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FORUMExpert Knowledge: First World Peoples,Consultancy, and Anthropology

Edited by Barry Morris and Rohan Bastin

INTRODUCTIONRohan Bastin and Barry Morris

The essays in this forum collection are concerned primarily with the applicationof expert knowledge in fields where there is the expectation of considerable cul-tural, social, and political consequence for human populations, as a result ofstate, corporate, or non-governmental organizational action. The essays hereare, with a couple of exceptions, written by anthropologists whose knowl-edgeinsofar as it may be distinct from others in the social sciencesis basedconventionally in a methodology of long-term fieldwork of a small-scale, face-to-face kind, and founded in theoretical orientations which are sensitive to cul-tural and social difference.Anthropology has traditionally questioned theories and opinions developedin zones of metropolitan dominance, usually Western. Its practitioners haveoften made it their point, regardless of their politics, and often because of the cir-cumstances by which they construct their knowledge, to question what may bedescribed as official theory and opinion. Anthropology as it has historicallydeveloped has been constituted in the mode of what may be called 'critique.'This, perhaps, has been its value, a value which depends upon its traditions oflong-term immersion in the field, and its investigation of difference as a keyproblematic. While anthropologists engaging in practical work as anthropolo-gists must usually forgo many of the advantages of their conventional method-


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78 Rohan Bastin and Barry Morris

ground of anthropological professional legitimacy in the overall field of thepractice of expert knowledge which, of course, engages a great many agentswho accredit their work through particular professional qualification. Whatcan be described as the professionalization of anthropology is, to a largedegree, a function of the increased involvement of anthropologists in applied orpractical work for agencies that, in themselves, are not committed to the ideaof anthropology as this exists as myth or fact.

The professionalization of anthropology through practical engagement is amajor force underpinning the reformulations of the nature of the anthropolog-ical project. In some way or another, anthropology has always been engagedpractically. The link between anthropology and colonial or imperial hegemonicpractice has been long noted and thoroughly critiqued, both within and outsideanthropological circles The continuity of such complicity in the contemporaryengagem ent of anthropologists no w as expert adv isers is well-noted (see Bastin2003; Kapferer 2000), although the global political climate may be more toler-ant of this fact. This is so because the world is, once again, in the age ofEmpire (see Hardt and Negri 2000), whose political economic projects arelegitimated in terms of Human Rights which, despite their obvious virtues, arenot altogether distinct from the Christian missionizing civilizational ideals thatmasked earlier imperial ventures. The problematics of such complicity must bea consideration in an anthropology committed increasingly to expert advice. Itis all the more so in the contemporary circumstances of postmodernity. Inmany ways, the current professionalization of anthropology, the redrawing ofits project, revisions of its methodologythe situation of postmodernity itself,and what have become its defining ideologies (the retraction of state power,the celebration of popular subjectivities, the individualist surpassing of the lim-itations of both culture and nature, the open horizonal stance)is, as Gramscimight have noted, organic to the contemporary global political and economicformation of Empire.No scientific or intellectual discipline is separable from the political andeconomic context to which it gives rise and to which it ultimately refers. Thisis especially so for the human and social sciences and debates that have beenpursued within them, of the kind which oppose the 'pure' to the 'applied,' theabstract to the real, are disingenu ous, to say the least. None of the essays in thiscollection subscribes to such a discourse, save to recognize it as being one offatuous futility (see Janes, this collection). Insofar as the debate has been con-ducted recently, it descends far too easily into a name calling where the partiesseem to be engaging in a struggle to possess the 'moral' or 'intellectual' highground (e.g., Strathern and Stewart 2001).


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Introduction 79

in different political and economic regimes of discourse. The anthropologicalconsultant in state-defined and regulated land claims of indigenous populationsreveals implications and limitations on the construction and use of knowledgethat is potentially distinct from the anthropologist who engages a professionalcompetence in the field, for example, of NGO (Non Government Organization)humanitarian work under the aegis of global bodies connected with the WorldBank or United Nations. One point of this collection, therefore, is to indicate thediversity of problematics that may attach to the engagement of anthropologicalexpertise. We stress that consultancy or expert advice must vary in its conse-quence and implications, dependent upon the situation in which it is engagedand the comparative approach opened up here is alive to this fact.

A vital dim ens ion of applied kn owledge in all fields m ust relate to the ethicsor morality of practice. The formulation of codes of ethics or practice is associ-ated typically with professionalization, and it is not surprising in this era of theincreased consumption of professional and expert knowledge that the attemptto develop ethical codes has grown exponentially. This is especially notable inthe universities whose conventional procedures for authorizing or condemningscholarly practice have, by and large, been abandoned (new criteria of 'excel-lence' are constantly being devised). Once virtually mini-states, universitieshave increasingly been reconfigured as 'knowledge corporations' in a way thatis organic to the postmo dern con dition, wh ich is largely being determ ined afterthe American model, the principal globalizing force of Empire. The knowledgecorporation can be described as an organization of professional agents (nowreleased from the regulatory control of disciplines) whose codes of ethics andnew morality equips them with some of the protections and instruments oftrust to participate In the risky world of capitalist and entrepreneurial activityupon which the contemporary university must be re-founded. That is, univer-sities (espec ially in Europe, Australia and Asia) are now less-secured financiallyby the state, and must realize themselves more evidently as independent capi-talist managerial organizations.Godes of ethics do regulate practice (and not merely in the interests of themarket). But, in a larger sense, they do not necessarily render practice ethical,in the sense of protecting the interests or facilitating the life circumstances ofthose subjects they may be intended to serve. They may support a degree ofprofessional ignorance or blindness to the consequence of certain kinds ofprofessional practice. Ultimately, codes of ethics can be more protective of pro-fessional or corporate consumers rather than those for whom the experts andwell-positioned clients (an interesting word demanding deconstruction) aremaking decisions. This is potentially the situation in the circumstances of an


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It is imperative that anthropologists critically explore the conditions of theirpractice, both to determine the difficulties and limitations to their ethical prac-tice wh ich mu st finally be the interests of those h um an subjectsgenerallypowerless in the face of ever new formations and transmutations of dominat-ing political and economic force and potencyknowledge about whom theyprofess. Furthermore, such critical exploration is vital in the circumstances ofthe various reformulations of the anthropological project that the professional-ization of anthropology in this postmodern century is likely to bring.

The issue of expert advice focuses attention on two critical problems. Firstly,it is alive to the political and economic changes within which anthropology asan idea, discipline or practice is reproduced. The increase of anthropologists inthe role of advisors demands a thorough and ongoing critical understanding ofthe political and economic environment in which they are working. To refusesuch consideration can only be intellectually and even pragmatically irrespon-sible. It may even subvert the possibility of defining the circumstances of ethi-cal professional practice. Secondly, the issue of expert advice directs attentionto major changes in the anthropological project itself. We would suggest thatsome of the key intellectual aims of anthropologyaims which give anthro-pology its ultimate raison d'etreare not necessarily negated in the course ofits increasingly pragmatic enterprise, subordinated as this may be to globalinterests of a market kind. Nonetheless, there are potential areas of conflict,and these must be openly addressed. The professionalization of anthropologycould assist anthropologists in more sharply defining their aims. But there is arisk that some of the aims (e.g., a critical concern to arrive at an understand-ing of the nature of different realities) could be endangered if some kind of dis-tinction is not made between professional advisory practice, on the one hand,and the pursuit of ultimate questions, on the other hand, which direct the pro-duction of anthropological knowledge and its relative distinction in the under-standing of human being. Anthropology is not to be reduced to ethnography,fieldwork, or the mere collection of facts in out-of-the-way places to whichoccasionally the debate about the importance of the anthropological turn topractical use sometimes displays.

We remark at the outset that consultancy is not a singular kind of practice.It varies, obviously, with regard to the problem at hand, and more significantly,according to the political and economic regime under which it operates. Thediversity of consultancy practice has informed this collection of essays, con-cerned with such practice in different political and economic contexts, whichmanifest the distinct demands and limitations placed upon it. It is throughsuch a comparative grasp that the problematic of consultancy as a contempo-


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Introduction 81

own co nsultants and NGOs), but a process mediated by conflicts and squab blesforged by a new kind of state hand in hand with what Nash (in this forum)describes as "transnational civil society" and Hardt and Negri (2000) call"Empire." Nash's essay considers the struggles for autonotny of the Zapatistas,and the role of NGOs in the context of the "militarization of civil society" by theMexican state. The changes Nash describes underscore the fact that we aredealing with a process of transmutation of the m ode m state whereby NGOs andconsultants stand in a potentially ambivalent relationship. The state may standin opposition to NGOs and consultants or may become an extension of thebureaucratic legal apparatus of government. To emphasize the latter point, weconclude the forum with the essay by Roland Kapferer on the emergence ofcontrol society as this is marked by the era of the consultant. By contrast, Hen-rikson, in a more comparative essay of indigenous peoples, views the consul-tancy task of anthropologists and NGOs as a radical one, "when it aims atinstituting systematic changes in the state ." He draws a ttention, for exam ple, tothe "radical job" performed by anthropologists who formed the InternationalWork Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) in response to atrocities commit-ted against indigenous peoples of South America and later in Africa.

The essays of Nash, Henrikson, Ramos, Robins, Daly, and Morris form agroup of discrete studies primarily focused on consultancies conducted inter-nally to particular nation states. The essays focus on the fates of displacedand/or emergetit indigenous minority groups, and the role of anthropologistsand NGOs in state responses to indigenou s com mun ity demand s for recognitionor autonomy as they negotiate a space within nation states. Ramos considersthe contemporary struggles of indigenous peoples in Brazil. More particularly,Ramos considers the changing relationship of anthropologists to indigenouspeople from the 1980s, marked by the emergence of some two hundred indige-nous associations, demanding acknowledgment and reciprocity with ethnogra-phers in achieving their social goals. Robins considers the social, economic,and political position of the San in South Africa. He considers the place of theSan in the politics of a post-apartheid world, and the role of the consultantworking with a displaced minority group who were used as part of apartheid's'dirty war' against the SWAPO and the ANC. Daly concerns the role of the con-sultant workitig with the "constitutionally landless" indigenous peoples ofCanada. His essay is drawn from his work as a consultant for the Gitksan andWitsuwit'en First Nations in the major land rights case in northern BritishColumbia. He draws attention to the paradox confronted by those w ho work onaboriginal land rights, who must be "dispassionate and pursue with precisionthe facts before us" but, at the same time, recognize that we work within a


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their claims to land, through complicated and time-consuming legal processesthat cannot be expedited without the extensive participation of legal profes-sionals, archaeologists, and anthropologists. Anthropology legitimates the legalprocess with expert testimony, precisely as that legal process shifts the natureof anthropological inquiry, and in the Australian context, for minimal returns tothe indigenous people.

By contrast, Wedel draws attention to the major differences between con-sultancies that operate nationally, where one expects a common set of culturalexpectations, and those that operate internationally, where the rules and cul-tural expectations differ, and such practices can operate below or beyond thescope of public scrutiny or regulation. Her essay concentrates on the role ofeconomic advisers and non-government sector responses to the collapse of theformer Soviet Union, and the proliferation of "nation building projects" in thenew nations of Central and Eastern Europe. Wedel, Weine et al., and Janes'scontributions revolve around the ethics and practices of international NGOsoperating in a global context. Weine et al. consider humanitarian interventionsin Kosova that seek to build civil societies and democratic governments in theaftermath of genocide and war. They seek to consider humanitarian interven-tion and human rights agendas, where there is no common set of culturalexpectations, and yet seek to impose their own agendas rather than facilitatelocal initiatives. Janes shows in his account of public health in post-communistMongolia that there is a difference between simply studying the effectiveness ofhealth care and doing the same research on behalf of an international organi-zation such as the Asian Development Bank. Importantly, his essay makes thesalient point that not all applied anthropology is consuhancy.

Consultant practice is being formed under the conditions of transformationsof a global nature in governing political and economic institutions. Kapferer, inthe final essay, moves us away from the local considerations of other contribu-tors to focus on the co ntem porary circum stances of the global political and eco-nomic climate. Consultancy has been growing apace in the circumstance of anideological movement It has been growing apace in the circumstance of an ide-ological movement away from regulatory state power, the consultant oftenbeing conceived as an agent in the formation of new systems or schemes ofsocial and political control or emancipation, depending on perspective. Thepolitical and economic environments of contemporary consultancy have majorimplications for anthropology. Only a relatively short time ago, anthropologistsengaged in consultancy were in a minority. Now they are probably in themajority, and certainly carry a considerable amount of political (and intellec-tual) clout, not least of all because of the economic dependency of tertiary insti-


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Introduction 83

REFERENCES

Bastin, R. 2003. "Surrender to the Market: Thoughts on Anthropology, The Body Shop, andIntellectuals." The Australian Journal of Anthropo logy 14, no. 1:19-38.Hardt, M., and A. Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, Mass. , and London.Kapferer, B. 2000. "Star Wars: About Anthrop ology, Culture and Glo balisatio n." The Aus-

tralian Journal of Anthropology 11, no. 2:174 -198.Strathern, A., and P. J . Stewart . 2001. "Introdu ction. Anthropology and C onsultancy: Ethno-

graphic Dilemmas and Opportunities ." In Anthropology and Consultancy, ed. P. J. S tew-art and A. Strathern. Special issue. Social Analysis 45, no. 2 :3-22.


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