At an institutional level, Dennis Wiedman sees a useful role for anthropologists in assisting strategic planning in organizations, making use of their training in depicting the dynamics of situations holistically and working with all of the participants. He has done some institutional level work himself with Florida International University, using strategic planning ‘to guide a rapidly changing university to fulfill its evolving mandate for 30,000 students’ (cited in Ervin 2005: 109). And some anthro- pologists, such as Marilyn Strathern (2000), have stepped back from their university institutions to consider how the academy has changed with the introduction of managerialism and an ‘audit culture’.
There are other levels of engagement, for example working in human service areas (see Richard and Emener 2003). In Canada, Alexander Ervin was asked by United Way to do a ‘needs assessment’ for the whole city of Saskatoon:
them to make their hard financial decisions, but they also wanted a general study of community conditions that could be used by other government and nongovernment agencies. For nongovernment charitable organisations, pressures were becoming overwhelming. Because of government cutbacks in direct services and funding to human service agencies, more and more was being expected of the non-profit sector. The United Way had to sort out these difficulties in its planning. (Ervin 2005: 109)
The research project identified needs in seventeen ‘human service’ areas, including employment, housing, poverty, a range of health issues, recreation, substance abuse, ageing and Native issues, and showed that ‘about 25% of the population was potentially in need of the sort of services that were provided by United Way or parallel agencies’ (Ervin 2005: 88). It also illustrated the cultural and sub-cultural diversities within the city, and the way that these intersected with particular social needs.
The case study documents anthropology’s potential for conducting mainstream community policy analysis and formulation . . . We needed to identify insiders’ perspectives and the significant issues in each area. We also had to find out what was common to them all and establish the level of priority for each need . . . Anthropologists are especially well attuned and preadapted to conduct formal needs assessments because of their focus on cultural and social awareness. After all, they have been doing these assessments implicitly for decades as ethnog- raphers. (Ervin 2005: 89–90)
The concern for social justice that characterizes anthropology leads many prac- titioners to work with disadvantaged groups. Frank Munger (2002), for example, has promoted the value of ethnography in revealing the various aspects of poverty and economic survival strategies in a globalizing economy. Survival strategies are culturally specific, and an understanding of these and their ethnographic context can greatly assist aid agencies in tailoring their activities to fit local needs.
The way that local and national governments deal with problems also benefits from ethnographic insights. For example, Kim Hopper’s (1991) research on the realities of life and the mental health issues for homeless people in New York has enabled the authorities charged with rehousing or providing assistance to people on the streets to do so in ways that accommodate these realities and deal more sens- itively with the mental health issues involved. Patricia Marquez’s (1999) work with homeless youths in Caracas was directed towards similar improvements, with the ethnographic approach to their experiences as a sub-cultural community yielding a useful understanding of their particular social rules and moral universe.
Poverty and crime do not necessarily go together, but there is often a relationship between social disadvantage, poor education, and levels of criminal involvement. Gaining an in-depth understanding of the experiences that people have and the social contexts they inhabit provides important insights into the causes of crime. For example, Mark Totten and Katherine Kelly used ‘life course analysis’ with young offenders who have been convicted of murder or manslaughter:
We wanted to uncover the participant’s world from his or her own viewpoint . . . The research explored the intentions, meanings and motives young people ascribe to their actions within the context of having them recount their life experiences. Our theoretical position suggests that involvement in the criminal justice system and in high-risk activities was the result of a lifetime of events that, in turn, contributed to the risk of committing homicide. (Totten and Kelly 2005: 77)
The importance of understanding the context is also highlighted by Scott Kenney’s work with the families of homicide victims. He found that it was vital to consider broader issues, such as how people interacted with the criminal justice system, and their communities’ cultural responses to crime: ‘My research project dealt with murder . . . While my initial goal was to examine gender differences in active coping among homicide survivors, it quickly became apparent that this was a group troubled by far more than the crime itself’ (Kenney 2005: 116).
James Vigil worked with Chicano schoolchildren in America, and observed that their poor educational performance was persistently explained in terms of racial or cultural deficits, creating barriers for the children:
. . . culturally biased performance tests, political opposition to bilingual edu- cation, and teachers and administrators unfamiliar with (or even hostile towards) Chicano culture. Meanwhile . . . the urbanization of the United States in combination with the transformation of the economy to a high-tech service orientation, has made the acquisition of a sound education more important than ever before. (Vigil 2002: 263)
His research focused on how these conditions, and the marginalization that comes with them, contributed to the growth of a street-gang subculture and crime in urban areas. By doing in-depth ethnography within the ‘sub-culture’ of gang membership, his research pointed to ways that problems could be addressed at an educational level, through special programmes and through more effective home–school linkages.
Clearly insights into all of these factors are helpful to social service agencies and those concerned with maintaining law and order. In investigating the underlying causes of crime, anthropologists have therefore encouraged government agencies to look beyond simple cultural or racial stereotypes, and to consider – and address