Associate Professor Tess Lea presents ‘For ethnography: Anthropology and the politics of the present’, on Friday 27 April from 12pm to 1pm.
In her presentation Associate Professor Lea will argue that bad faith of anthropology when it comes to studying its own cultural forms borrows from and mirrors the cultural habits of institutional fields in unexpected ways.
Associate Professor Lea’s work contributes to the relatively under-developed field of the anthropology of policy and development agencies. It concerns the distance between avowed policy intent and effect on the ground as both a theoretical intrigue and as a pragmatic problem to be redressed. Her main contribution is to offer an anthropological perspective on bureaucracies as cultural systems, based on ethnographic immersion across multiple settings and policy categories, including health, housing and education.
This seminar takes place in room 39, level 1, building 39, Casuarina Campus, Charles Darwin University.
Visit the School for Social and Policy Research website for more information about this and other SER seminars.