Institutional Anthropology Research Articles

Library as an Educational Institution 1918-1968: Construction of the "New Human" as a Discontinuity in Continuity

The historiographical study analyses libraries as institutions that work with the collective memory of the nations in which they are located while educating all inhabitants. Libraries represent one of the crucial institutions of modern Czechoslovak society. This study focuses on their research from the perspective of the anthropology of institutions. Within the framework of Czechoslovakia, it analyses three stages of historical development: 1918–1938, 1938–1948 and 1948–1968. The study seeks to uncover anthropological patterns that implicitly shape the structure, meaning and methods of functioning of libraries and their social order. It also explains why libraries were essential institutions for Masaryk's Czechoslovakia and the totalitarian communist state. The study shows libraries as an institution with a high degree of historical continuity and, at the same time, discontinuously changing from a place of education for democracy into a means of propaganda and indoctrination.

Fieldwork at sunset

AbstractMost institutional anthropology departments have a website, to tout credentials, attract students, and offer information. These websites also take up the visual task of disciplinary representation, but their images have skipped the scrutiny that is necessary and overdue. This article analyzes online images of sociocultural anthropology across one hundred high-ranking universities worldwide. We show how, online, a discipline defined by diversity becomes readily reducible to “exotic” geographies and objectified “others.” While the urban serves as an unattractive foil, frequent images of children recall charity campaigns. Such visual tropes—which comprise a significant, public interface for anthropology—are not just awkwardly dated but also do disservice to ambitions for public anthropology. Change, we suggest, must begin at (the) home(page).

Fieldwork at sunset

Most institutional anthropology departments have a website, to tout credentials, attract students, and offer information. These websites also take up the visual task of disciplinary representation, but their images have skipped the scrutiny that is necessary and overdue. Th is article analyzes online images of sociocultural anthropology across one hundred high-ranking universities worldwide. We show how, online, a discipline defined by diversity becomes readily reducible to “exotic” geographies and objectified “others.” While the urban serves as an unattractive foil, frequent images of children recall charity campaigns. Such visual tropes—which comprise a significant, public interface for anthropology—are not just awkwardly dated but also do disservice to ambitions for public anthropology. Change, we suggest, must begin at (the) home(page).

Professional development lost in translation? ‘Organising themes’ in Danish teacher education and how it influences student-teachers’ stories in professional learning communities

Retaining the quality of teachers and improving teacher education and professional development through professional learning communities (PLCs) has long been on the policy agenda of, among others, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the Framework for 21st Century Skills. This study explores and compares student-teachers’ use of PLCs in Danish teacher education institutions and how PLCs are shaped by institutional, organising themes. An ‘organising theme’ is conceptualised as a fundamental ‘idea’ of how – for instance institutional – everyday practices become organised; exploring how institutional organising themes are translated into educational practice in students’ PLCs makes it possible to understand how local moral worlds in teacher education institutions shape students’ communal work and professional development. Drawing on situated learning, social anthropology of institutions and the literature about PLCs, the professional narratives of three Danish student-teachers are compared. The findings suggest that professional development in PLCs takes place in the intersection between personal stories, situated learning in PLCs and institutional themes.

Development, Informal Institutions and Agency Analyzed through the Lens of New Institutional Anthropology: A Modification of Ensminger"s Framework on Institutional Change

In development research, much effort has gone into analyzing the impact of economic and political institutions and their adequate design. However, unforeseen factors such as the impact of the cumulative behavior of individuals as shaped by informal institutions – especially social norms and moral values – may also determine the pace and path of development. Thus, positive economic, social or political triggers may only then translate into development if the relevant actors adapt their strategies and actions appropriately. Similarly, while negative triggers may induce a deterioration of the socioeconomic situation if no adaptation or a mal-adaptation takes place, in another real-world setting with a different set of institutions and actors it may in turn be possible to preserve the status quo. Sound analytical frameworks are needed to gain a deeper understanding of the complex and dynamic interaction of factors leading to a case-specific outcome and history of change. These frameworks have to be specific enough to allow the interpretation of complex changes and dynamics and at the same time general enough to fully cover a broad range of diverse settings and all important but possibly unforeseen aspects. In this paper, I present a modified version of the Framework for Modeling Institutional Change developed by Jean Ensminger (1992). Accounting for the relationships and dynamics of incentives, formal and informal institutions, bargaining power and the constellation of actors, Ensminger’s framework, which is rooted in the theoretical approach of New Institutional Anthropology, merges important aspects from New Institutional Economics and anthropology. However, it fails to leave room for agency which, as the paper illustrates, has been shown to play an often important role in development. The modified version of Ensminger’s framework incorporates agency as a main factor. For the purpose of demonstration, it is applied to a case study on informal constraints to cope with cattle rustling in Madagascar. The paper illustrates the modified framework’s analytical strength for a meticulous investigation of a wide range of empirical cases and discusses to which development-related cases and research interests it fits best. JEL Codes: B52, O1, N57, Z13

Development, Informal Institutions and Agency Analyzed through the Lens of New Institutional Anthropology: A Modification of Ensminger’s Framework on Institutional Change

Abstract In development research, much effort has gone into analyzing the impact of economic and political institutions and their adequate design. However, unforeseen factors such as the impact of the cumulative behavior of individuals as shaped by informal institutions – especially social norms and moral values – may also determine the pace and path of development. Thus, positive economic, social or political triggers may only then translate into development if the relevant actors adapt their strategies and actions appropriately. Similarly, while negative triggers may induce a deterioration of the socioeconomic situation if no adaptation or a mal-adaptation takes place, in another real-world setting with a different set of institutions and actors it may in turn be possible to preserve the status quo. Sound analytical frameworks are needed to gain a deeper understanding of the complex and dynamic interaction of factors leading to a case-specific outcome and history of change. These frameworks have to be s...

W. Lloyd Warner and the Anthropology of Institutions: An Approach to the Study of Work in Late Capitalism

AbstractW. Lloyd Warner is re‐interpreted as an institutional anthropologist whose approach to the study of work in a capitalist context has relevance to contemporary disciplinary problems and issues. The essay traces the development and influences upon Warner's thought and research strategies from their origin in Durkheim's sociology and Warner's fieldwork among the Murngin, to the Hawthorne Project, where Warner held an intermittent yet significant consultancy, and on to the seminal contributions of the Yankee City Series where, it is argued, the anthropological approach to contemporary institutions took its initial form. Warner's approach to the study of work in formal organizations at Yankee City was ground‐breaking because it led away from the more conventional strategy of confining ethnography to a single organization (e.g., Hawthorne) by examining social relations and meanings that cross‐cut the larger society and in which all formal organizations are embedded (i.e., class, rank, and status). Warner's commitment to rigorous empiricism, and to engaging the problems of an era, led him beyond functionalist theory to the hallmarks of an institutional approach to work in late capitalism that still resonates today.

Practices of translation and the making of migrant subjectivities in contemporary Italy

ABSTRACTIn 1998, Italy passed a law (Article 18) granting “victims of human trafficking” temporary residence permits to “escape from situations of violence and abuse.” There were two conditions: the applicant had to agree to pursue criminal action against her exploiter and to participate in a state‐funded “rehabilitation” program mostly offered by Catholic groups engaged in combating criminality and foreign prostitution as a form of “modern slavery.” Linking prostitution to female migration and slavery has significant implications for how migrant women are interpellated within the receiving country. When characterized as victims, these women are figured as lacking the dual capacities of desiring migration and appropriating laws that grant legal recognition. This article explores both the willed and imposed multiplicity of subject positions of these women within the fields of charitable and institutional languages. In Italy, qualifying as a “political refugee” or as a “victim of human trafficking” is often the only means of achieving the legal rights necessary to avoid repatriation. [translation, citizenship, migration, subjectivity, ethnopsychiatry, Italy, anthropology of institutions]

Are politicians human? Problems and challenges of institutional anthropology*

The recent case of Steve Thoburn, a local grocer in Sunderland, convicted because of his refusal to sell products by the imperial kilo (Scott 2001), demonstrates how ‘Europe’, and its laws are increasingly encroaching on the daily lives of many. Europe, no longer simply a geographical space with various imaginings attached, has become a centre of decision making whose rules extend to its vast populace. Cris Shore, tackling the growth of the bureaucratic influence of Europe in his recent work, rightly points out that: ‘The construction of the EU represents the most exciting and profound development in European politics and society of the twentieth century. It therefore deserves careful and rigorous analysis’ (p. xi).

Are politicians human? Problems and challenges of institutional anthropology

The recent case of Steve Thoburn, a local grocer in Sunderland, convicted because of his refusal to sell products by the imperial kilo (Scott 2001), demonstrates how ‘Europe’, and its laws are increasingly encroaching on the daily lives of many. Europe, no longer simply a geographical space with various imaginings attached, has become a centre of decision making whose rules extend to its vast populace. Cris Shore, tackling the growth of the bureaucratic influence of Europe in his recent work, rightly points out that: ‘The construction of the EU represents the most exciting and profound development in European politics and society of the twentieth century. It therefore deserves careful and rigorous analysis’ (p. xi).

Bodendegradierung und Ernährungskrise bei den Ouldeme und Platha. Umwelt- und Ernährungsprobleme bei zwei Feldbauerngruppen in den Mandarabergen Nord- Kameruns: Eine Folge der Adaptation an Monetarisierung und Wandel traditioneller institutioneller Rahmenbedingungen

The Ouldeme and the Platha are two traditional farming communities of northern Cameroon. During the A.'s field work between 1990 and 1991, both groups in this semi-arid zone faced an environmental crisis and food shortages which cannot be explained by neo-Malthusian theory. He offers explanations that are influenced by the new institutional economics and anthropology and focuses on the various changes during colonial and post-colonial times. These include the monetarisation of social relationships as well as changes in traditional institutions of land use, traditional management of the harvest, and restricted beer production. There are also changes in rules concerning land use. Neglecting to maintain terraced fields under rent for one year and terraced fields in mortgage because of insecure land tenure seems to be one of the major changes leading to soil erosion. The A. explains how different gender and age-specific individual strategies of adaptation to monetarisation, that give short-term pay-offs, lead to environmental degradation and food insecurity in the long run, and change traditional institutions that once helped people to use the resources in a more sustainable way.