkof
thisredistributive flow inanorganisationalcontext. Ihavecoined the term to
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move away from the structural vocabulary and constraints of much
organisational sociology. Reinstitutionalisations are ethnographic moments,
informedby the redistributive flows (of affect,morality, power, knowledge)
within any one particular organisational context. Insofar as they have an
institutionaldimension,however, these are alsopoliticaldistributivemoments
(in itsclassicalpoliticalphilosophysense),becauseofall institutionspower to
becomemoraladjudicators.TheexamplewhichIdeveloptowardstheendofthe
introduction deals with the recent rise of institutional ethics (transparency,
participation, corporate social responsibility, governance) as an idiom of
organisationalreflexivity.Mypointisthattheriseoftheethicalmarkstheway
our ethnographic contemporary describes itself: ethics is the name our re
distributivejustificationstakewhendeployedininstitutionalcontexts.Thereare
someunsettlingsideeffectstothisinstitutionaluseoftheethical,whichInotein
theconclusion.
Theintellectualremitoftheanthropologyoforganisationsisofcoursefarfrom
being exhausted by the redistributive approach to institutional polities.
Organisations are available for all kinds of study; and an ethnography of an
organisation renders all kinds of practices, artefacts, subjects and situations
worthy of analysis. This book is full of examples. Aesthetics, aid and
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development, work, bureaucracy, friendship, immigration, rationality,
technology,secrecy,law;thesearebutamodestsampleofthetypesofcategories
that take an ethnographic lifeof theirown in someof thearticles that follow.
Andthereareyetothersthatarenotcoveredinthisvolume,ifonlybecausethe
catalogue ofpossibilities is as rich and everexpanding as the anthropological
enterpriseitself.Forthesamereason,ifoneistomakesomesenseofthewealth
ofmaterialsthatthecomparativestudyoforganisationsyields,itisimportantto
keep a theoretical perspective in mind. The rest of this opening chapter is
concernedwithbuildingsuchaperspective.
Reasonsandpersons
Derkek Parfit opens his admirablebook,Reasons andpersons,with a questionwhichisemblematicofthetheoreticalitchesthatinformedtheearlyincursionsof
anthropologists intotheworldoforganisations: Whatdowehavemostreason
todo?,asksParfit (1986:3).The reasons forouractionsare sometimesmoral,
sometimesnot.Theymaybe explainedby resorting tomoral theoryormoral
arguments,or theymaybeexplainedwith reasons thatare selfjustifying, that
pride themselves for their rationality.Different theories and different reasons
createdifferent imagesof thekindsofpersonsweare, indeed,of themodelof
personhood thatwe are dealingwith (Douglas andNey 1998), including the
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efficiency (Roethlisberger and Dickson 1939). The results of the tests were
contradictory and confusing.Mayo andhis colleagueswere called to setup a
number of different experiments aimed at controlling andmeasuring the co
variationsbetweenhumanand technologicalvariables. Itwaseventuallynoted
that productivity appeared to oscillate independently of the changesmade to
working conditions. Researchers then became intrigued about the extent to
which workers might be reacting to changes in the organisation of social
relations (say, new supervisory arrangements, or even interactions with
sympathetic researchers) rather than to technological variables.This led to an
increaseawarenessofandinterestinhumanrelationsinindustry,thatis,inthe
socalledqualityof the social relationships thatworkershadat theworkplace,
withMayoeventuallyadvocatingtheestablishmentofpersonnelcounsellingand
therapeutic programmes to help workers unburden from the boredom of
industrialwork.TheHumanRelationsSchool thus signalleda reorientationof
research in industry towards shop floor sociality, including the favouring ofethnography as preferred research methodology (Gardner & Whyte, this
volume).
Thenatureandconsequencesof theHawthorneexperimentshavebeenamply
documented in the literature (see also, Parsons 1974; e.g. Jones 1992;
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Schwartzman 1993: 518). They set amilestone for social science research in
industry.WilliamFootWhyte,forinstance,traces thebeginningsofbehavioral
science research in industrial relations to the work ofMayo in Hawthorne
(Whyte1987:487).HelenSchwartzman,on theotherhand,hascommentedon
themethodologicalrobustnessofaresearchprogrammebasedonthevirtuesof
openended exploration: themost significant contribution of [theHawthorne
Studies]isitsdemonstrationofthevalueofallowingbothresearchquestionsand
methods to evolve and change during the course of an investigation.
(Schwartzman 1993: 15)What interestsmehere,however, is the ideology and
social theory that those involved in the experiments brought to their
explanations and models. I have noted above how Mayos views on the
predicamentofcontemporarytechnologicalsocietyledhimtoendorseatheory
of spontaneous association that felt contempt for all forms of labour and
industrial organisation. Thesehe feltwerebut an artificial substitute for (the
spontaneous growth of) human cooperation. (cited in Bendix & Fisher, this
volume)His idealization of social life in terms reminiscent of a pristine and
romanticvisionof traditionalpreindustrial lifemade itsway intohisandhis
pupils theoreticalmodels.Notonlydid theHumanRelationsSchool imported
systemequilibriumconceptsandastructuralfunctionalparadigm to industrial
research(seeWhytesarticleonthesocialstructureofrestaurants,thisvolume),
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butitdidsounderthewingofatheoryofpoliticalrelationsthatwasblindtothe
redistributivechoicesplayingoutat the institutional level.Socialrelationships
were explained as contributing to either conflict or consensus,whichwere
taken for archetypicalmodels of sociality (Buchsbaum,Laderman et al. 1946).
Workers responses tomanagerial incentivesweredeemed either rational and
hence consensual, or irrational and therefore antagonistic. At one point, the
disciplinescanonwasevendefinedbywhatbecameknownasthe restrictions
ofoutputliterature:thestudyofthebehaviourofworkerssometimesresistant,
sometimes consentient strategic responses to managements incentives to
increase output (Collins,Dalton et al. 1946).Michael Burawoy has called the
structureofthisarchetypicalconfrontationtheparadoxoforganisationtheory,
whereorganisationswereimaginedtobebuiltaroundtwodivergentpremises,
namely, the assumption of underlying harmony and the necessity of social
control. (Burawoy 1979: 7, emphasis removed)Hispoint is an importantone.
Theparadoxshowstheextenttowhichwhathappensinsideanorganisationisa
refraction of larger political developments. Consent and consensus are only
meaningful categories if some larger process is kept stable. They are not
primordial conditions but products of the particular organisation of work
(Burawoy1979:12),one,inBurawoysanalysis,definedbythecapitalistlabour
process.
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Relationsanddistributions
Thequestionofwhat iskeptstablebringsusbacktothe reasonsandpersons
analytic.Itisaquestionthataffectstheredistributivetemplateweusetomake
oursocialtheorywork.Buraworysownchoicethecapitalistlabourprocess
entails already a redistributive choice,where social relationships are viewed
through the lens of a productionist paradigm (cf.Campbell 1987), andwhere
peopleseethemselvesandtheirhumancapacitiesinacontributiveidiom(Corsn
Jimnez,thisvolume).WithMayo,theearlyHumanRelationsscholarsfavoured
aviewofindustrialrelationsorganizedaroundanindividualisticpointofview
(Whyte 1951: 185). If workers did not respond positively to appropriate
incentives,theywereseenasirrational,incapableofmakingadequatechoices.
Reasonandrationalitywerethusboundedtotheindividual;individualsrelated
to other individuals by exercising rational choices; and a model of rational
relationality,notmorality,informedsuchchoices.Thisisapowerfulmodelofre
distributive socialpolitics, although ithas rarelybeendescribe in these terms.
Criticswerequicktopointout its limitations.The individual, itwas insistently
noted,madeaverypoorbasicunitofanalysis.Oneneededtoexpandthetypes
ofrelationstowhichindividualsresponded,toinclude,forexample,individual
casehistories,racialandethnicfactors,statushierarchies,cliqueandfriendship
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groups,orprocessesofunionization;andtoexpand,also,thekindsofrelations
thatwerebundledtogetherasrationalactions,toaccount,forinstance,forgroup
quotas, thepresenceof ratebustersor incomegenerated in the informalsector
outside theworkplace (Mollonas article, this volume,makes for awonderful
contemporary example). This is what eventually brought industrial
ethnographerstoincorporateeverexpandinglayersofcontexttotheiranalyses.
From having originally focused on the social system of the workplace (e.g.
Gardner1946;RichardsonandWalker1948;Whyte1948),researchersmovedto
studyingthelargercommunitywhereintheworkplacewaslocated(e.g.Warner
andLow1946;WarnerandLow1947).Fromhere, itwasonlyasmalljump to
includethelocaleconomy,thenationstate,theworldsystem,orthestructurally
uneven forces of capitalist development (e.g. Lupton 1963;Wolfe 1977;Nash
1993;Yanagisako2002).Themove to studywidewasparalleledbyamoveto
studyup(Nader1972),toincludeanalysesofdecisionmakingprocessesamong
elitesandpowerholders.
Curiously,throughoutthistimenoonequeriedthecentralplaceoftherelation
in the theoretical imaginationofall suchexpansively individualcumsocial re
distributive(i.e.rationalandmoral)choices.Thecallstostudyupandwidehad
indexedadisplacementof theanalyticalgaze,agrowingoutandexpansionof
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thenumberofperspectivestobeconsidered.Fewattendedtothepossiblestrains
arisingfromthisconstantzoominginandoutofsocialsituations,thisperpetual
oscillationbetweendifferentordersofcomplexity(cf.LawandMol2002).Forit
wasthecasethatrelationswherebeingputtoworkacrossallordersofreality.
Relationswere tracedout to elucidatenew contexts and situations; to include
newpoliticaloreconomicactors;toarticulatenewtheoreticalperspectives,about
modesandrelationsofproduction,oremergingpatternsandstructuresofsocial
relationships,orresituatetheoriesandtheoristsinrelationtotheirwork.Marilyn
Strathern has noted the central role that relationshave consistently played in
anthropology as both terms of ethnographic description and categories of
anthropological analysis (Strathern 1995), and nowherewas this somuch the
caseasintheurbanandindustrialcasestudiesofthepostHawthorneparadigm.
A number of consequences followed. From a formalist point of view, the
limitationsof the relationalmodel share in theoftcited critiquesof structural
functionalism. It is difficult to make relations take stock of change and
temporality, to make them move, to see them developing new forms and
shapes.Relationality,inthiscontext,producestheorieswhosesellbydatecomes
aboutveryquickly.Fromasubstantivistangle,ontheotherhand,therearealso
importantconstraintstothetypeandextentofmoralworkthatrelationscando
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forsocialtheory.AnexamplecanbefoundinHaroldWilenskysearlyappraisal
ofresearchintohumanrelationsinindustry,whoobserved
that size of immediate work group is negatively correlated with
productivity,orjobsatisfaction,orregularattendance,orindustrialpeace
other factorsbeingequal.This isdue inpart to thegreater likelihood that
primaryrelations(relationsthatareintimate,personal,inclusive,andexperiencedas spontaneous) aremore likely to develop in small groups that in largegroups.(Wilensky1957:28,emphasisadded)
ForWilensky, relations carry amoralburden, the scale ofwhich varieswith
factorssuchas thesizeofagroupor the internalmomentof therelation itself,
whathecallstheirinclusiveness.Thenotionofscalehereisimportant.Itpoints
tohowwidely the social imaginary is cast:whether sociality ismade towork
inside relations (inclusively), or whether it is carried forward through
externalisations,suchasBurawoyscapitalistlabourprocess.Whatisinternalor
externaltoarelation,insideoroutsideanethnographicdescription,isofcourse
alwaysamatterofdispute.Wilenskyappreciated thishimself, thoughdidnot
articulateintheseterms.Contrastingagroupofarmyandindustrialshopfloor
buddies,heobservedhowthelattermighthavelessofasenseofthemanagers
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righttocommandandmoreofasensethatthemanagerisplayingonadifferent
team.(Wilensky1957:30).Whatismeantbyinclusivennesinthearmyandthe
shop floor is not, therefore, interchangeable: in the army, relations internalize
theirexternalities,theybecomedeeperwithintoaccountforthepressuresoutside
(cf.Strathern2002).Saiddifferently,ifwefollowWilenskyoneismorelikelyto
havebuddiesinthearmythatintheshopfloor.
Inbothitsinternalandexternalmomentstherelationalanalyticthusdictatesthe
waywegettoseemoralitytowork,whenandwhereourvaluesandprinciples
aremadetokick in,andtowhateffect: insideoroutside,privatelyorpublicly,
inclusivelyorexclusively, in thearmyor in the shop floor.Thisaffectswhat I
referredtoaboveasourmodelofsocialredistributivechoices.Relationsalways
carrywith them a particular scale ofmoral and equity possibilities, a field of
politicaljustice (Strathern 1991;Strathern 1999;on thenotionof scale, see e.g.
CorsnJimnez2005;Green2005:128158).Inotherwords,relationsalwaysneed
torelatetosomethingtobeplacedwithinsomesortofscaleiftheyaretomap
out forus the terrainofmoralandpolitical reasons and choiceswherein they
havetomakesense.
Culture
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differentways,idiomsandcategoriesthroughwhichpower,raceandgenderthemselvesemergedasfactorsenablingorconstrainingsociallife.
The cultural turn in ethnographic description and analysis had a series of
consequences that are wellknown and have been amply documented (e.g.
Wright1994).Myinteresthereisonthewayinwhichcultureitselfbecamean
adjudicative category, an analytical currency throughwhich social andmoral
redistributivechoiceswereallocatedandexplained(away).Theway,that is, in
whichculturebecameascaleofsortsitself.Forthetermlevelledofftheplaying
field of institutional politics, rescaling the moral template of social re
distributiveprocesses.Thiswas soparticularly amongorganisational scholars,
who turned eagerly to the anthropological concept of culture for use as an
objectifyingtool.AsophisticatedexampleisThompsonandWildavskyscultural
theoryof informationbias (thisvolume),where the availabilityof information
and the processes of decisionmaking are themselves the organisation in the
making.
The appropriation of the culture concept by organisational scholars took a
peculiarturn(see,e.g.Pettigrew1979).Ithadtwomoments:anexplanatoryand
amethodologicalone.Broadlyspeaking, the initiativemaybecaricaturedthus:
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There are at least two elements in this culturalcumethnographic approach to
theanthropologicalstudyoforganisations that lame thediscipline ifcompared
tomoreclassicaldefinitions.One isanabsenceofreferences toanthropologys
traditional comparative method and analytic (though see Thompson and
Wildavsky,andDouglasandMarsessaysinthisvolume);theother,related,isa
hollowingoutofthedisciplinescriticalinterrogationofsocialtheory.Combined,
theytellthestoryofanthropologyshistoricalcritiqueofsocialtheorythroughits
descriptive rendering of indigenous and folkmodels of social life, a sense of
intellectualpurchaseforwhichanthropologyisrarelycreditedinorganisational
ethnographiesofculture(Schwartzman1993;GellnerandHirsch2001).
An appreciationof the comparative and criticaldimensionsof anthropological
analysiswouldshownotonly theextent towhich culture itself isaculturally
situatedcategory,doublefaceted,asSusanWrighthasputit(1994:27),atonce
analyticalandethnographic;butitwouldshowalsowhatthingsculturedoesnot
gettoexplain,andthusthemorallyweightedreliefofthosethingsthatculture
does in factexplain tothoseforwhom it isameaningfulcategory.This figure
groundreversal(explainedvs.obviated)ofthecultural imagerybringsusback
to the question of redistribution and scale (cf.Wagner 1975). Explained in
figurative language,one could say that the resort tocultural idiomsprojectsa
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policeworkbecomesapublicaffair(reportedinnewspapers,ortalkedaboutin
the family or the neighbourhood). In the aftermath of a shooting, individual
police officers need to reconstruct their own personal identity in a sea of
administrativeandinstitutionaljustifications,tyingandtidingupthemessiness
oftheaffair,includingtheneedtocoinor inventnewsocialobjects,personsor
places ontowhich to pass thebuck of original responsibility (cf. Frankenberg
1972). The world of indeterminacy is thus carefully resculpted into images,
wordsandformsthathavefirstbeenapprovedforpublicconsumption.This is
themomentwereshadowsarecastandmoralconstituenciesilluminated.Thisis
howscaleworks,andhowreasonsandpersonsredistributethemselvesacross
the organisation, reassembling in the process the integrity of what is
indigenouslytakenforpoliticalandmoraljustice.
Reinstitutionalisations
Not every police shooting is treated equally, or has the same effects. Some
officers,VanMaanentellsus,reactbyexpressing[g]uilt,embarrasment,stigma,
incapacity,andprofound insecurity.Anofficers senseofself thusbecomesa
sticking point of wider moral judgements, a locus for the negotiation of
personal,family,communityandpublicvalues.Thesegetcaughtupinmoments
ofreinstitutionalisations,where thesurplusofviolent indeterminacy looks for
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itsown stillpoint,anew restingplaceof temporarily redistributed (personal,
moralandpolitical)equity.OneofVanMaanensinformantsputsitthus:
IfithadntbeenforParksandWhiteIdontknowwhatIdofdone.Iwas
reallymessedup,confused,ready topull thepin. Icouldntreally talk to
Maryaboutitsinceshedneverreallybeeninfavorofmypolicecareerand
all.Besidesshewasgoingthroughenoughshitofherownwithmebeing
on the sixoclocknewseverynight. Itgot sobad thatwehad tojerk the
kids out of school for a while. The department was good though and
nobodyeversuggestedthatitwouldntallblowovereventually.Butitwas
ParksandWhitewhogotmethroughit.Theycamearoundeverydayand
listenedtomemoanandbitch.Ireallylovethoseguys.
VanMaanensinformantshuffledandredistributedhisownnotionandsenseof
self (via Parks andWhite, hiswife, the police department, his kids and their
school)untilheobtainedorproduced forhimselfan integratedandjustifiable
sense of moral coherence. We are here witnesses to the mobilization and
reassembling of reasons and persons to produce a stable fund of social and
personalwellbeing.
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Theredistributionsofinstitutionalpublics
Inhisrecentbiographicalapproachtothequestionofegalitarianisminpolitical
philosophy, G. A. Cohen identifies three views on what he calls the site of
distributivejustice about, that is, the sorts of items towhich principles of
distributivejusticeapply.(Cohen2000:3,emphasisintheoriginal).Theseviews
consist in three different pickandmix formulas,made up of either rules of
publicorderormorallyinformedpersonalchoice,oramixtureinbetween.This
threecase scenario is a wellknown point of departure for intellectual
disquisitionsinpoliticalphilosophy.IhavecitedCohensformulation,however,
becauseIaminterestedinhischoiceofvocabulary,whichhehimselfemphasises
inthequoteabove:whathetermsthesitesofdistributivejustice.Myinterestin
the topology(fromtopos, site inGreek)ofdistributivejusticegoesbacktomy
descriptionofsocietysreinstitutionalisations,whatIhavecalledthroughoutits
moments of redistribution. This concern for the places or moments of re
distribution echoes Bruno Latours recent call for an objectoriented or
Dingpolikic (Latour 2005), a mattersofconcern politics that looks out for the
assembliesthroughwhichthesocialreinventsthepolitical;thatis,themoment
atwhichsocietyemergesasanobjectofpublicconcerntoitself(ontheopening
upof assemblages aspolitical spaces seealsoOngandCollier2005).Avivid
example of this assembling of the political through the reinstitutional is
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Whenshecamein,shegaveaQ&Athatincriminatedher.Shesaidshewas
going to take care of the horse and get room andboard for doing that.
Wheredoyoudrawtheline?Shewastotakecareofthehorseandshedbe
able to ride. But he [the suspected employer] had enough financial
resources to show thathehadotherpeople to takecareof the stableand
thatshedidnotneed towork.Hedoes travelandmayhavejustmether
andinvitedher.(Gilboy,thisvolume)
Suddenly, the incident isno longerbureaucratic,oradministrative. Itbecomes
political. Not because of the way in which it expresses particular power
dynamicsandclashes,butbecauseofthewayinwhichcertainexternalpublics
becomeinternaltothesocialmomentoftheincidentitself:thewaysinwhichthe
incident goespublic atdifferentpointsof inflection; for instance, theway in
whichideasabout(structuralinequalitiesof)classandwealth,powerandsex,or
even intimations about the aristocratic flare of thejudicial system,make their
sudden(public)appearanceinsidetheorganisationasconsequentialidiomsand
instrumentsofadministration.Herewehaveagain,then,theilluminations(the
idiomsgonepublic)andtheshadows(thewordsspokeningossipandsecrecy).
For these ideasbecome part and parcel of the institution itself. This iswhy
Gilboyplacessomuchemphasisonwhatshecalls foreseeableorganisational
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futures; that is, officials use of organisational background and embedded
knowledge to anticipate the possible futures of particular actions, and to
manoeuvre accordingly. In the above case,officials later recognized toGilboy
that they should have anticipated thejudges use of his connections of class,
statusandpoliticalpatronagetobringaboutcaseworkintervention,andshould
have therefore taken preemptive action by, for example, deferring without
detentiontheyoungwomansinspectiontoalaterdate.Itisatthispointthatthe
incidentsignalsitsredistributivemoment,whenofficialsreasontoreadjustand
reallocate their distributed capacities (Gell 1998; Corsn Jimnez 2003) by
internalizing and externalizing, in a double movement, the organisations
societalorientation.Thisisbestcapturedinthequestionwithwhichtheofficial
summeduphisliterallydistributed(andthusbedazzled)agency: Wheredowe
drawtheline?
Reinstitutionalisationsofthecontemporary
So where are the lines of contemporary institutional redistributions being
drawn?Therearemanyanswers to thisquestionand thearticles thatmakeup
Section VIIIbelow offer some selective glimpses. I want to focus here on a
particularemergingassemblage,thatoftheethical,whichposescrucialanalytical
challenges toourunderstandingofsocial formsbecauseof itscentrality toany
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model of distributive social theory. The rise of the ethical is particularly
problematic for the social sciences because of the language and imagery of
redistribution that already populates our analytical vocabularies (e.g.
proportionality,balance,equality,justice).Themattertakesgreaterpoignancyif
giventheformofaquestion:howcanwetheorizetheethical,iftheethicalitself
becomesthemodeofarticulationof(EuroAmerican)society(cf.Strathern2000)?
Anthropology,and theanthropologyoforganisations inparticular,providesa
simple,yetIbelievecompellinganswer:ethnography.Ethnographygivesusthe
comparativeandcriticaledge thatweneed torevitalize fromwithinoursocial
theory.Inhisethnographicstudyofaidpolicyandpractice,forexample,David
Mosse (this volume, see alsoMosse 2004) alerts us to the transinstitutional
purchase of allegedly selfevident policy categories, such as participation,
evidencebasedpolicyorgovernance,whichinhisethnographyfolduntoone
another to produce a particular regime of ethically accountable development.
These categories create amodel of policy that subverts andbends the actual
formsthatconcretedevelopmentpracticestake.Theymakepolicytakealifeof
its own, away from the fractured and contradictory terrain of professional
practice,selfvalidatingaworldofsystemicrepresentationsthathas littletodo
withhow thingsareon theground.Thepoint isnotsimplythatsuchabstract,
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transparencyputs it.Sheobserves thatvisibilityoften conceals something else
anddrawsaparallelwithHagenpublicceremonials,wheredisplaysofwealth
and goods conceal the efforts and negotiations that take place over time and
modulate Hageners power and gender relationships. It is at this juncture,
therefore,thatwecanseetheperniciouseffectsofthenewinstitutionalisationof
ethics.Forwhenprescriptive categories aredeployed in adescriptive fashion,
something isdeliberatelyconcealed.Strathernmakesthepointeloquently: The
rhetoricoftransparencyappearstoconcealthatveryprocessofconcealment,yet
in so far as everyoneknows this, itwouldbehard to say it reallydoes so.
Realities are knowingly eclipsed. (Strathern, this volume) In other words,
institutional ethics makes (certain dimensions and funds of) knowledge
disappearhardlyanethicalstanceatall.
The reduplicative work (simultaneously descriptive and prescriptive) of
transparency, participatory and all such other idioms of institutional re
distributions is thrown vividly into reliefwhenbrought under a comparative
light.Theplayofethnographiccontrastsandshadowstakesthenacrucialcritical
dimension.Stratherns tyrannyoftransparency,forexample,canbeprofitably
compared to Abner Cohens politics of ritual secrecy (this volume). The
comparisonallowsus to see that transparencyand secrecyarenotselfevident
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reversibles to the opposition trustmistrust.Much to the contrary, trust and
transparencyappearthenastheinstitutionalproductsofaparticulardistributive
moment, one that dislodges the ethical from the social and posits it as an
institutionalobjective.Buildingonthismodeofcomparativeanalysis,acritical,
crosssectionalreadingoftheessays inthiscollectionallowsustoseetheforce
andvalueof ethnography as amodelof critical social theory.We can see, for
instance, theanalyticalpurchaseofethnographic termswhenused todescribe
the redistributive effects of institutional practices: when, say, the public
knowledge thatmuseumcuratorsholdof science (Macdonald, thisvolume) is
contrastedwiththepublicstrustofinstitutionaltransparency(Strathern).When
the public, that is, is shuffled out of the benefaction of the state and re
institutionalised against themarket, now an image of the social relevance of
museums for society, now an index of corporate trustworthiness. Or when
productivity is redistributed to fund the individualcreativegeniusofacook
(Fine,thisvolume),thecollectivevaluesandresistanceoffemaleMalayworkers
(Ong, this volume), or even a managers administration of bureaucratic
expediency(JackallandDalton,boththisvolume).
Such contrasts are useful because they illustrate themode of assemblage of
particularinstitutionalredistributivemovements.Publics,tostaywiththeabove
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example, takeandoccupydifferent institutionalshapesandspaces: they open
up in response to different pressures,make different concessions to different
parties in the name of different interests, and generate their own internal
differences, theirown endogenous publics, so to speak.Equally crucial, their
moment of public appearance is an institutional moment. Transparency,
participation or public knowledge emerge as institutional idioms, that is,
idiomswithaninstitutionalremit,whoseredistributiveeffectsbearinstitutional
consequences,thoughtheydoofcoursealsotravelthroughandacrosspersons
andplaces,withinandoutsideaninstitution.Hencethesignificanceofscale:the
inclusiveness or externality, to useWilenskys earlier formulation, of such
sociallyredistributivemovements;andhence,too,the importanceofattending
to the reinstitutionalisations of organisational life of developing an
anthropology of organisations that is an anthropology of redistributive
politics/publics. Said differently, an anthropology that carries forth an
intellectualagendaforaninstitutionalanthropology.
Structureofthevolume
Ethnographydocuments thiseverdisplaceablemovementof the fundof social
andpoliticalinterests,andprovides,too,thetermsforitsanalysis.Thisvolume
is therefore organized around the service that ethnography can lend to this
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comparativeandcriticaltask.Thehistoryoftheanthropologyoforganisationsis,
of course, little different from the history of the discipline at large, so the
selectionoftextssampledhererunsthroughtheverysamehistoryoftheoretical
preoccupations, interests and challenges that have characterised the
anthropological project over the past eighty years. Debates within the
anthropology of organisations rehearse classic debates in anthropology, about
thevalidityor limitationsofthestructuralfunctionalparadigm(Whyte,Bendix
andFisher,Roy,thisvolume);aboutthe importanceofcontext,andofopening
analysis to the influenceofwiderhistoricalandpolitical forces (Cohen);about
the effects upon organisations of global and transnational changes in the
relationsofcapitalistproduction(Nash,Ong,Mollona,KundaandVanMaanen).
Other concerns include a reflexive attitude and preoccupation towards the
structural and subjectivepositionof the fieldworker in the constructionof the
ethnographic method (Gardner and Whyte, Van Maanen); a critique of
ethnocentricsocialtheoryanditscategories,andaninsistenceontheprivileged
insightsaffordedbyethnography,toencompassrevisionsofourunderstanding
of,amongothers,whatitmeanstobeamoralperson(Jackall,Kondo),howand
wheretolookforthesourcesofhumanagency,creativityandintervention(Ong,
Fine,Suchmanet.al.,CorsnJimnez), thechangingmeaningsofwork (Kunda
and Van Maanen), the qualities of institutional times (Czarniawska), the
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pervasiveness and subtleties of bureaucratic power (Gilboy, Heyman), the
perversityofourownsocialdescriptions (Mosse,Strathern),or thequestioning
of social theory asan ethnographicproject itself (Czarniawska,Riles).And,of
course, a critical interrogation, scrutiny andoftenunashameddiscomfortwith
theagenciesandoperationsofpower.
The volume is divided into eight sections. The sections follow roughly a
chronologicalorder,withSection Icontainingessays thatbelong tooraddress
thewritings of the earlyHuman Relations School and SectionVIII including
recent examples of attempts to rethink social theory using insights from
organisational ethnographies. Each section is given a title which broadly
correspondswiththetheoreticalfashionprevalentatitstime.Ihavedeliberately
kept the word relation in the title of the first four sections to show the
dominance of the relational analytic as a vocabulary fordescribing our social
theory. Section I samples contributions from theHuman Relations School. It
includes Gardner and Whytes methodological manifesto on how to do
ethnography in industrialcontexts. Italso includesReinhardBendixandLloyd
FishersearlycritiqueofEltonMayoshumanistsociology,wheretheypointout
thelatterslackofattentiontotheworkofauthorityasanideologicalforce.The
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sectionisclosedwithaclassicexampleoforganisationalstructuralfunctionalism
byWilliamFooteWhyte.
SectionIIjumpsoverthecircumscriptionofindustryasaclosedunitofanalysis
to show the importance of studyingwider social and political forces.Abner
Cohensethnography isanexampleofwhatbecameknownas theManchester
school of anthropology, with an emphasis on deep situational (political and
historical) analyses. Donald Roys article, on the other hand, is a classic of
industrial anthropology, where he first signalled the need to thicken our
understandingof the socialmoment itself.Royexpandedourunderstandingof
thesocialnotbylookingouttopoliticsorhistorybutbyenrichingandmaking
the social itselfmore inclusive (cf. Handelman 1976).Hewrote against the
humanrelationsschoolandtherationalizationspiritofscientificmanagementto
bringtoattentionthecomplexityandintricaciesoftheexchangesthroughwhich
workersconstitutedthemselvesaspersons,includingtheirreasonsfordoingthe
things theydid (a lParfit).Last,VanMaanensarticle is includedasanearly
and eloquent exampleof the limitations of the relationalparadigm.HereVan
Maanenanticipatestheculturalistturninanthropology,thatwastocreatesucha
turmoil in thediscipline in the 1980s.Hisdescriptionof the cultureofviolent
indeterminacy inpolicedepartments isexuberant,echoing thesenseofsurplus
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and overflow that characterises the corporation. Van Maanens is also a
wonderful ethnographyof organisational culture, a term thatwould laterbe
appropriatedbyorganisational scholars andgiven a lifeof itsown, a topic to
whichSectionVisdedicated.
Section III takes a particular stance on the political redescription of
organisationalcontexts.TheriseofMarxistscholarshipinthe1970srelocatedthe
Manchester school call for the widening of ethnographic situations within a
particular productionist paradigm, namely, by shifting attention to the
interfoldings between international and national regimes of capital
accumulation, organisational structures and shop floor sociality.June Nashs
analysis of the career paths and movements of managers in multinational
corporations is one of the first of its kind, and one that is still useful for
understanding themicrostructuraleffectsofmacrostructuraloperations.Aihwa
Ongs analysis of spirit possession among Malay female workers in a
multinationalcorporationandGaryFines studyof theproductionofaesthetic
culinary values in the restaurant industry show the value of ethnography for
illuminating general questions regarding the connections between human
agency, cultural values and experiences, and the hegemonic structures and
strictureofcapitalistproductivity.MassimilianoMollonasrecentarticleon the
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experienceofformalandinformallabourinanexindustrialdistrictinSheffield,
UK, closes the sectionwith an evocative ethnography of local redefinitionsof
capital and labour,where relations ofproduction escape the factory setting
andaremadetoacquirenewbloodlife insidethefamilyortheneighbourhood,
animated by gender and generational conflicts. It presents a contemporary
resurrectionof thebestManchesterschool tradition,but isattentivealso to the
institutional forces (state welfare, regional economic policies) through which
institutionalidiomsscaleouttoshapeeverydaylives.
Section IV narrows the focus back again from the sociohistorical to the
institutional.Itsfocusistheideology,machineryandoperationsofbureaucracy.
Bureaucracyisindustrialsocietysfavouriteformofadministrativeorganisation.
Itiswithoutdoubttheorganisationalformwhichhasreceivedmostattentionby
scholars.Forthisreason,IhaveincludedarecentpiecebyJosiahMcCHeyman,
whereheprovidesanintroductiontoandanalysisofthebureaucraticformand
its ideological and powerwielding mantle. The rest of the pieces are
ethnographic in character. RobertJackalls study ofmorality and expediency
amongcorporatemanagersprovidesausefulhistoricalcounterpointtoMelville
Daltons classic study ofmanagers, also included. The study ofmanagement
becomes inbothcasesastudyof the fundingofpoliticalpatronagewithin the
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organisation,and thusof thestructuralpaths thatmanagersareencouraged to
takeinthedecisionmakingprocess.Managementappearsinthislightasasocial
fund organized around and coerced by the bureaucratic administration of
political credit, and includes the capacity to nominally align oneself with
momentsof change, and to construct and set inmotion social assets such as
responsibility in order tobe seen to adhere to the chain of command and
commitment.Thestudiesshowthatmanagersaretrappedinatypeofthought
work(Heyman1995)thatimposessevererestrictionsontheirabilitytomanage
creatively, a restriction thatJackall calls the bureaucratic ethic.JanetGilboys
ethnographyofpolitical casework in immigration inspections, though focused
ontheworkofimmigrationofficials,notmanagers,presentsasimilarscenario,
whereofficialsenduptraffickinginexpectationsandanticipations(Gilboycalls
themforeseeableorganisationalfutures)inordertocopewithsuddenpolitical
interventions.All threeethnographiespresentvividexamplesofwhatHeyman
callstheanthropologyofpowerwieldingbureaucracies:wherethosewhowork
in institutions redistribute their fundsof social interests (outsideor inside the
organisation)toredefinewhatismorallyandpoliticallyviable.
Sections V and VI dealwith the topic of culture. SectionV, as noted above,
includesarticlesbyLindaSmircich,whosurveystheuseofthecultureconceptin
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organisational studies and provides a critical commentary, and Michael
ThompsonandAaronWildavsky,whorecognizetheimportanceofwaysoflife
as an institutionalising force (their focus is theuse of information) inholding
togetherorganisationalcultures.TheirsisanearlytributetoMaryDouglaswork
anditsrelevancefororganisationalstudies,apointwhichItakeupagainbelow.
Section VI, on the other hand, presents an outline of theways inwhich the
conceptofculturehasfiguredinanthropology,aswellasexamplesofthetypes
ofculturalconcepts thatanthropologistshavedeveloped in theirethnographic
writings.JohnVanMaanensmethodologicalpieceprovidesanearlyreflection
on the fictional qualities of ethnographic reportage. Though not a fullblown
interpretative piece, Van Maanens article stands as one of the earliest
contributions to the writing culture debate, onewhich takes the question of
ethnographysmethodologicalconstructionheadonasitsmajortopicofinquiry.
Thisisfollowedbytwoessaysontheculturalconstructionofselfhoodandplace.
DorinneKondosethnographyof the transformationof the selfata corporate
sponsoredethics training seminar inJapanmakes fora fascinatingand richly
textured study in the intricaciesof cultural categories.Kondos analysisof the
selfincludes,forexample,explorationsofitsramificationsintotherealmsofthe
family, a carefuldisentanglingof itsmomentsof coherence and integritywith
Nature,andanelucidationof itshomologicalechoeswith thecorporation.The
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DouglasandMars,Idonotconceptualizetheinstitutionasasystemconstrained
fund of information,but as an assemblage of public (i.e. political) interests,
where theopeningupof the space for the emergenceofpublics (a lLatour)
becomesitselftheinstitutionalmoment.However,myaffinitywithDouglasand
Marsproject lies in that, like them, Isee theredistributionof the institutional
fundofsocialinterestsasfundamentaltothecreationof(local)spacesofjustice.
It is the institutionalmoment that iscruciallypolitical.Last,DouglasandMars
piecemakesalsoforarefreshingreminderofthevirtuesandstrengthsofcross
culturalcomparisonforanthropologicaltheory.
Thelasttwosectionsdealwiththetopicofinstitutionalredistributions.Section
VII, on anthropological institutionalisations, contains Sharon Macdonalds
ethnography of the making of public knowledge at the ScienceMuseum in
London, an example of the institutionalisation of the public as an arena (a
market?) for trafficking in diverse interests. Perhaps a trait of late twentieth
centuryEuropeanpolitics,theethnographicstudyoftherhetoricofinstitutional
engagementwiththepublicmakesamarvellousexampleoftheinstitutionalre
distributionofpoliticaljustice.
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Section VIII closes the volume by providing some glimpses into the social
processes that are fashioning contemporary societies. Lucy Suchman,Jeanette
Blomberg,JulianOrr andRandallTriggs articleprovides a summary of their
pioneering and now famous anthropological interventions at Xerox PaloAlto
ResearchCenter(PARC).Asthetitleoftheirarticleindicates,theirworkatPalo
Altoopenedthewayforanunderstandingoftechnologyassituatedpractice,a
theoreticalmove informedby detailed ethnography that anticipatedbymany
yearsthecontributionsofwhatlaterbecameknownasactornetworktheory(e.g.
LawandHassard1999).Ihavealreadycommentedontheethnographicvalueof
David Mosse and Marilyn Stratherns work on the contemporary
institutionalisationsof ethical regimes;bothprovide exemplary illustrationsof
theperverseeffectsofsocialdescriptivevocabularies thataremade towork in
ethically selfconsciousways.GideonKundaandJohnVanMaanenspieceon
thetransformationofemotionallabourinpostindustrialsocietiesprovidesalso
anilluminatingaccountofhowthedeliberateengineeringofcorporatecultureto
create loyal and committed subjectivities, and its eventual readjustment to
accommodate the transition toanethosofentrepreneurialismanda regimeof
flexible accumulation, produces redistributions in the flow of trust and
autonomywithinandbetweenmanagers (seealsoKunda1992,onwhich their
account isbased).Myownpiecepresents abrief ethnographic analysisof the
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way in which the language and imagery of labour has come to inform our
theories of personhood, including our ideas about agency, creativity and the
temporal and contributiveorientationof ourhuman capacities.Thisnotion of
labour, I suggest, is an important force informing new institutionalisations of
distributivejustice: for instance, the equity structures (hardly equitable at all)
thatyoungworkershavetocopewithwhenfirstgainingemployment.
Thelasttwoarticles,byAnneliseRilesandBarbaraCzarniawska,approachthe
delicate question of the failure of ethnographic knowledge, and they both
develop amodeof theorising the slipperinessofknowledge thatbearson the
spatiotemporalqualitiesofour theoreticalconstructs (seealsoMiyazaki2003).
Inherstudyof the technocraticknowledgeofJapanesebankers,Rilesobserves
thatbankers awareness of the limitations of their knowledge (of themarket)
mirrors,and thuspresentsanepistemologicalproblem to,anthropologysown
analytical vocabulary. Bankers see the fragility and limits of their knowledge
waybeforetheanthropologistdoes,atwhichpointethnography failsforbeing
incapable of openingup an epistemological distancebetween indigenous and
anthropologicalexplanation.Towardstheendofherargumentsheobservesthat
itwasanethnographic cueobtained froma situationwherepeople refused to
describetheirsocialityinrelationaltermsthatprovidedhertheanalyticalartefact
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(intimacy,ametaphorthatstoodfortheexactoppositeof relations)tocreate
the distance between technocratic and anthropological knowledge. It is the
intimacy between technocratic and anthropological knowledge that suddenly
appearstoprovidetheverypoliticalleverageneededforcriticalenquiry.
Like Riles, Czarniawskas piece is a sophisticated reappraisal of the spatio
temporal qualities of our theoretical descriptive vocabularies.Her piece does
doubleworkfor italsorelocatesthepossibilitiesoftheanthropologicalmethod
within the larger literatureoforganisational studies.She introduces two terms
(kairotictimeanddispersedcalculation)andtwotheoreticalandmethodological
constructs(actionnetsandmobileethnologies)totrytocapturetheneverending
flowofredistributivepracticesandtheirepisodicassemblinginmomentsofre
institutionalisation.These toolsaredesigned tohelpusthinkofcontingency in
institutionalterms:toappreciateandvaluetheweightandeffectsofinstitutional
practices thatmomentarilyconglomerate theirowndispersed,oftenconflicting
reasonsandpersonsorientationsinwhatCzarniawskacallsautonomouskairotic
moments(i.e.proper,thatfeelrightorjusttothepeopleinvolved)oftemporal
organisation.
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Riles admonition about the endpoints to which the very movement of
anthropologicalknowledgetends,andCzarniawskascallforreenvisioninghow
we think about theprocessoforganisation,both remindus that ethnographic
knowledgeisselfembeddedandthereforeinherentlyescapist.Thismayrequire
developing, the way Czarniawska invites us to think, a new sociological
vocabulary, with which to bridle ethnographys escapist inclinations in an
already runawayworld.Thatmaybe so.But it is important to rememberalso
thatpartofthecharmofethnographysescapismliesintheverywayinwhichit
redistributes its own categories of description (intimacy, proper time,
participation) tomakemattersofpoliticaljustice, a second and an analytical
moment later, invisible. It is this very quality of selfembedment in the
contemporarythatmakesethnographysoseductivetotheory,thuslendingitits
true analytical leverage. We might therefore hold better chances for
understandingthemakinganddistributionofpoliticaljusticeifwereadjustour
gazeandlookoutforethnographysownmomentsofinstitutionalredescription
instead.
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