Mosse Anti-Social Anthropology

Anti-Social Anthropology?
Objectivity, Objection, and the Ethnography of Public Policy and

Professional Communities
Author(s): David Mosse
Source: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Dec., 2006), pp.
935-956
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
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Anti-social anthropology?
Objectivity,objection, and the
ethnography of public policy
and professional communities*
D AVID M o s SE Schoolof Orientaland AfricanStudies,Universityof London
One legacy of Malinowski'sethnographic method is the separation of 'field' and 'desk'. What
anthropologists know is inseparable from their relationship with those they study - the epistemology
is relational- but ethnographic writing breaks fieldwork relations, cuts the network, and erects
boundaries: it is necessarily anti-social. As anthropologists turn their interest in what people believe,
say, and do (and the inconsistencies between these) to the inter-connected institutions that comprise
the modernworld,to policyand professionalcommunitiesof whichthey mayalso be members,
their method of entering and exiting social worlds becomes more difficult. Arguing for the particular
importance of an ethnographic perspective on the practices of powerful institutions, this article uses
recent research on internationalaid and development to show how influential informants object to
ethnographic accounts, resist anthropological boundary-making, and attempt to unpack academic
knowledge back into relationships.
At the end of September2002, I completed the first draft of a book on international

development policy and practice,taking as its focus a project in tribal western India
funded by Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) (Mosse
2005a). This was an unusual piece of research,complex, long-term, multi-sited, and
initially unintentional, drawing as it did on insights as a participant-insiderwithin
internationalaid; and its conclusions questioned prevailingassumptionsabout devel-
opment policy-makingand project practice.The book manuscriptprovokedunusual
controversy.Objectionswere made by my co-workersand informantsto the publisher,
to my universityresearchethics committee, my Departmentconvenors,the Dean and
the academichead of my university,as well as to my professionalassociationthe ASA
(Association of Social Anthropologistsof the UK and the Commonwealth) on the
grounds that the book was unfair,biased, contained statementsthat were defamatory
and would seriously damage the professionalreputation of individuals and institu-
tions, and would harm work among poor tribals in India. Those of my project col-
leagueswho raisedthese objectionssought to interruptthe publicationprocessand to
ensurethat many partsof the book were rewritten.In April2004 I was calledto defend
* Malinowski Memorial
Lecture, 200oo5.
Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

? Royal Anthropological Institute 2006

936 DAVID MOSSE
my ethnography in front of angry informants - international experts and Indian

projectmanagers- in the presenceof professionalcolleagues.The move to publication
had strainedand brokenvalued relationshipsof fieldwork.
Malinowskimight have been puzzled by such a scenario.The young Malinowski
might have wondered how anthropologistscould turn ethnographicattention to the
schemesand policies of those authoritiesupon whose good office they - and especially
he - reliedfor fieldwork,ratherthan confining comment to lettersand diaries(Young
2004); and the older Malinowksimight have been surprisedthat the 'practicalanthro-
pology' he so stronglypromoted in the 1930sas the basisfor a scienceof colonial social
policy (Kuper2005) could turn so controversial.However,what I want to suggestin this
articleis that the scenario in fact arises from the fundamentalstructureof the ethno-
graphicmethod that Malinowskiinnovatednearlya centuryago. That structureis the
relationshipbetween fieldworkand writing - between, for Malinowski,the empirical
work of observation(of the actualitiesof Trobriandlife) and the 'constructivework'of
tabulation,inference,and theory (Malinowski1922);a relationshipnow stretchedon
Leach's(1961)famous rubber sheet to the point where entirely new problems in the
analysisof events are emerging. The challenge for anthropologytoday is not how to
rearrange'fieldwork'- that dubious category that has come to signify any shift in
location that is the ethnographicpretext(Gupta& Ferguson1997)- or how to re-frame
'writing' but how to get to grips with the changing relationshipbetween the two:
change,first,in how fieldworkrelationsshapewriting,and, second,in how writingnow
altersrelationshipsof 'the field'.
In many ways anthropologistsare a lot closer to their 'other'than they used to be.
ArguablyMalinowski'sfieldworkwas a method of dislocation ratherthan of 'immer-
sion'.His now legendarysocial distancefrom his Trobriandsubjects,his loneliness,and
his scientificisolation from the flow of social relationsformed,MichaelYoungsuggests,
the bedrock of his 'synchronicfunctionalism'(2004: 523). What Malinowksi'ssucces-
sors lackedof his brilliantpowersof observationand exhaustivedescription,they made
up for in forging closer relationswith their subjects,greateridentification,equity,and
dialogue, often through long-term and repeatedfieldwork.But with this, ethnogra-
phers became socially bound into their field sites in a new way, or, as Parkinputs it,
becameincreasingly'templated' by the field (2000a:o10).In parallel,an'unbounding'of
the field so as to include webs of regionaland transnationalconnections and commu-
nities means that all anthropologistsnow researchto some degree as 'insiders'or 'at
home'.Furthermore,with the highereducationfundingsqueezeof the 198os(at least in
Britain),trainedanthropologists(myselfincluded)joined non-academicinstitutions-
for example,in internationaldevelopment(Panayiotopoulis2002; Spencer2000) - and
while meeting new professionalobligationsalso began contributingto a growingbody
of 'insiderethnography'of organizationsand public policy.As researchers,we resolved
the intractableproblems of access to closed organizationalworlds through member-
ship of the communitieswe ended up studying.But in doing we so substituteda set of
boundariesthat kept us out (the problem of access) with another set that kept us in.
Those who made themselvesprofessionalinsidersin this way facedthe problemnot of
entering a differentworld so as to be able to imagine or infer the taken-for-granted
(and therefore hidden) way in which 'individual action and collective illusions are
interlinked'(Hastrup2004: 469), but of exiting a known world for the same purpose.
In fact, closer relations in the field, long-term and insider researchhave all made
exit ratherthan entry the significant shift in location that is ethnography'spretext -

? Royal Anthropological Institute 200oo6

DAVID MOSSE 937
including exit from the templatesof our younger ethnographicor professionalselves

(cf. Parkin2000a), when'the field'is a dislocationin time.And as otherboundariesfade,
it is often the detachmentof writing itself that has become the primarymode of exit.
While fieldworkhas changed beyond recognition - becoming ever more intensely
social - ethnographicwriting (interpreting,objectifying,and textualizing)remains a
solitary process that disembeds knowing from its relationships,denying (to varying
degrees) the social its claim to power,to ownership,to negotiation.' For Malinowksi
himself, writing was a necessarilyanti-socialprocess incompatiblewith intense social
intercourse,frustratedby the conversational(Young2004: 544) and '[t]he unnecessary
communion of souls' (Young2004: 552, citing Malinowski1967).What we have inher-
ited is not so much a particularpractice of fieldwork,as an ethnographic method
premisedon the division of field and desk- the social and the anti-social- experienced
by every returningresearcher.The changingnatureof fieldwork- its closeness- both
intensifiesthis division and surroundsit with tension.
Closenessmakeswriting more difficult,not just becauseof an 'exponentialsense of
incompleteness'that David Parkin (2000a: 103) notes of accounts which are always
partial and provisional,but because ethnographicwriting begins to have significant
social effects of its own. The detachment of writing is now socially experiencedby
others. Of course, those reading about themselves may be intrigued, amused, or
pleased;2but turning relationshipsinto data,and placinginterpretationsin public, can
also disturb and breakrelationshipsof fieldwork.It may be 'anti-social'.3Those inter-
locutors - neighbours,friends, colleagues,or co-professionals- who directlyexperi-
ence ethnographicobjectificationsnow surroundthe anthropologistat her or his desk;
they raise objections,make new demands to negotiatepublic and published interpre-
tations. The relationshipsof the field persist,the capacityto exit through writing is in
question, and ethnographic representationshave become unavoidably part of the
world that is studied.When desk collapsesinto field,somethingimportanthas changed
in the structureof ethnographicpractice.We arestarklyconfrontedwith the essentially
relationalnatureof anthropologicalknowledge,4no longer an objectin our possession.
That is to say,what anthropologistsknow is inseparablefrom their relationshipwith
those they study.Consequently,the issue at hand is not just ethicalbut epistemological.
The 'narrativeethics'of the 1980sthat followed EdwardSaid'scritiqueof Oriental-
ism and the 'writingculture'debate left some anthropologistsimagining the problem
could be solved by a retreatfrom representationaltogether,allowing subjectsto speak
in their own words through personalnarratives.Such replacementof descriptionwith
evocation(Parkin2000a) and the honouring of individual agency implies, Kapferer
suggests,a broad 'shift awayfrom concernswith social relationsand interactivestruc-
tures'(2004: 152)that has made the discipline'anti-social'in anothersense.Recentlythe
metaphor has shifted again from dialogue to collaborationin ethnography(Lassiter
2005; Marcus1998). Of course, the notion that power inequalitiesbetween the inter-
preterand the interpretedcan be dialoguedaway,or 'writtenout' is too obviouslyfalse;
and, as Spencer (1989)points out, the analyticalcost of this pretenceis considerable.
But equallyproblematic,in the politics of representationdebates,and the professional
ethicalguidelinesthat they influenced,were the assumptionsmade about the gradients
of power across which researchtakes place. Relyingon informant self-representation
and allowing subjects to speak in their own words are not self-evident solutions for
anthropologistsof public policy whose informantsare officialsat the WorldBank,the
InternationalMonetaryFund, DFID, or any group with a strong organizationalneed


938 DAVID MOSSE
to produce and protect authorized views. Moreover,if they do criticallyinvestigate

organizationsor public policy of one kind or another,anthropologistsbegin to face not
just personal unhappiness,but also public and formal reprimands,or even the threat
of defamationproceedings,for their ethnographicaccounts;5threatswhich may none
the less still be framedin terms of researchethics set out in guidelinesdrawnup from
an earlier generation of ethnographic practice in order to protect those lacking
other means of redress.
Here I am concerned with this kind of ethnography,where field/desk, self/other,
subject/object,here/theredistinctions do not apply in the same way; where reflexive
concern about epistemologicalprivilegegives way to worryabout epistemiccaptureor
co-option; but which is no less based on extended fieldworkand participantobserva-
tion of the social and symbolictransactionsof communities,even if these areepistemic
communities (e.g. of policy experts) interactingelectronically,'organizedtransnation-
ally with their own public spheres,and with contractualor other exchangerelations
with similar groups' (Friedman 2004: 164). Why undertake such study? Well, ethnog-
raphy offers particularinsights into relationships mediated by policy ideas within
contemporary'networksociety' (Castells1996). It also offers anothermeans of public
engagementwith powerfulinstitutionswhose knowledgesystems constantlyorganize
attention awayfrom the contradictionsand contingenciesof practiceand the plurality
of perspectives.Or as Burawoyputs it,'by highlightingthe ethnographicworlds of the
local, [anthropology]challengesthe postulated omnipotence of the global whether it
be internationalcapital,neoliberalpolitics, space flows, or mass culture'(1998:30). But
my concern here is not to explicateor justify the anthropologyof policy, global gov-
ernance,or internationaldevelopment(see Mosse 2005b) but to examinethe dynamics
of such researchin the light of the ethnographicpracticeof exit and objection.
In what follows I will first explain my approachto a piece of insider researchand
outline the main argument that resulted. Second, I will examine the nature of the
objections made to this ethnography,and the epistemological divide between an
anthropologist and his informant-readersthat they reveal. Third, I will track the
unfolding controversyto see how the boundary between field and desk is contested,
and how 'rightness'is both counteredand claimed in an ethnographicencounter.My
concernwith representationsin anthropologyherepoints not to reflexivepoeticsbut to
the politics (and ethnography)of objection.
I worked as an anthropologist-consultanton a development project from its initial

design in 1990until 2001. Becauseof this rarecontinuity,and the particularimportance
of this projectas a 'flagship'within the 199os Britishaid programme- demonstrating
a new commitment to participatoryand poverty-focusedinterventions- the DFID
agreedto supporta studyof the projectexperiencefrom my particularanthropological
perspective.This would be a critical analysisof policy and administrativerationality
and modes of expertisein aid and development- includingthose of social anthropol-
ogy itself.It would be basedon the best availableevidence,but would not ceaseto be an
interestedinterpretation,a personalanalyticalaccount;an ethnographyin which I was
myself a key informant.
Over ten years I was part of an extended project team including consultant col-
leagues (expertsin forestry,crops, irrigation,soil and water conservation,or gender),
project managers,and field staff, all with whom I spent time in meetings, on long
journeys, at their homes, with farmers in the scatteredvillages of this Bhil adivasi


DAVID MOSSE 939
('tribal')region of western India, and in draftingand redraftingcollaborativereports.

These intense periods of interaction from which grew personal relationships of
understanding,trust, and respectwere the first sourcefor my research.The second was
the series of studies and reportsproduced from our various engagements,and a large
body of contemporary project documentation (for 1990-2001).As a third layer of
research,in 2001 I returnedto India to carryout interviewswith projectworkersand
ex-staff,as well as with India- and UK-basedDFID officialsand consultants.'The aim
was to test and verifymy understandingof projectprocesses,to decentremy own view,
and to extendthe analysisto the wider contextof Britishaid in India'(Mosse2005a:ix).
Now, there was another, fourth, methodological level, and this concerned the
responseto my analysisfrom those who sharedthe experienceand about whom I write.
Such ethnographycourts controversyand is likely to produce objections.I would like
to suggest that these objections are themselvespart of researchwhich emerges from,
and reflectson, relationshipsin development.And here I concur with Bruno Latour's
view of 'objectivity',which derives not from standing above the fray or suppressing
subjectivity,but from maximizingthe capacityof actorsto objectto what is said about
them (2000). So, I sharedmy writing with 'informants'collaborators,colleagues,and
friends,who possessed a capacityto object.
Summary of the argument

Before outlining these objections let me explain, at the risk of oversimplifying,the
nature of the ethnographyat the centre of the controversy(see Mosse 2005a). It is an
explorationof the relationshipbetween internationaldevelopmentpolicy and project
practice,and focuses on 'participatoryapproaches'prominent in the 199os.The argu-
ment unfolds around five generalpropositions.
The first is that policy in developmentfunctions to mobilize and maintain political
support as much as to orientatepractice.I show how, in this case, the work of project
design served to negotiate relationshipsand bring together diverseand quite incom-
patible interests around a causal model that justified the allocation of resources.I
explain how the conceptual and linguistic devices that enrolled support also built
contradictions into the design that made its straightforwardexecution in practice
impossible.
The second propositionis that developmentinterventionsthemselvesare drivenby
the exigenciesof organizationsand the need to maintain relationshipsratherthan by
policy. My book (Mosse 2005a) describesin some detail how the informal everyday
practicesof projectworkersconstituteda system of relationshipsshapedby the politi-
cal logic and cultureof the projectagency,and by its demand for administrativeorder
(i.e. by what may be called 'system goals'; Quarlesvan Ufford 1988), and routinely
contradictedthe prescriptionsof officialpolicy,substitutingbureaucraticrules,targets,
and controls, or relations of patronage,for anticipatedcommunity self-reliance(see
Mosse 200oo5a: 109-31). In fact, the projectwas a world comprised of differentautono-
mous spheres (of the village,fieldworkers,office, managers,consultants,donor advis-
ers), mediated by institutional brokers,in which policy models could not organize
practice.Which is not to say that policy was irrelevant,but that as a kind of mythology
it was only partly a 'charterfor action',since it had symbolic functions - accounting
upwards,legitimizing expertise,signifying alliances,or concealing differences- that
were 'at least as relevant as pragmatic ones' (Leach 2000oooa
[19571: 59).
Journal Institute
oftheRoyalAnthropological (N.S.)12,935-956

940 DAVID MOSSE
Althoughtheir practiceoften contradictedthe prescriptionsof participatoryproject

design,staff (includingconsultants,and Bhilvillagerstoo) none the less workedhardest
of all to sustain and protect official interpretationsof actions, so that they articulated
with higherDFID policy,matchingeventsto theory in many and sophisticated(though
not alwaysconscious) ways - because, thereby,success and their (our) own interests
were secured. Here were several project 'rituals'in Leach's sense of procedures'to
overcomethe anxietieswhich are generatedby [the] lack of fit betweenhow things are
and how we would like to think about them' (2000b [1976]:87).6 My third proposition,
then, is that development projectswork to maintain themselvesas systems of repre-
sentations as much as operational systems.7The work of internationaldevelopment
consultantssuch as myself, while appearingto assist development operations,in fact
mostly servesto produce/sustainpolicy models offeringan authoritativeinterpretation
of events that result from quite different logics; not (as we imagined) preceding or
directing action but following it. Through such expert discourse unruly practice is
stabilized,and the gap between policy and practiceconstantlynegotiatedaway.Again,
I have to refer the readerto the ethnographywhich shows how such interpretations
have, further,to be sustained socially by enrolling supportersand building an inter-
pretativecommunity that made the project successful;and how policy designs also
provide the frameworkof self-objectificationfor project actors accountingfor them-
selves to each other and to outsiders.
The fourth proposition is that, correspondingly,project failureis not the failureto
turn designs into reality,but a certain disarticulationbetween practices and their
rationalizingmodels. Failure,as I discovered,is a failureof interpretation.And this I
demonstrateethnographicallythroughthe explorationof a projectcrisisin the context
of evaluationand the rapidshift in DFID aid policy after1997.Suchpolicy changeshave
'the effect of making the chains of translation in development more complex and
harder to negotiate' (Mosse 2oo5a: 216). The final proposition concerns the way in
which policy discourses of 'success' and 'failure'conceal the local social effects of
development interventions,not only perpetuatingmisleading explanations,but also
concealingvalued outcomes, which, in the case of Bhil villages,include new forms of
patronage,accessto resources(subsidies,agro-inputs),and the means to articulatenew
aspirationsof progressand culturalre-valuation(Mosse 2oo5a: 205-29).
The ethnographyexplainsall these as generaland inherentfeaturesof the system of
internationalaid not as the failings of one particularproject.It is not an evaluation.
Indeed its centralconcern is not whetherdevelopmentprojectsare successful,but how
'success' is socially produced or constructed. Its supposition is that in the hugely
complex cross-culturalworld of development,most actors (includingapparentlypow-
erful ones) havevery little control over events.8What is usuallymore urgentand more
practicalis control over the interpretationof events;and as Bruno Latourreminds us,
the successof policy ideasor projectdesignsis not inherent(not givenat the outset) but
arises from their ability to continue recruitingsupport and so 'impose their growing
coherenceon those who argueabout them or oppose them' (1996:78;Mosse 2oo5a: 8).
Since it is prone to being misread,let me stressthat my argumentis not intended as a
criticismof aid and development.Rather,my analysisof the practicesof a participatory
developmentproject,including my own role within it, aims to understandthe micro-
social processesof policy.So, first,it does not imply a rejectionof this enterprise(or of
aid projectsmore generally).My book makesclearthat the projectdid havea significant
positive effect on the lives of many thousandsof disadvantagedBhil adivasipeople;but


DAVID MOSSE 941
often in unscriptedand unintendedways (Mosse 2005a:227).However,the point is that

the projectdid not 'work'becauseit was well designed.Stabilityin the world of action
did not come from coherentpolicy;good policy was not implementable.None the less,
policy is absolutelycentralto what happensin developmentarenas(Mosse 2oo5a:20).
Second, this is not a case of cynical disengagement.My argument does not express
regret at my own involvement in this aid project, nor warn other anthropologists
againstworking in development.On the contrary,the implication is that that there is
greaterneed than ever for anthropologistinvolvementin the complex and contradic-
tory arenasof internationalaid. But in orderto graspthe social and politicalprocesses
throughwhich aid policy is made and transformedin practice,and which have a major
bearingon outcomes, anthropologistshave to negotiatespace for their involvementto
be more ethnographicand resistinstitutionalpressureto conform to dominantpolicy-
driven or economics-basedknowledge systems (see Mosse 2004). Anthropologistsdo
not have to choose between optimism and scepticism.In relation to development,as
Quarlesvan Ufford puts it, they participatein three separatedomains - the domain of
hope, of politics/administration,and of critical understanding(Quarlesvan Ufford,
Kumar& Mosse 2003). That is to say,our engagementis with the discoursesof moral
responsibilityand policy vision (aboutwhat is to be done), with the strategicpolitics of
programme action, and with critical reflection. These are not exclusive modes of
thought and action,but neitherarethey entirelyreconcilable.The dangeris in asserting
any one over the others (Mosse 2005a:240-3;Quarlesvan Ufford et al. 2003).
Of course my ethnographicanalysisis a positionedinterpretation,which does not
preclude other accounts. It is also one in which I place myself alongside others who
workedon the project,takingmy responsibilityfor shapingthe project'sdesign, for its
construction of success,for the naivety,over-ambition,and wrong-headednessof my
own contributions.I can admit these as personalfailings,but also see them as prefig-
ured by the structuraland discursive conditions of a development project without
doubting my own or others' sincerityor commitment.
The nature of the objections

As I said,I sharedmy writingwith my colleagues,collaborators,and 'informants'.Now,
most who respondedto the draftsover eighteen months - especiallymy social devel-
opment and field staff co-workers- in fact gave strong endorsementto my analysis,
describingit as 'balanced','truthful','insightful'.However,my attentionbecame preoc-
cupied with those key actors (including UK technicalconsultantsand those in mana-
gerial positions) who took strong exception to my 'too negative and unbalanced'
account,which was'unfairand disrespectful','outof date',and even'damningof all our
work' This group, representedby a UK consultant and DFID ProjectAdviser,' dis-
agreed fundamentallywith my conclusions and wanted the book re-written.Such a
reactionshould disturb any ethnographer;the more so for me because these were my
close colleagues,co-workersover thirteen years.
The objection unfolded in stages: personal disagreement and friendly editorial
advice gave way to questions of abuse of contract (was I entitled to use information
acquiredas a consultant)and appealto the principleof participationin research- the
notion that collectiveexperiencehas to be collectivelyanalysed.Heretherewas an issue
both of method - by failing to make the researchfully participatoryI reduced its
validityand laid myself open to criticismfor being unbalanced;and of morality- I was
at faultfor the individualappropriationof sharedexperience,substituting'stand-alone


942 DAVIDMOSSE
arguments'for collective experience.How could I, one exasperatedcolleague asked,

'the participationconsultant,not want to review the project experience in a fully
participatorymanner?'But worse, by making myself an outsider, I was disinvesting
from categoriesof explanationthat I had myself promoted, fed back, and routinely
used. Finally,in graverand angriertone, the ethnographywas challengedas potentially
seriouslydamagingto the professionalreputationsof individualsand institutions (the
Indianagency,a UK agriculturalresearchinstitute,the DFID);it would adverselyaffect
the abilityto attractfinanceand undo the work of those who had giventheirbest years.
I was astonished by the strength of emotion conveyed through e-mail, telephone
conversations,and eventuallyface to face about a book which to all its independent
readersdid not appearto defameor malignthe reputationof anyone.Nor was thereany
plausible explanation of how the book would damage organizations (DFID or the
projectagency), destroythe programme,or its routes to funding."'
Of course,I rose to defend the truthfulnessof my account and the soundness of my
researchmethodology; but it also occurred to me that my critics were themselves
enacting the very argument they objected to, offering extraordinaryconfirmationof
the key point that authoritativeactors work hardestto defend projects as 'systemsof
representations',not only against the destabilizingcontingenciesof practice,but also
now againstcompeting (ethnographic)representationsexistingpotentiallywithin the
same public space. Was there in the angry accusationthat the book 'questioned our
professionalism'an implicit recognition of the truth that managersand experts are
involved in the organizationof interpretationsas much as planned outcomes?More
generally,what readingof the ethnographydid these emotive encountersreveal?And
what could they add to my understandingof the cultureof aid projects?Letme take up
some key points.
First, my colleagues did not read my ethnographyas an exploration of a general
theme (perhapsa theory of policy) through the particular.Of course,this was a story
about them. Theory and citation became a duplicitoushiding behind others. Second,
my colleaguesdid not share the ethnography'sinterpretistview of project realityas a
multiplicity of truth composed from different points of view. It would be read as a
singularstatementabout the projectas it is, takenas objective(the team leaderadded)
becausewritten by someone from a world-renownedinstitution. From their positivist
perspective,talk of alternativepoints of view simply dealt in the currencyof 'spurious
facts'or 'biasedinterpretations'which, as I was told, 'fail to meet the normal standards
of social science research'.
Third, the ethnographywas read as an evaluation.My colleaguesfelt judged. They
did not, as others had, read a descriptionthat exoneratedtheir strugglewith the real
contradictionsof development,but a commentaryon the gap between the actual and
the ideal; a judgement against norms or best practice that critically assessed their
professionalcompetence,and dismissed their effort and enthusiasm.
But the book was unfair not just because it was evaluation,but because it was bad
evaluation.Forone thing, the ethnographicgenre,unclothedin the officialetiquetteof
praise and indirect comment, appearedunacceptablycritical.For another,it did not
judge the project in its own terms, but added complexity,clouded issues, and intro-
duced diversionsand irrelevantdetails.At a meeting, 'one of the objectorsreferredto
the book as a field of mixed crops when everythingis sown higgledy-piggledy- "it'sall
a confusingmuddle" ." Moreover,while judgingperformanceas fallingshort, I offered
no scale.'Show us the model of true participation';'what did we do wrong?'But most
Journalof theRoyalAnthropological
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DAVID MOSSE 943
important, the book was bad evaluationbecause it had not involved the usual nego-
tiation between evaluators and project actors over who is qualified to construct
knowledge about a project,how it to be done (methodology), and what is to be said.
The ethnographyfailedto be what all good evaluationsare,namelyan acceptablestory
that mediatesinterpretativedifferencesin orderto sustainrelationshipsand the flow of
resources (Phillips & Edwards2000).12 Ultimately it was from this expectation of a
shared definition of the truth about the project that the objectorstook their right to
propose changesto the text.13
The next point is that the ethnographywas read from a managerialperspective.It
was unnecessaryand embarrassingbecause it refusedto explain outcomes in terms of
design, and evaded the expectation that problems should really be analysedonly in
relation to solutions. It did not provide a proper project history of implementation,
learning, and improvement,which should reveal a progressivenarrowingof the gap
between intention, action, and outcomes.14 I had not explained'the steps taken','how
the project [had] respondedto particulareventsand problems'.In my book, difficulties
and contradictionswere not, as they should be, dissolved by the unfolding project,
which makeshistory a dustbin of irrelevanterrorsand solvedproblems.It interrupted
a managerialview that accelerateshistory so that the aspirationsof the present con-
stantlyerasethe experiencesof the past,whereit is always'tooearly'to judgethe success
of new technology, whose disappointments are contingent (drought or monsoon
excess), whose latest results are alwaysthe most promising,and whose full advantage
(upon which justifyingeconomic analysisis based) lies in the future.The ethnography
was not just 'out of date',dealing in moribund problems and ignoring the unfolding
success,it was also out of time,in Hastrup'ssense of giving attentionto the routine and
ordinary,the out of sight, so avoiding the normal historical narrativeof temporal
causationwhich accounts for events in terms of 'the most recent and most extraordi-
nary precedent'- that is, the project and its technicalinnovations (2004: 462).
Next, there was a problemwith the ethnographictreatmentof my colleagues'data.
On the one hand, the ethnographicaccount denied interpretativepower to scientific
data:for example,to data on the genetic and generalizedadvantagesof improvedseed
technology,derivedfrom context-freemodels, which were unravelledin the relational
world of debt-bound tribal livelihoods. On the other hand - and this is something
which recallsa division in the earlieryears of our own discipline recordedin Edwin
Ardener's1971lecturein this series- in my analysis,projectsuccesswas anywaynot just
a matter of the measurementof achievementand empiricalor statisticalevidence (of
yield increases,trees planted,functioning groups). Successwas a matterof definition,a
question of meaning, of sustaining a particularinterpretationof events through the
categorizationsand causalconnectionsestablishedby the policy model.And this model
was not itself empirically falsifiable.But it was replaceable.So when DFID policy
changedin 1997,the projectbecame, bydefinition,a failure(Mosse2005a:184-204).The
socio-economic studies we undertook then to 'demonstrateimpact'were in fact ori-
entatedto re-modeltriballivelihoodsso as to show howthe project,re-alignedto a new
policy framework,would improvethem. The researchservedmore to clarifyand justify
a new developmentmodel than to demonstrateits effects.After all it was on this that
project survival urgently depended. Showing the need for further action is always
politicallymore important than demonstratingresults (Quarlesvan Ufford 1988:25).
So, the ethnographydismissed empiricalevidence and implied that the projectwas a
self-verifyingsystem in a way that was considereddamagingto scientificreputations.


944 DAVID MOSSE
A furtherpoint is that the objectionsto the book reveala particularrepresentation

of agencyin the projectworld.The multiplicityof actorsand intentions is concealedas
agencybecomes deflectedas the propertyof ideas or expertise,design,technique,good
policy, or the problem-solvingproject. Projectworkers (including consultants) hide
their own contingentactions and the wider politics of aid so as to, as TimothyMitchell
puts it, 'allow reason to rule, and allow history to be arrangedas the unfolding of a
locationless [policy] logic' to which expertise is attached (2002: 15). Managers insisted
upon precisely the kind of essentialized abstractions and transcendent agents that
anthropologistshave come to beratethemselvesfor constructing(Hobart1996:7). But
while successsustainsthe projectas a unified sourceof intention and power (successful
projectsarewell designed),failurefragmentsinto the dynamicsof blame (Latour1996:
76). As a projectworkerput it to me, 'Wealwaysappreciateour successes,but failureis
alwaysseen as the failureof an individual'
An ethnographywhich drawsattentionto diverseintentionsand motivationsby this
detail involves unethical disclosure; and even where (as with mine) it eschews
the individualpersonality,action, or event - in orderto reflecton systematiceffectsor
outcomes beyond intention - even though it distributesagency,it becomes a source of
personal offence. My colleagues unpacked structureinto their agency,claiming per-
sonal damage to professional reputations. Now, the tactical need to discredit the
account in terms that would register as defamation or a contraventionof research
ethics (harm to informants) had some part in this, but it seems to me also to derive
from this paradoxicalway in which agency is framedin projectarenas- the collectiv-
izing of successand the individualizingof failure'5- when confrontingan ethnography
that by contrastaims for a symmetricaltreatmentof 'success'and 'failure'.
As I mentioned, my colleagues insisted that 'objective'truth has to be collectively
defined; to become 'facts' interpretationshad to be subject to group appraisaland
agreement.An ethnographic approachwhich interviewed people individually or in
groups and then collatedand compareddiverseopinions, events,and experiencein an
independent interpretativeanalysissimply did not qualify as proper social science. I
was even reprimanded(in a meeting) by one junior manager for using unreliable
private conversations instead of statements made in public about events, on the
grounds that informallypeople will invent stories, confuse, and conceal, but publicly
they will speak the truth. Teamdiscussion would compensatefor the failuresof indi-
vidual self-censoring,and this, of course, is why it was not a good means to research
such complex and contested social processes.
But there is a broaderpoint here,namelythat for these projectactorssocial research
has to preserveand honour its social context.At one level this means simply that there
is an ethical obligationto those who helped you and 'gavetheir time and materials'.At
another,it is an epistemologicalposition that implies that the limits of what can be
known, revealed,or written about are determined by social relationships.Perceived
harm,risk of damageto reputations,or embarrassmentto institutions'6invalidatesthe
analysis.'Fairness'in researchis a questionof respect(and unfairness,disrespect)rather
than verifiability.Researchdata and analysisare 'correct'(and mine was incorrect) in
the normativesense of sociallyappropriate(as in'correctbehaviour')as well as factual:
'I am sorry,but we are not talking about simple factualerrors... what we are talking
about is incorrectstatementsabout events or decisions made on the project ... we are
very disturbed by your draft'.Concerned with 'correctness'rather than 'fact',the
objections were epistemological not ontological. Indeed, my colleagues' positivism

DAVID MOSSE 945
concealedan essentiallyrelationalepistemologywhich rejectedthe notion of 'evidence'

as externalto the situation.
As a finalpoint, they felt that the moral natureof their actions should shapethe way
they were described. It was wrong to appear to criticize those who work selflessly,
enduringhardshipfor the poor. Moreover,it was construedas irresponsibleto question
participatorymethodologies (e.g. in crop research)lest the statetakeagainstthem. The
project'sstrategictruth had to be preserved.
Now I see a triple significanceto these objections.First,the reactionto my ethnog-
raphy reveals,indeed elaborates,the same frameworkof expectationsthat organized
the project system, further clarifying its conceptions of time, agency, or evidence.
Second,the objectionswerenot aboutwhat was to be known but about howknowledge
was to be arrivedat. They revealedan apparentdivergenceof epistemologybetween an
ethnographerand his interlocutors- or ratherone dominant section of them - that
suggests limits to any collaborativeethnography.'7Third, and more importantly,the
process of 'objection'showed how ethnographicwriting threatenedthe project as an
'epistemic community' - a set of relationshipsaround shared meanings - drawing
anger from those dominant figureswhose prestigewas most closely tied to authorized
representations.
Let me consider the latterpoint further.The official-textualview of the aid project
as an explicit system of rules and procedures(regularizedin brochuresand training
manuals), a scientific order, a replicablemodel, and a history of significant actions/
events had a certainnecessity.It was necessary(a) given the high degreeof uncertainty
in internationaldevelopmentinvolving people who do not know or understandeach
other; (b) in order to put back together the worldview of project staff that was con-
stantly fragmentedby the everydaycontradictionsof practice;and (c) because actors
invested in these objectifications,through which systems of expertise,status, esteem,
and reward operated. Official views and habitual objectificationswere (to different
degrees)partof people'sassertionsof power,self-definition,and representationto each
other and to outsiders- government,donor,other expertsand researchers- who would
read this version of projectreality (cf. Geertz1999: 53).
Such self-objectificationas structure, rule, or replicablemodel is not unlike the
native offerings re-inscribedby anthropologistsand so keenly criticizedby Bourdieu
(among others) in his call to penetratethe strategiesof practice,the temporalityand
indeterminacyof social life (1977;Jenkins1994:443). But what 'objection'revealsis the
social (and emotional) effectsof such acts of ethnographicdescriptionthat pull apart
socially constitutive knowledge,18 particularlywhen they take similar (here, textual)
form and potentiallyexist within the same public space.We may not realizeit, but our
analysescan be experiencedas profoundlydisempowering;they may provokeclaimsof
serious 'damageto professionalreputations'.
Then, there is the generalproblem that knowledgeborn of inter-subjectiveexperi-
ence, when re-contextualizedfor a differentaudiencewithin a broad analyticalschema
(Descola 2005), can produce a disconcertingmisrecognitionamong those who shared
the experience.'In David's researchwe, his colleagues,have become objects of study',
they complained.As Hastrupputs it, our ethnographicwork involvesobjectification,as
the gradualtransformationof fieldworkrelations into object-knowledgeapart from
relations (200oo4:
456).
My writing, then, ruptured relations and broke the rules of fair play within a
professionalteam of which I was a member.Undoubtedlythis is partlywhat lay behind


946 DAVID MOSSE
the strong expressionsfrom projectmanagersand consultantswho wrote (and at our

last meeting spoke) of the loss of trust, of being hurt by a valued friend and respected
colleague of long association.Of course, I did not intend this - it upset me too; but
perhaps it is inevitable to what anthropologists do. Like others, in producing the
ethnographicaccountI refusedthe roles allocatedto me,'cut the networks'of fieldwork
(Strathern1996).19I had to disembedmyself,erectboundaries,or put distancebetween
myself and the social worlds I describedsuch that the academicindividualwas seen to
deny the moral person of fieldwork.20 Moreover,I now made inferenceswhich my
subjects could not share while holding their own; based on 'evidence'which their
schemes of understandingwould never generate(Hastrup2004: 463). I made connec-
tions from aspectsof experiencenot capturedin currentcategories(Hastrup2004:469)
that were damaging.Meanwhilethe disagreementthat I had broughtwithin the com-
munity itself weakenedthe 'hardness'of projectfacts (cf. Rorty1991). And the further
my ethnographicrepresentationstravelledfrom arenasof social negotiation- from the
consultantreport,the conferencepaper,the journalarticle,to the book - and the wider
and more public their consumption,the more strandswere brokenand the greaterthe
anger and anxiety.21
Unfolding controversy
Let me now turn from the question of what my colleaguesobjectedto, to that of how
they did so betweenJanuaryand May2004. My principalobservationis that my critics
reacted not by engaging with my text, but by challenging the boundaries that my
ethnographicwriting introduced.They refuseda textuallymediatedprocess in favour
of a socially mediated one that would, in some way, re-embed the production of
representations(researchoutputs) into the fields of power,the moral community, or
'the family'of the project.
This meant, firstly,that for over fifteen months my colleaguesfailed or refused to
send writtencomments on the text.Manydeadlinespassed.Theycould not givewritten
comments,they said,'becausewe disagreeso fundamentallywith yourversionof events
and the conclusions you draw ... it would take weeks and [would] not be an effective
way of communicating'.In fact the text itself was dismissedas an independentobject-
'250 pages of difficultacademicwriting'that developmentprofessionalsand practitio-
ners cannot find time to read, noted the team leader, adding that 'it is only by me
writingto "X"[a manager]and askinghim to readspecificparagraphsthat I got him to
respond'.Nor were they interestedin makinga substantiveresponse,putting on record
reactionsand alternativepoints of view; something which - fully acceptingtheir 'right
to reply'- I offeredto do by means of a postscript,or opening a web-site.
What my colleaguesrepeatedlydemandedwas that we meet as a teamto discussmy
draft and how it should be re-written,section by section over a period of three or so
days, and that, before we meet, I declare my preparednessto make changes.As the
disputeunfolded,they werecarefulto saythat they did not insist on particularchanges,
but that they were confident that I would be persuadedby their point of view and
would 'want to re-write many sections of the book'.What they insisted on was not
textualchangeper se, but the social-emotionalprocess- a persuasiveteam workshop-
that would producesuch changethroughmy re-inclusionin the moral communityand
history of the project. Theirs was a moral critique of, and practical challenge to,
ethnographicexit. Onlythroughbeing sociallyre-embeddedcould the text become 'fair
and balanced',and the projectas an 'interpretivecommunity'be re-constituted;if not


DAVID MOSSE 947
by appeal to friendship, loyalty, or obligation, then by implicit threat (damage

and defamation). Correspondingly,for my manager-criticsto concede to a socially
disembedded academic process (that disallowed moral pressure over the author) -
through textual engagement,written responses,and the debatingof alternativepoints
of view - would be profoundly disempowering.22 And I could not have re-subjected
myself to the rules and power of field relationships,or dismantled the boundary
between the dynamics of project life and writing, without abandoning my ethno-
graphicprojector the integrityof my analysis.
So, I resistedthe fallacythat the social has to be analysedsociallyand that evidence
is a matterof consensus (at least in this context), and did not acceptthat afterone-and-
a-half years the objectors had had insufficient opportunity to share, discuss, and
respond to my draft. It was when I made it clear that I was unwilling to subject my
account to the adjudicationof a select group of informants (or to meet and suspend
publication with that objective) that they protested to my publisher and academic
managers,now adding that the team considered that my study breached the ASA
Ethical Guidelines on at least four points concerning both the basis (negotiated
consent) and the outcome(harmfuleffects) of the research.23
But this remaineda second-ordernegotiation:not about factsor interpretations,but
about the terms of exchange- textual or social, about whose rules would apply.My
senior academic colleagues who were approachedwere mystified by the objectors'
intenselypersonalefforts (through their leader) - by the repeatedphone calls, emails,
offersto travelto London personallyto show them sections of the book that disturbed,
to fly team members from India - and yet their persistent refusal,as one put it, to
'comply with our request that you supply a written list of what you assure us are
substantial objections regardingthe text'.He continued: 'You have referredto these
objections repeatedlyin written communication.Yetyou remain unable to specify to
those ... you have involvedin the procedure(pro-Director,EthicsCommittee,Depart-
mental Convenors,not to mention the ASA) the precisesubstanceof your objections.
This is a most serious matter'.
But, of course, the objectors'appeal to academic authoritieswas not intended to
open up the text or concede to conventions of scholarship,but ratherto augment the
social persuasionsof the 'moral community'by bringing a disciplinarypower to bear
on me, the author. The appeal was for adjudicatorsof disagreementin an editorial
process that should be collective.But to expect senior professorsto play roles which
erase the boundaries that preserveacademic independenceratherthan defend them
was a misjudgement.Which is not to say that there was no equivocation,for example,
on whether the universityhad a primary'duty [to] respond to [an] accusationthat a
publication will seriously damage third parties ... or to support academic freedom'
(senior academic,internalcorrespondenceon the case). However,those to whom my
critics appealed- including the ASA Committee that met in March2004 - concluded
that they had no remit to adjudicate,or act as a court, for what were only ethical
guidelines.And there was a privateview that neither the basis nor the outcome of my
research contravened them. Consent to research had been given, and as a senior
colleagueput it, 'the absenceof flatteryis not harm'.
The universityauthoritiesdid agreethat thereshould be a one-day meeting at which
the university,the ASA,and the two partieswould meet, but that this would not be 'any
kind of court of arbitration',that it did not have to resolvedifferences,that it could not
impose on me anyobligationto makeparticularchangesto the book. They insistedthat


948 DAVIDMOSSE
this meeting would take place only on the basis of a full and detailedlist of errorsand
objectionsprovidedby the book's critics- showingevidenceof inaccuracyor unargued
bias that would support'allegations[made] againstthe professionalstandingof a [an
academic]colleague'.24 Academicrules of procedurehad been enforcedand with them
a quite differentsense of 'open and fair'which re-constitutedthe boundary between
social life and ethnographicanalysis(field and desk).The meeting did go aheadon that
basis, and it was precededby a detailedlist of comments. The shift to formal academic
processwas irreversible.'Verysorry it has come to this',the team leadersaid to me on
the day.In truth, he was.
The written comments for the meeting were in their way extraordinary.They filled
fifty-six pages, and were categorizedinto a scale of 1 to 4 in decreasingseriousness,
starting with statements regardedas 'defamatoryor potentially damaging to profes-
sional reputationsof identifiableindividuals',most of which concernedallusion in the
text to motives,compromises,or conflictsthat departedfrom officialrepresentationsof
rolesand processes.While the languageof defamationwas sufficientlyseriousfor me to
take legal advice, and while the objections had been helpful in indicating alterative
points of view or correctingcertain factual errors,the more I examined these com-
ments, the less they seemed to be mattersof substance(evidenceor argument)and the
more they invoked the moral community.That is, their concernswere mattersnot of
ontology but of relationalepistemology.The personaland accusatorytone was unmis-
takable.They were about a person not a text:'David should know this ... David, quite
franklythis comment is not worthy of you ...',etc. One independentparticipantin the
dispute commented, after the event, 'They had one, big fundamentalobjection [an
epistemologicalone] but they did not know how to write it so they provided fifty-six
pages of minor objections in its place'.25
Certainly,assertionsof the moral community,anger at the breachof its codes, the
hurt of being judged,the bafflementof divergingepistemologies,were palpablein the
highly chargedday-long'ritualof objection'chairedon 2 Aprilby a formerDFID Chief
Adviser, an anthropologist well placed to look both ways in the divide between
academicsand development managers.She allocated a balance of time for the com-
plainants (now including four who had flown in from India), for myself, and for
independent comment from representativesof the university and the ASA, among
others. Since the format - presentation and response - was academic and did not
requireor allow a drive to resolution, it restrainedthe social control of an anthropo-
logical text. I listened carefullyto the objections raised,responded,and undertook to
reviewmy text in the light of the proceedings.In the end, I did not changemy analysis,
although I clarifiedits purpose, and modified phrasingsthat offended,where I judged
this appropriate.Thus concluded an improvisedprocedurethat gave a green signal for
the publicationof the ethnography.It did so ultimatelythrough re-affirmationof the
Malinowskian boundary between field and desk. Those who travelled to London
expectingthat moral and persuasivepressurewould resultin substantivechangesto my
ethnographictext were deeply disappointed.
Implications
For me, this was a significantseries of events raising important questions for ethno-
graphicpracticeand the status of anthropologicalknowledge,and I would like finally
to come to some of these.
Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12i,935-956


DAVID MOSSE 949
The first concerns the truth of an ethnographicaccount. The re-workingof field

relationsand the contest over boundariesthat I believethis disputeto havebeen about
were none the less expressedin terms of a challengeto the veracityof my evidence and
interpretation.And there is no question that 'objection'disturbedthe analysis.Ques-
tions were raised in my own mind: had I got this or that wrong?Another round of
researchand reflectionbegan, taking me back from the text to the interviewtapes, my
field notes, the source materials,the studies, and the shared experiencesthat under-
pinned it, to verifyand clarify.I emailed and phoned those who I had workedwith on
the project and whom I had interviewed.An analysis that exists within a field of
objections has to be sure of itself. Moreover,to borrow Albert Hirschman's (1970)
terms, if anthropologistsof developmentare going to turn ethnographicexit from the
self-deceivingloyaltiesof policy and projectsinto voicein public,they haveto be ableto
defend their accounts.26
Buthow was I to defendthe'rightness'of my ethnographyagainstthosewho couldsay,
Cyouarewrong,I wasthere',or'whatevidencedo you haveto backthisstatement?'or even,
'comeon, we knowyou!'On the one hand,I did not feelit was sufficientto say,'Iwasthere
too, and this is my subjectiveinterpretation;take it or leave it'.The matter of factual
accuracyremained. Surely,as Malinowskitaught us, it was necessaryto allow some
separationof factsfrominterpretation,to be explicitaboutthe actualworkof inquiryand
the materialand experiencesupon which my generalizationswerebased;to unpickthat
seamless Geertzianinterpretativeweb spun from field notes to ethnography(Spencer
1989:150).Buton the otherhand,shouldI be drawninto defendingthis or that statement
with referenceto this or thatspecificpieceof supportingevidence(eventor conversation)
on its own?It is not just that this might compromisethe confidentialityof informants-
including those in the meeting-room contradictingthemselves - but that, as in any
ethnography,the caseanddiscursivematerialwasillustrative,chosenfor its succinctness,
but drawnfrom a long interactiveexperienceoveryears- the many encounters,events,
memories,notes, reports,conversationsthat make up fieldwork.Afterall, this is where
ethnographydiffersfrom investigativejournalism.
In any case, as KirstenHastruppoints out, anthropologistscan neveractuallyprove
the rightnessof their generalizationswith referenceto evidence or experience ('as an
independent measureof validity'),since these are neither separatefrom, nor prior to,
the anthropologist'sown frame of interpretation,the pre-existingscheme of objecti-
fication that transforms facts into 'evidence' or imputes causation (2004: 456, 461).27 At
the very least, anthropologistsneed to examine the social basis of their own 'evidence-
making'.They need to examinetheir own 'point of view'- their personaland academic
predilections,judgements, and aesthetics- as the product of social conditions (and
professional location), something that Bourdieu (2003) referred to as 'participant
objectification'.
Since it cannot provethroughevidence (the more so in relationto institutionswhich
in-build deniability),what ethnographyaims at, Hastrupsuggests,is 'a kind of expla-
nation beyond the truth of events themselves';it 'is not simply knowledge about
particularevents, practicesand ideas, but about the processesby which these come to
appearmeaningful,perhapsinevitableor mandatory,possiblycontestableor even mad'
(2004: 468). The kind of connections I made between individual statements, actions,
events, and larger schemes of policy in a development project (and so the kind of
explanations I offered) came, moreover,from my being implicated in its processes
(Hastrup 20oo4:466). As an anthropologist I do not have knowledge or experience of

950 DAVIDMOSSE
'culture'but experiencecontingent events like everyone else and make sense of them
(Hastrup200: 468). 'Rightness'Hastrupinsists,is an epistemologicalawarenessnot an
ontological certainty (2oo4: 466).28
Others,too, have concludedthat ultimatelyfieldworkis a kind of social apprentice-
ship, often beyond language,through which anthropologistsnegotiate the opacity of
social life - its mutual interpretationsand concealments- along with everyone else
(Bloch 1991; Jenkins 1994: 441). For this reason, there is no neutral or uninvolved
knowledge ('an understandingthat everyone might share' [Jenkins1994: 443]), no
sharpdividebetween anthropologistand subject,fieldworkand the processesof every-
day social life. Insiderethnographyis only a case of the generalsituation.It is a matter
of Latour's'relativistsociology' in which I am a project actor along with others; my
policies and points of view stand with theirs; as does my analysis (1996:199). My
colleaguesand associatesare also sociologists offering theory, explanations,trying to
stabilizethe projectworld from their variedpoints of view. But then, potentially,there
are as many stories and authors as actors.
Gupta and Fergusononly re-statethe issue when they comment, sensibly enough,
that the interpretativeaccount that is 'anthropological'always 'coexists with other
forms of knowledge',and see 'the political task not as "sharing"knowledgewith those
who lack it, but as forging linksbetween differentknowledgesthat are possible from
differentlocations'(1997:39, my emphasis).But it is preciselythe natureof these 'links'
that is at issue, especiallywherethe knowledgein question is that of the ethnographer's
subjects.My ethnographicaccount does not just stand alongside or compete equally
with other or precedingones, it attempts to encompass them in the guise of subject
matter.29 My narrativeadds interpretationsto those of actorswhose experienceI share;
it explicatesdifferentpoints of view, it tries to become the meta-narrative;and it is the
one whose divergentevidence and inferenceswill be challengedas public misrepresen-
tation, not least because the interpretationsthat ethnographyadds come from reflec-
tion on the experienceof dislocation and alterity.30
If the autonomous productionof an 'understanding'or representationof others has
lost meaning as a goal for ethnography,then perhaps it can partly be re-instated
through efforts that risk placing ethnographiesback within the field of relationsthat
they describe.As Latourputs it, what the social sciences can do is to re-presentthe
socialto itself:'Thatis, not to definethe unknownstructureof our actions ... [but to be]
able to modify the representationthe public has of itselffast enoughso that we can be
sure that the greatest number of objectionshave been made to this representation'
(2000: 120, emphasis in original).31
This view may be suited to an anthropologythat wants to sustain claims to right-
ness in public without either assuming epistemological privilege or retreatinginto
'narcissistic reflexivity' (Bourdieu 2003: 281). The process of objection - an emotion-
filled relationship - reminds us that ethnographic knowledge is at root a social
phenomenon, and persistently so (Hastrup 2oo4: 456); and that anthropological
'right-ness'- in the sense both of veracity and of entitlementto represent- is also
social. Rightness is not a matter of the ontological status of our evidence (and this
my critics grasped), and not just an individual epistemological awareness,but the
outcome of social contests over boundaries and the location of knowing. And this
suggests that ethnographymay sometimes require institutional experimentsbeyond
fieldwork, bringing ethnographers and their subjects together around its written
outputs, experimentsin objection, and the defence of ethnographicrightnesssuch as


DAVID MOSSE 951
the one I have described.Of course these exchangescannot seek resolution.After all,
following two high-profile UK government inquiries in 2004 it was clear that
weapons inspector David Kellyand BBC reporterAndrew Gilligantogether had had
a kind of ethnographicinsight or inference beyond the 'truth of events' which was
simultaneouslyentirely right and fully deniable.32
To conclude: contests 'afterthe field' may be crucial to the recoveryof anthropo-
logical claims,not least becausethey do not revealany stable constellationof power in
social research.Anthropologistshavethe powerto represent;and their informantshave
different capacities to object. 'Objections'challenge anthropologicalauthority, and
should be welcomed for disallowing analytic closure, for sharpening our historical
sense by refusingthe ethnographicpresent,and making us clarifyour generalizations
(although, as I have shown, in their own structure,objections may also confirm the
essentials of our interpretations- 'anythingyou say may be taken as evidence ...'!).
Objections also remind us that however we may try to convince people that we are
right, ultimatelyethnographershave to concede that what we constituteas evidence is
not separablefrom our relationshipwith our informants (Hastrup 2003). Conflicts
arise when, as Hastrup puts it, knowing - 'a subtle (epistemological) relationship
between subject and object' becomes knowledge- 'a (near-ontological) certainty'
(2003), separateand in public.As ethnographicinquiryproceeds,relationshipsbecome
'evidence'which 'complicatesthe use of evidence as an independentmeasureof valid-
ity' (2003). At the same time, ethnographic representationshave the potential to
unravelwhen our informants(as did mine) attemptto unpackour 'evidence'backinto
relationshipswith them.
When anthropologistsresistthis, contestsmay unfold in which it becomes clearthat
anthropologicalwriting is not, after all, an individual effort. Ethnography'sobjectifi-
cations (or its style of reasoning)arethemselves(no less than policy models) stabilized
socially and depend upon authoritativesupporters,specific institutional discourses,
and (as I discovered)processesof endorsement.We should not forget that in the end
anthropologicalknowledge is a 'social achievement'(Crick1982: 20, in Hastrup 2004:
456), one that, as Bourdieu's notion of 'participantobjectification'suggests, can be
subjectto the same sociologicalre-configurationas policy discourse,and which reveals
similar contradictions between individual practice and the professional models
(including Malinowskianfieldwork)that reproducethe discipline (Grimshaw& Hart
1995: 59).
Perhapsthe outcome could havebeen other,but in this case academicdiscourseitself
demonstrated considerable power, even against quite determined objectors. When
'studyingup',we may regardthose who try to censureindependentresearchas powerful
- we may imagine that we 'speaktruth to power'.But the outrageat rupturecan just as
easily reveal the fragile hold that those who appear to be in power - in political,
administrative,or policy systems- have over their legitimizingrepresentations(or the
enormous effort needed to sustain them).
It is this threatto authorizedrepresentationsthat makes the study of public policy
and institutionsso challenging,especiallyas insiders.On the one hand, at the extreme,
defamation proceedings might rule out the possibility of such ethnography.On the
other,whereharm is perceivedto havebeen done, anthropologistshave to engagewith
that perception.Eitherway, anthropologydoes not have the option (moral or episte-
mological) of a devotion to science that disregardssocial relationsthat are the basis of
its knowledge.33The right to academicknowledge has to be negotiated among other


952 DAVID MOSSE
legitimateclaims.And the negotiationof ethnographyas a'situatedintervention'rather

than a disinterestedobservation (Gupta & Ferguson1997:38) requiresthat its practi-
tioners are clear on their position, perspective,and purpose.
Perhapsabove all my case shows that the power of ethnographylies in the fact that
not only anthropologists but also their texts are active agents in the worlds they
describe,enlivening action in particularways. Thus the social mobilization of objec-
tions to my book is as integral to project action as other events it described.And
when writing becomes as much a part of our engagementwith our subjectsas field-
work, we may be forced to address the Malinowskiandivision that has allowed an
individualistfree-flowrulelessnessto writing in contrastto the 'rule-governedexpec-
tations of fieldwork',to borrow a useful distinction from Parkin (2000b: 260). Col-
laborativeethnographyis not a solution. But maybe anthropologistsshould at least
anticipatethe continuation of fieldworkrelations into writing and publication, and
the rupturesthat may arise. Can we reallyblame our informantsfor their misunder-
standing of our intellectual goals? Can we prepare informants for ethnographic
outputs? Does the ethnographic account have to be in the nature of an 'ambush'
on social life? These are not issues that current ethical guidelines, framed on the
basis of a narrower conception of power relations in research,are well placed to
clarify.
Invitingobjectionswill not erasethe questionsof powerthat surroundresearch,but
it may at least bring an ethnographicawarenessto our writing.Writingitself can then
be viewed within an anthropologicalframe that accountsfor the relationshipbetween
ideas and social relations,and as party to transactionsbetween moral persons, in my
case within the ambiguousgift-worldof an aid project.
Perhapsethnographersof policy, professionalism,or internationaldevelopment -
domains in oppositionto which Malinowskidefinedthe ethnographicfield - may have
a key role in re-examiningthe methodologicaland institutionalfoundations of social
anthropology,a task that was at the centre of Malinowki'sown work.
NOTES
This a slightlymodifiedversionof the lecturedeliveredon 2 June2005at the London School of Economics
and PoliticalScience. I am gratefulto the LSEDepartmentof Anthropologyfor the invitation to give that
lecture.Thanksfor helpfulcomments and suggestionsare due to RosalindEyben,RichardFardon,and Ingie
Hovland,to those who listened to a preliminaryversion given in Edinburgh,and above all to my 'objectors'
for their engagement with my ethnographic writing. I am also grateful to Glenn Bowman and to my
anonymous reviewersfor helpful suggestionsin finalizingthe article.
1Writing,Hobartsuggests,is'the antithesisof dialogue,which academicsreattachto textualizing'(1996:29
n.25).
2 As Ingie Hovland remindedme (pers. comm., 5 April 2005);see also Brettell(1993a).
3The more celebratedcases of negativereactionsto anthropologists'work from those who havebeen the
objects of study, include outrage among the Ik when they were informed of the content of Turnbull's
derogatory The mountain people (1972;Heine 1985);the community and press reaction to Vidich and
Bensman's ethnographyof a village in upstate New York (Small town in mass society, 1958);the public
controversyin Mexico following the Spanishtranslationof Lewis'sChildrenof Sdnchez(1961);or the upset
from the people of Ballybran(Ireland) described in Scheper-Hughes'sSaints, scholarsand schizophrenics
(1982). Brettell'scollection When they read what we write (1993a) provides an overview of these cases and
brings together a range of more recent experiencesin ethnographicwriting. In what Brettelldescribesas a
revolution in readership'(1993b:3), informantsconfrontingpublic representationsof their lives and words
accuse anthropologistsof betrayaland broken confidences, public shame, and damage to reputations or
self-images,of violations of confidentialityor of the etiquette of gossip. They take exceptionto too little or
too much anonymity, to the fragmentation of lives in text, and they are disturbed by the idiom and


DAVID MOSSE 953
terminology of social science, in which they do not recognizethemselves.Fuelledmore by accounts in the

press and rumours of 'the book' than by actuallyreadingit, they respondby rejectingthe anthropologistas
an outsider/strangerwho can never understand(Brettell1993a).
4 Relationalin the sense both that knowledge is collaborative,dialogical,gained by way of relations;
and
that (in consequence)the relationshipsbetween researcherand object of inquirybecome a propertyof the
object itself (Hastrup2004: 457).
5 There is a parallel here with situations in which ethnographic subjects
have strongly reified cultural
self-representations- e.g. cultural or ethnic nationalist groups - where anthropologicalre-interpertation
may even carrymortal risk (Whitaker1996:5).
6 Imagine,for example,a visit by the official DFID monitoring 'mission'when interpretativepossibilities
areconstrainedthroughthe organizationof spaceand time in visitedvillagesso as to resemblethe policy text
readby outsiders;the co-existence of completed PRA (ParticipatoryRuralAppraisal)maps on the ground,
the smart treated landscape, new woodlots, and colourful groups of women provide the simultaneous
presenceof the villageplan and its execution- contingencyand time are suppressed;individualsand events
subordinatedto policy ideas.
7A distinctionborrowedfrom Baudrillard(1988:209) via Hobart,who explainsthe work of development
organizationsas 'assertingdeterminaterepresentations'(1995:6, lo).
8And this of courseis no less true of Britishdomesticpolicy.As his formerchief speech-writernotes,'Blair
promises to deliver on things he has little power over: exam results, crime levels, cancer mortality rates'
(Hyman 2005:380).
9Expressingan individualratherthan an institutionalview.
10Although (I warned), such assertionsmight become self-fulfillingby giving the damagingimpression
that the project was a weak organization able to survive and attract funds only on the basis of fragile
representations.
" As recalledby RosalindEyben (pers. comm., June2004).
12As I note in the book itself, 'In spite of formal demands for objectivityand independence,experts are
chargedwith producing,and themselvesintentionallyconstruct,the evaluationstory as a "sharedcommod-
ity" (Phillips & Edwards2000: 57)' (Mosse 2005a:158).
13A point made by RosalindEyben (pers. comm., June 2004).
14A proper project history would begin with policy intention and design and explain how this was
implemented.My accountreversedthis, startingwith events and relationshipsbeforeturningto rationalizing
representations.
5 One can also say that while narrativesof success emphasizing expert ideas are theory-rich, those of
failureare by contrast'event-rich'(Mosse 2006).
16The ambiguousconcept of 'embarrassment'(to DFID or its partners)sets the criteriafor refusinguse of
data from consultancyin DFID contracts.
17Presumptionsabout the possibilityof consensualnarratives,or the unity
of nativevoice (Lassiter2005),
suggestthat criticalanthropologycould learn from the critiquesof participationin development (e.g. Cook
& Kothari2001).
18Makingsocial maps from gaps and spaces,'listeningfor the unsaid'ratherthan the guardedstatement
(Dresch 2000: 123).
19This is to saythat ethnographyitself (of a certainkind) is among other mechanisms- Stratherndiscusses
proprietorshipand certain kinship arrangements- that cut the self-enlargingsocial networks that actor
networktheorists describe;and that it can do so not just conceptually,but also socially.
20 This is not to say that writing need alwayshave this effect or that it cannot in some instanceswork as a
bridge (Ingie Hovland, pers. comm., 5 April 2005); indeed some of my relationshipsfrom 'the field' were
strengthenedthrough this writing.
21Commentsthat were'incorrect'in the book werepreviouslyacceptablein my consultancyreports,which
remainedinternaland had a restrictedreadership.It is significantalso that I (or my colleagues)could publish
on crops or 'tribal'communitieswithout offence,since these realmswere distantfrom the socialworld of my
critics and subjectto a 'technicaldiscourse'.
22 It is for this reason that dialogical or 'reciprocal'ethnography,or the inclusion of (negative) native
responses (Lassiter2005), ultimatelyfails to addressquestions of power in ethnography.
23The latter revolved around the 'serious concerns'that the book 'will harm professional reputations',
especiallyof Indianmangers,uncomfortablewith academicproseand ill equippedto defendthemselves,who
had not been given adequatechance to reply,and who, while not named, could be identified.
24 Correspondence from the universityto 'the March 2004.
objectors',


954 DAVID MOSSE
25Rosalind Eyben (pers comm., June 2004).

26In this controversy(and in the book
itself), when defendingan interpretationthat I claimedto be true,
I revealeda representationalistview of truth (that mind or languageallowsfor the representationof reality,
and that some representationsare more accuratethan others). I insisted upon evidence independent of
relationshipsand resistedassertions that truth was a matter of agreementand consensus.An anonymous
reviewercogently summed up the irony 'in the stand-off between Mosse and his objectors:their positivist
ontology was protected by a relationalepistemology;his relationalistontology is defended by recourseto
what is ultimately(at second order)a positivisttheory of truth.'(JRAIReviewercomments,September2005).
27Ethnographiccomprehensionis necessarilydeductive (Descola 2005: 67).
28Anthropological
understanding,Descola notes, comes from confronting acts/utteranceswith our own
responsesto the same circumstances,and from identificationwith the motivations that may lie behind the
actions of others, ratherthan with 'the culturallycodified responsesthat these motives generate'(2005:70).
Similarly,Bourdieu comments on the importance of anthropologistsusing their own native experiencein
order to understandand analyseother people's (2003:287).
29I am gratefulto RichardFardonfor clarifyingthis point (pers. comm., 15October 2004).
30In the case of insider
ethnography,social exit ratherthan entry is the criticalshift for defamiliarization.
If we agreewith Bowman (1998)that ethnographers'abroad'cannot communicateanother cultureto their
readers,but only the dislocationof their experienceof alterity,then ethnographers'athome' convey- to their
readersand to their colleaguesor co-residents- the equivalent'conceptualdistortion'of exit from familiar
sharedassumptions.Consideredthroughthe reader'sown experiences,the fracturesof exit, like the fractures
of fieldwork,can be embracedas insightfulor rejectedas disturbing(or 'wrong').
31Others influenced by Wittgenstein'slater philosophy point in a similar direction.Whitakersuggests
treatingethnographyas a set of 'pedagogicexperiments,descriptive'tries',or exercisesin publiclydisplayed
learning,judged not by how well they constructtheir object,but by how well they bring the partiesinvolved
into 'some kind of lucid contact' (1996:8), and Hobart suggestsreframingthe problematicanthropological
goal of 'understanding'in terms of mutual 'recognition'(1996:31).Whether'objection'or the more bloodless
'lucid contact'(or mutual recognition) is the bettermetaphorwill depend on the degreeof contestationand
what is at stake.
32 The referencebeing, of course, to the controversyover the representationof the threat of 'weapons of
mass destruction'that justifiedthe decision to go to war in Iraqin 2003,and eventuallyled to Kelly'ssuicide;
and to the Hutton Inquiry (2004) into the circumstancessurroundingthe death of Dr Kelly,and the Butler
Inquiry (2004), which reviewedintelligenceon weapons of mass destruction.
33Thanks to Ingie Hovland for raising this point and some of the questions in the next paragraphin
response to an earlierdraft.
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Une anthropologie antisociale ? Objectivite, objection et ethnographie des

politiques publiques et des communautes professionnelles
Resume
La methode ethnographiquede Malinowskinous a laisse en heritagela separationdu <<terrain > et du
o bureau >. Le savoir des anthropologues est indissociable de leur relation avec ce qu'ils etudient
(l'pist6mologie est relationnelle),mais l'6critureethnographiquecoupe les liens du travail de terrain,
dispersele r6seauet dressedes frontieres: elle est necessairementantisociale.Lorsqueles anthropologues,
dans leur etude de ce que les gens croient,disent et font (et les incoherencesentre les trois), s'interessent
aux institutions interconnecteesqui composent le monde moderne, Ala politique et aux communautes
professionnellesdont ils peuvent6galement&tremembres,il leur devient plus difficiled'alleret venir entre
les mondes sociaux.Argumentanten faveurde l'importanced'une approcheethnographiquedes pratiques
des institutions de pouvoir, l'auteur utilise des recherchesrecentes sur l'aide internationaleet le devel-
oppement pour montrer comment les informateurs influents s'opposent aux comptes-rendus eth-
nographiques,resistent?Al'etablissementdes frontieresanthropologiqueset tentent de o<detricoter>>le
savoiracademiquepour le r6ins6rerdans les relations.
David Mosse is Readerin SocialAnthropologyat the School of Orientaland AfricanStudies.He has worked
on the anthropology of internationaldevelopment and natural resources management,and is currently
writing on mission history,popular religion,and Dalit politics in south India.
Departmentof Anthropologyand Sociology,School of Oriental and African Studies, Universityof London,

ThornhaughStreet,RussellSquare,LondonWCIHoXG, UK.dm2l@soas.ac.uk



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Anti-Social Anthropology?

Objectivity, Objection, and the Ethnography of Public Policy and

This content downloaded from 200.123.187.130 on Thu, 27 Feb 2014 11:58:07 AM

D AVID M o s SE Schoolof Orientaland AfricanStudies,Universityof London

At the end of September2002, I completed the first draft of a book on international

Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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my ethnography in front of angry informants - international experts and Indian

Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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including exit from the templatesof our younger ethnographicor professionalselves

Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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to produce and protect authorized views. Moreover,if they do criticallyinvestigate

I worked as an anthropologist-consultanton a development project from its initial

Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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('tribal')region of western India, and in draftingand redraftingcollaborativereports.

Summary of the argument

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Althoughtheir practiceoften contradictedthe prescriptionsof participatoryproject

Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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often in unscriptedand unintendedways (Mosse 2005a:227).However,the point is that

The nature of the objections

Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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arguments'for collective experience.How could I, one exasperatedcolleague asked,

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Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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A furtherpoint is that the objectionsto the book reveala particularrepresentation

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concealedan essentiallyrelationalepistemologywhich rejectedthe notion of 'evidence'

Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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the strong expressionsfrom projectmanagersand consultantswho wrote (and at our

Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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by appeal to friendship, loyalty, or obligation, then by implicit threat (damage

Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12i,935-956

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The first concerns the truth of an ethnographicaccount. The re-workingof field

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Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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legitimateclaims.And the negotiationof ethnographyas a'situatedintervention'rather

Journal of the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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terminology of social science, in which they do not recognizethemselves.Fuelledmore by accounts in the

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25Rosalind Eyben (pers comm., June 2004).

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 12, 935-956

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Une anthropologie antisociale ? Objectivite, objection et ethnographie des

Departmentof Anthropologyand Sociology,School of Oriental and African Studies, Universityof London,