Ethical dilemmas in professional practice in anthropology

Policy - environment - development

Stakeholder and organisational analysis

This section provides material, interview notes, questions and exercises for a worked analysis of the organisational context of a research project. In the future this will consist of three or four examples from which you can choose. At this point in time, we are using material developed for the National Network for Teaching and Learning in Anthropology by Dr Stella Mascarenhas-Keyes and published in the manual 'Professional Practice in Anthropology' 1997.

The organisational context of research

Anthropologists do not often have the opportunity to work independently. Furthermore, as the sites of knowledge production and consumption have changed, anthropologists are and will, increasingly be located within organisations, or funded by non-academic institutions, who have their own agenda. This means that the more one understands the organisational context in which one works, the more effective the outcomes of one's task, whether this is writing a funding proposal or negotiating the take up of recommendations arising from social research. The depth and breadth of the ethnography undertaken on an organisation depends on the research task. In the worked examples below you are given information which help to identify key points when undertaking and organisational analysis.

What to do

The material presented here will take some time to work through and digest. It will help if you can put aside sufficient time - we suggest the minimum of an afternoon. If you can collaborate with someone else - it helps the process along. Below are links to briefing papers which outlines key factors to consider when doing;

1. a rapid organisational analysis,
2. a stakeholder analysis, and
3. to a choice of examples with which to work. Choose whichever one takes your interest or links to your own research.

You can read them in whichever order you choose. Each briefing paper has an activity and a list of questions.

Briefing paper - organisational analysis

Briefing paper - stakeholder analysis

Worked examples: HIV/AIDS in Lothian, Scotland

The case study materials in this chapter are derived from a research project conducted by medical anthropologist Dr. Guro Huby. She was working on a project focusing on the co-ordination of services for people with HIV/AIDS in Lothian region in Scotland. The project materials have been supplemented by other sources relating to the epidemiology and health care of people with HIV/AIDS. This case study helps to examine critically how different professions have different perspectives on the same or similar issues, how the concept of 'needs' is negotiated, how the process through which people and clients are defined as 'needy' operates and how research is caught up in this process.

1. Development and micro-loans, Eastern Europe
2. Putting People in the Picture: An Environmental programme, South Africa
3. Oxfam - East Africa