Unruly Experts: Methods and Forms of Collaboration in the Anthropology of Public Policy

We never seek out frustration, but it almost always finds us. Seasoned field researchers, anthropologists pride themselves on their ability to handle life’s curve balls, from visa problems to cultural misunderstandings to difficulties in gaining access to informants. These curve balls go hand in hand with the home runs: all are moments in fieldwork, wherever, however, and among whomever conducted, and each moment has a story. Nevertheless, once the anthropologist exits the field and returns to the desk (a classic Malinowskian distinction under increasing strain over the past two decades), the stories split into two categories—the planned episodes of data collection that conform to pre-conceived standards for scholarly evidence and the unanticipated events and anomalous occurrences relegated to the genre of colourful field anecdotes. Whereas the former constitutes the storehouse of ethnographic data inserted into scholarly articles and publications, the latter is regarded as appropriate fodder for hallway chatter (Rabinow 1996). But frustration plays a markedly different role in the two genres: the informal stories capitalise on frustration and contingency to garner laughs and/or sympathy, while the formal stories sweep frustration under the rug and replace it with a narrative of steady progress in data collection. Our frustrations, despite their invisibility