ABSTRACT
Debate around the advantages of using ethnographic research in development policy and planning contexts has focused on the contribution that it can make to the developers’1 understanding: e.g., more in-depth analysis and insight into implementation issues, local meanings of concepts like ‘literacy’ and a wider perspective on ‘evaluation’ of projects. There has however been far less discussion about what ‘development’ does to ‘ethnography’. In other words, how does carrying out ethnographic research in a policy context differ from ‘pure’ academic ethnographic research? This chapter looks at the question through my experiences of introducing an ethnographic approach to an American agency implementing literacy and health programmes in Nepal. As well as analysing the mechanics of conducting ethnographic research in an agency more used to traditional questionnaire-based surveys, I look at the wider issue (addressed in Street’s Introduction regarding the New Work Order) of how far ethnographic research can be packaged and sold as a product to the developers.
