Institutional/Project Analysis (Spring 2010)
Proposal/Preliminary Analysis due: Friday, Feb. 26, 5 pm,
by email
Final Analysis due: Friday, May 7, 5 pm, my office,
312 Vollum
Length and Format:
- Proposal/Preliminary Analysis: 3-5 pages, double-spaced, 1 inch margins
all around, 12 point fonts. Please spellcheck and use anthropological
in-text citation (ie., Ong 1998: 45). Attach a bibliography,
including URL citations, for all sources not on syllabus.
- Final Analysis: 10-12 pages, double-spaced, 1 inch margins all
around, 12 point fonts. Please spellcheck and use anthropological
in-text citation. Attach a bibliography, including URL citations,
for all sources not on syllabus.
Evaluation: I will evaluate based on (listed in
order of priority):
- Evidence of effort and creativity in tracking down information
on your chosen development institution(s) or project(s);
- Extent to which you demonstrate clear understanding of basic
terms and theories presented in the course;
- The creativity and originality of your ideas
- The clarity of your organization and writing
Topic: This semester we consider the complex and
often ambivalent relationship between anthropology and economic
discourses and practices of "development" in the context
of post-Mao China (1978 to present). One of the main arguments of
economic anthropologists has been that "economics" is
not an empirically abstractable phenomenon, but instead must be
studied through the actual practices of people and institutions.
This paper is your chance to do that over the course of the semester
by researching and analyzing the discourses and practices of development
and economics in the workings of a particular (government, private
or non-profit NGO, foreign or Chinese) institution or project involved
in issues of development in China. Your chosen institution or project
will then also be your own semester-long working "case study"
for thinking through issues raised in class.
Proposal/Preliminary Analysis (Due Feb. 26) There are many ways to do this project so that you end up with a final analysis paper in May. The first step though will be the 3-5 "Proposal/Preliminary Analysis", in which you do preliminary research on your chosen development institution or project working on/in China and then briefly summarize its basic goals, structures and potential points for an anthropological analysis, describing possible sources of data, ideas for further research and/or contacts. Note that the organization or project should be on a small enough scale that you can feasibly work on them in one semester, ie., don't choose "The World Bank", but a project funded by the World Bank, or instead of "UNICEF", the China branch of it, or a particular project undertaken in China under its auspices.
Final Analysis (Due May 7) Drawing on as wide a variety of sources you can
muster, you should collect as much information as you can about
the organization. There are many ways you could position yourself
in conducting your research and analysis, but recall the tension
and blurred boundaries between an "anthropology of development"
and "development anthropology": you could be a detached
and critical academic outsider evaluating and analyzing the organization
and/or project, or you could be a development anthropologist suggesting
practical advice.
Whatever you choose, you'll need to research aspects of
the organization that will allow you to link bureaucratic structures
and particular micropractices with the organization's framing discourses
and images, all within a historicized perspective on "development"
efforts in the post-Mao PRC: Your final papers should thus:
1) clearly contextualize the organization: consider
for example the organization's history (especially vis-a-vis
the history of Chinese development efforts and ideologies in the
post-Mao PRC), goals, personnel, bureaucratic structure, funding
sources and budget, project planning, implementation and evaluation
methods, relationships to Chinese localities and officials, pedagogical
and advertising efforts, media forums used.
-What will this case tell us about development in the post-Mao
PRC generally?
2) In a specific section toward the beginning of the paper, develop a theory of economics and culture and/or value:
explicitly draw on readings from the course and consider in that
light the organization's own discourses and images of "China"
and "Chinese people", economics and development, morality,
human rights, and/or time, space, nation and modernity.
-How do the organizations' discourses and motivations shape
its policies and projects? Its methods of training personnel
and/or measuring outcomes?
-What are your theoretical premises about economics and development?
3) pay extremely careful attention to evidential bases
and sources: Wikipedia is not an appropriate
core source! Draw on readings to consider how political, economic
and cultural interests and categories can shape claims about development
and economics.
Sources
There are a variety of print and online materials to use for this
project; but you will have to be persistent and creative, given
that many organizations don't openly disclose their workings.
Reed
Library Resources for Institutional Analysis
Dena Hutto, the social sciences librarian, put this page together
for this project.
List of Major Internationl Development Organizations and Directories
Another important source is the (formerly Beijing-based) China Development
Brief. They publish a monthly English-language electronic
newsletter that reports on environment, development and civil society
in China and maintains a database of over 200 International NGOs
operating in China:
http://www.chinadevelopmentbrief.com/
Also see: Nick Young and June shih. Philanthropic
Links btw the Chinese Diaspora and the PRC, Geithner, eds, Diaspora
Philanthropy and Equitable Development in China and India, Harvard
Univ. Press, 2004. [Reed lib. has. Excellent and rare overview of
recent links between overseas Chinese and development in the PRC]
And: Nick Young, Philanthropy and Equity in China, Geithner,
eds, Diaspora Philanthropy and Equitable Development in China and
India, Harvard Univ. Press, 2004. Reed
lib. has.
