ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I discuss my time “on the inside” working with a water charity in London, England. I follow the direction of H. L. Goodall Jr. who in his book Casing a Promise Land effectively popularized the idea of organizational ethnography into the lexicon of qualitative research. That is, I write in narrative fashion about my interaction with the water charity and those senior leadership individuals who produce its story. Although I self-reflexively attempt to unravel my role in the water charity, my main concern centers on the interactions between the different entities with which the London Water Charity interacts (i.e., governments, volunteers, non-profits, corporations, etc.). Moreover, I attempt to understand how the human body in need and water aid is considered and presented in the project of providing water and whose voice is privileged in the conversation – namely, the water charity organization itself. Thus I carefully negotiate telling the narrative of the water charity without speaking for those who are treated as abject. By uncovering the institutionalization of social values (or lack thereof) within the London Water Charity, I hoped to understand the philosophical goals of the corporately driven water charity.
