Anthropology of Organizations

What does a science of environmental conservation look like? Though we often see it as a contemporary problem,
engineering the interface of science and decision-making bodies has been a question since the founding of
ecology. This study traces the creation of new conservation initiatives via the repeated splintering of the
Ecological Society of America since the early 1900s and compares these against the results of a network analysis
of contemporary scientists and their affiliations. Notwithstanding the new terminology of science-policy interfaces,
brokers, and gaps, these questions often hinge on the same dilemmas as they did at the beginning of 20th
century. The history of these groups shows how divisive distinctions between ecology and conservation, pure
and applied research, science and politics, and facts versus values can quickly become integrated into the
structure of organizations—even those that are created specifically to bridge gaps in what today would be called
the science-policy interface. Meanwhile, a social network analysis of present-day scientists suggests that individual
researchers are finding ways to informally “jump” across science-policy gaps at a sub-organizational
level. Remarkably, these science-policy conflicts can pose major problems for organizations, even when the
actual activities of members traverse these boundaries on an individual basis. When designing science policy
interfaces, formal bridging mechanisms between organizations remain important but these should also support
the ongoing, if under-the-radar, ways that individuals negotiate gaps between conservation research and policy
advocacy.

The rise of the corporate form can be understood as a key moment in the development of institutional and bureaucratic modernity in the West. The capitalist corporation has been central to the rise of new forms of social organization and historical consciousness and to the patterning of dynamics of conflict and allegiance in modern, secular society.

L’articolo discute gli esiti di una ricerca sul campo svolta negli anni 1992-1993 in un'azienda di servizi con più di 1500 dipendenti. Si fonda su una prospettiva olistica ed ermeneutica, collocandosi all'interno delle ricerche etnografiche focalizzate su uno dei principali topoi  degli studi delle relazioni aziendali: la dicotomia fra organizzazione formale e organizzazione informale. In opposizione al pregiudizio razionalistico che considera l'azienda organicisticamente come ‘unità funzionale’ o come ‘sistema sociale integrato” sposta l'interesse dallo studio quantitativo dell'efficienza ad un modello filosofico di management che verte sugli aspetti culturali della vita aziendale. La comunicazione è stata considerata, nel suo aspetto multifunzionale, sia come prodotto che come componente essenziale della cultura aziendale.

The book sets out the major social scientific approaches to the study of Special Operations Forces (SOF). The increased presence and unprecedented expansion for SOF is largely a result of the ‘new’ kinds of conflicts that have emerged in the 21st century. At the same time, even with this high profile in the military, policy and media and popular cultural arenas, there is relatively little social scientific research on SOF. This book aims to fill the gap by providing a series of studies and analyses of SOF across the globe, since the end of World War II. Filling a clear gap in the literature, this book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, civil-military relations, irregular warfare, security studies, and international relations.

In the chapter ‘Seamen’s Council – a SOFish way of making decisions’ describes and discusses a unique, collective, informal, and egalitarian way of decision-making at all levels Norwegian Naval Special Command (MJK). As inn all military units there is a formal hierarchy of decision-making, but both systems and practices exist in parallel and are complementary. The main point is that important decisions in SOF units are generally made collectively, not by its commanders in splendid isolation. The chapter explains how and why leadership and decision-making in SOF units are unique, and why and how it is different from leadership in conventional military units. The practice of informal decision-making is found in most SOF units, known by other names (the SAS calls it Chinese parliament). The main purpose of the council is operational: long and thorough discussions before missions create room for creative thinking, initiative, and to avoid group thinking. The practice of the Seamen’s council also seems to make MJK operators better prepared for uncertainties, strengthens risk analysis, as well as gives trust and cohesion within the unit.

To understand wars and armed conflicts, we need to understand the inner logic of military institutions and warrior culture. Making Warriors in a Global Era provides ethnography, analyses, and discussions to infuse new debates among both military personnel and academics about the rise of special operations forces (SOF) and the ways they impact how armed conflicts are dealt with and how wars are fought. Based on a decade of research and her unprecedented access inside a Norwegian Naval Special Operations Commando, Tone Danielsen describes the culture, experiences, and skill sets, of small state special operations unit as well as exploring the historical and political implications these types of units have, not just on modern warfare but on society as a whole.

Social anthropology has some claims to have discovered ethnography as a method and certainly to be the only discipline to put it unequivocally at the centre of its research activity. More and more it has begun to apply that method to the many organizations that are so common in the modern world. This chapter is the introduction to a series of case studies in which experienced anthropologists reflect on doing the ethnography of organizations. Eleven characteristics of good ethnography are listed.

This book examines a new type of state formation evoked by the rise of transnational rule, what Schia calls franchised states. Turning the UN into a field site and drawing on an anthropological fieldwork of the UN organization, he demonstrates how peacebuilding activities turned Liberia into an object of governing, whereby the UN, in seeking to build the state, also became the state. The sovereign state of Liberia here emerges as a franchise rather than a self-contained entity. Two implications follow: First, that international peacebuilding turns post-conflict countries into clients of the international community. Second, that “sovereignty” is no longer exclusively associated with the state: it is organized in and through specific practices of governing where a state actor is only one among a range of actors. With these findings, the book moves beyond previous work on peacebuilding by focusing on the unbundling of sovereignty. It contributes to the literature on the changing forms of sovereignty by showing the specific ways in which sovereignty is organized, packaged and enacted, often by actors working under international auspices.

Aufbauend auf der Beobachtung, dass die postfordistische Arbeitswelt und deren arbeitende Subjekte durch ästhetisierte Kreativitätsdispositive gekennzeichnet sind (siehe dazu Boltanski/Chiapello 2007 [1999]; Reckwitz 2012 [1995]), skizziert dieser Beitrag eine weitere Dimension postfordistischer Arbeitsverhältnisse, die leider häufig bloß anekdotisch erwähnt wird: die Beziehung von Künstler_Innen zu ihrer Arbeit. Genauer gesagt geht es im Folgenden um die Beziehung von Künstler_innen zu Aspekten ihrer Arbeit, die als prototypisch für das kreative „unternehmerische Selbst“ (Bröckling 2007) stehen. Zum Prototypischen dieser Form von Arbeit zählt vor allem die authentische und selbstbestimmte Organisation, Flexibilität, sowie die Projektarbeit. In diesem Beitrag diskutiere ich unter anderem, inwiefern solche Formen von Arbeit in künstlerischen Prozessen re ektiert, aber auch kritisiert und neu entworfen werden. Ich setze mich als Forschungsgegenstand mit einem Netzwerk aus der sogenannten Freien Szene der darstellenden Künstler_innen in Deutschland auseinander, da in diesem Milieu zentrale Aspekte der post-fordistischen Arbeitsweise nicht nur arbeitsbestimmend sind, sondern auch auf eine komplexe Weise ambivalent.

Un proceso de diversificación política y religiosa se ha vivido en los últimos 40 años en el Chiapas rural. Esta diversificación ha llamado la atención de los investigadores en distintos momentos del proceso, en especial la que ocurrió en el mundo rural identificado como indígena. Lo que ha dominado en los análisis es una visión corporativista, que insiste en pensar en los cambios como "fragmentación", como si algo precioso se hubiera roto en pedazos. Lo que propongo es cuestionar esta mirada corporativa.

This chapter provides an ethnograpic account of the UN Security Council. The analysis is inspired by Marc Galanter’s argument about the advantages of the “repeat players.” (1974. “Why the ‘Haves’ Come Out Ahead”). Whereas the permanent member states resemble the “repeat players,” the elected member states play a similar role to the ones
Galanter calls “the one-shotters.”  Building on this, I combine aspects of expertise as sources of power and levels of formality as entry-points to my account of how the Security Council works. I continue by describing how the permanent members of the UN’s Security Council know the rules
of the game better than the elected member states, how they have shaped the rules and local codes and  know how to phrase the questions and play the probabilities. Based on this, I argue that the five permanent members are able to effectively take control of situations and dominate the Security Council without making use of their veto power.

In the more than two decades since the first international climate negotiations, many thinkers and actors have identified a divisive rift between ambitious language and binding agreements, between expertise and activism, information and engagement, abstract scientific knowledge and actionable policy agendas—in short, a gap between climate science and climate action. This thesis takes this observation as a starting point to ask what constitutes “science,” and what is meant by “action” in the realms of climate change research and activism. Moreover, what worlds of possibility are implicit in these understandings? What new conceptions of the human, the Earth and human-Earth relations does the gap between climate science and action produce? Calling into question how climate change challenges and exceeds conventional technical and conceptual frameworks, this thesis is an exploration of the anthropological stakes of climate change. One part literature-based research and another part fieldwork-based research, it takes as its concrete ethnographic object three programs of research in North America whose work situates them within the emergent and mercurial gap between climate science and climate action: the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC), the Dynamic Integrated Climate Economy model project (DICE) and the Economics for the Anthropocene project (E4A). Located in the murky intermediate domain between scientific and managerial knowledge, these researchers are mid-range climate change problem solvers, who thrive among the assemblages of people, processes, tools, objects and events through which climate change knowledge is made actionable. Investigating the practical and conceptual details that make up their engagements with science, technology, policy and the public, this thesis examines how each project produces the very possibilities for politics and activism, human being and belonging, in an era of a changing global climate.

This chapter draws on empirical data from an in-depth case study of a UK mutual life insurance company given the pseudonym Pensco. 1 The company was undergoing a period of transformation: in their own terms, they were evolving out of a system of 'paternalistic'managerial control towards a more 'professional'and commercial mode of management. This was happening within the context of a changing environment for personal financial services. We are, however, less concerned with these changes in the industry per se than ...