Comments on: Architecture, Rationalization, Codes, Power http://savageminds.org/2007/02/26/architecture-rationalization-codes-power/ Notes and Queries in Anthropology — A Group Blog Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:06:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: MichaelB http://savageminds.org/2007/02/26/architecture-rationalization-codes-power/comment-page-1/#comment-54833 MichaelB Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:01:51 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/02/26/architecture-rationalization-codes-power/#comment-54833 Rex-- It's true that a great deal of work on bureaucracy is undertaken outside of anthropology. It's the turf of sociologists above all. But why should this be so? Disciplinary boundaries haven't prevented anthropologists from making significant contributions to many subject areas once thought to belong to others. I take a dig at the race-class-gender focus in my post because I've found so many instances in which the Big Three blind anthropologists to other factors that loom large in social life. Occupational identity is probably the most obvious. Especially in high-risk professions, occupational identity may be more central to a person's sense of self than ethnicity, for example, but you'd never know this by reading most anthropologist's accounts. What accounts for our disciplinary myopia? Rex–

It’s true that a great deal of work on bureaucracy is undertaken outside of anthropology. It’s the turf of sociologists above all. But why should this be so? Disciplinary boundaries haven’t prevented anthropologists from making significant contributions to many subject areas once thought to belong to others.

I take a dig at the race-class-gender focus in my post because I’ve found so many instances in which the Big Three blind anthropologists to other factors that loom large in social life. Occupational identity is probably the most obvious. Especially in high-risk professions, occupational identity may be more central to a person’s sense of self than ethnicity, for example, but you’d never know this by reading most anthropologist’s accounts. What accounts for our disciplinary myopia?

Report this comment

]]> By: Rex http://savageminds.org/2007/02/26/architecture-rationalization-codes-power/comment-page-1/#comment-54627 Rex Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:35:37 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2007/02/26/architecture-rationalization-codes-power/#comment-54627 MB -- Thanks for your superb blogging!In terms of how bureacracy functions, I think it is important to realize that the standardizing moves of institutions does in fact have an enormous literature, it is just outside of anthropology (unless you consider structure-functional accounts of kinship accounts of a bureaucratic institution, which I personally do). One of my favorite anthropological articles on how this concept works within anthroplogy, however, is: Matthew Hull "The File: Agency, Authority, and Autography in a Pakistan Bureaucracy." Language and Communication, 23(2003), 287-314 MB —
Thanks for your superb blogging!In terms of how bureacracy functions, I think it is important to realize that the standardizing moves of institutions does in fact have an enormous literature, it is just outside of anthropology (unless you consider structure-functional accounts of kinship accounts of a bureaucratic institution, which I personally do). One of my favorite anthropological articles on how this concept works within anthroplogy, however, is:

Matthew Hull “The File: Agency, Authority, and Autography in a Pakistan Bureaucracy.” Language and Communication, 23(2003), 287-314

Report this comment

]]>