[Anthropgrad] FW: Anthropology Seminar Wednesday 27 August

[Melinda Hinkson]

Anthropology Seminar, Wednesday 27 August, 9.30 am Coombs Seminar Room A

Patrick Sullivan, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Studies/National Centre for Indigenous Studies
 
Title: Bureaucratic Morris Dancing: an Approach for an Ethnography of
Bureaucracy
 
This paper is an outline of an ethnography of bureaucracy, specifically the
Australian Public Service (APS). It is intended as a contribution to the
anthropology of organisations, which is briefly reviewed in the introduction
to the paper. It is also intended to have practical consequences, since it
is focused on the administration of Indigenous affairs by the APS. The paper
initially draws on the work of the development anthropologist David Mosse to
understand why this particular endeavour of the overall bureaucratic
structure fails to deliver the outcomes that it plans. The paper proposes an
approach to the ethnography of bureaucracy that describes the interplay of
hierarchy and information exchange, both of which are infused with
ideologies of accountability. Policy planning and implementation frequently
involves phatic activity directed inwardly to inter-bureaucratic relations
rather than directly bearing on the material world of Aboriginal experience.
Representations of Aboriginal activity are the raw material of bureaucratic
cultural forms, the currency in symbolic exchanges between functionaries who
know little of Aboriginal life other than these over-mediated
representations.  These representations take the form of accountability
reports channelled from the Aboriginal community sector through the various
levels of bureaucracy. The paper describes how accountability becomes
debilitating to community sector organisations as they are caught up in
bureaucratic involution. They are conscripted partners to the bureaucratic
Morris dance. 

All welcome.

____________________________________
Melinda Hinkson
School of Archaeology & Anthropology
A.D. Hope Building
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200

T: +61 2 6125 8246
F: +61 2 6125 2711
W: http://arts.anu.edu.au/AandA/

Information about the Master of Visual Culture Research
is available at: http://rsh.anu.edu.au/vcr.php





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