Mapping International Development Relations through Meeting Ethnography

Abstract

This chapter explores the strengths and limitations of meeting ethnography in revealing how relations of power and authority are produced through international development discourses, policies, and practices, and the consequences of these relations on the central actors in international development: international "donors", recipient country governments, non-governmental organizations, and end recipients. In order to better understand how power works in international development relations, one must critically examine the relationship between and mutual constitution of official policy, law, institutional mandate, discourses, and daily development practices. Meeting ethnography focused on development's middle figures offers a unique vantage point and methodological lever for accomplishing these goals. Partner meetings are essential sites at which to observe and map both the discursively desired and the practically realized relations of power among development institutions. Meeting ethnography requires that the researcher engage in meeting spaces.

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