Joost Beuving | Radboud University Nijmegen (original) (raw)
Papers by Joost Beuving
Forum Qualitative Social Research (FQS), 2021
The contestation of ethnographic authority in the post-truth era revolves around the credibility ... more The contestation of ethnographic authority in the post-truth era revolves around the credibility of ethnographic evidence. This doubting of ethnographic evidence is usually explained as the consequence of postmodern relativism coupled with political opportunism and the social impact of the internet. I argue, however, that evidence in ethnography comprises a much older unresolved methodological problem that arises because: i) ethnographers' unique observations are difficult to marry with the scientific ideal of replication, but what other tests are then available to support direct observation?; ii) social proximity to the community studied is essential for making direct observations, but how does that correspond to the ideal of outsider verification?; iii) facts are considered central in credibly reporting ethnographic thick description, but is it possible to write ethnography in an interesting way without resorting to the instruments of fiction? These methodological challenges are explored by juxtaposing two ethnographic controversies: Margaret MEAD's Coming of Age in Samoa (1973) and Alice GOFFMAN's On the Run. Fugitive Life in an American City (2014). I conclude with a proposal for methodological rules of thumb for conducting ethnographic research in the 21 st century in a way that is (hopefully) both effective and convincing.
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Review of Development Economics
Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa often mitigate production risks through cooperative mem... more Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa often mitigate production risks through cooperative membership: institutionalized arrangements where they pool resources and collectively manage production and marketing chains. Cooperative membership has a significant advantage: it cushions detrimental effects of external forces, placing a premium on risk-seeking behaviour (experimenting and innovating), which can yield greater accumulation. However, cooperatives are self-selective institutions: relatively better endowed farmers, who are usually less risk-avoidant than poorer ones (a consequence of their broader material bases), tend to be overrepresented. These two realities complicate the causal assessment of the relationships between risk attitudes, farmers' socioeconomic status, and cooperative membership that is essential to comprehend the role of cooperatives in local capital accumulation. To help resolve this thorny analytical problem, an experimental study was carried out in eastern Ethiopia-a risky production environment where cooperatives feature prominently and relatively affluent farmers exist alongside poorer ones. It unveils the working of specific path dependences: poorer cooperative members are less risk-seeking than non-members, but at an interval much less than observed for affluent farmers. For development policies, this suggests that a greater payoff can be expected from investing in farmers' material bases than from further improving cooperative membership.
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Kwalon, 2019
A major methodological problem in the ethnographic study of international business elites is to m... more A major methodological problem in the ethnographic study of international business elites is to make visible the social relations they draw and depend on. Business elites constitute a highly mobile social category and they mediate a growing portion of everyday social interaction via on-line, digital means. They are elusive, therefore, and that compromises the possibility to make direct observations of their social practices, which erodes the scope to ethnographically study this important economic actor in the world economy. The essay shows how fieldwork on business events such as conferences, expositions, and trade fairs can help to overcome this problem. Such events constitute concentration points and moments of crystallization in globally operating social networks, making visible a part of the international business theatre that normally remains hidden. By presenting excerpts from recent fieldwork carried out in the Belgium, Greece and the Netherlands, I give an impression of observables in this theatre, aiming especially at fostering an awareness of social behaviour in the backstage with a view to formulate further questions. The essay concludes with a plea to include business events as ‘field schools‘ in study programs looking at international business elites such as business schools and/or business economics.
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Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences (LATISS), 2019
This article discusses how the teaching of qualitative research in higher education is threatened... more This article discusses how the teaching of qualitative research in higher education is threatened by the effects of new public management, by academic culture wars, and by a growing belief in big data. The controversy over Alice Goffman's book On the Run presents one recent example of this. In an effort to counterbalance these developments, this article stresses the importance in social science curricula of 'naturalistic inquiry'-the artisanal core of qualitative research. Explicitly acknowledging emic viewpoints, naturalistic inquiry upholds the emancipatory ideal of making society transparent to its members. Teaching naturalistic inquiry as a craft may be the best way to assure 'qualitative literacy' among graduates in their various careers as socially responsible professionals.
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Kwalom, 2015
Ethnographic researcher working in on-line communities face special methodological problems perta... more Ethnographic researcher working in on-line communities face special methodological problems pertaining to community formation without physical proximity. This paper discusses how 'netnography' must nevertheless come to terms with the social facts of on-line community: i) how they may produce a shared identity and correspond to the maxims of an imagined community; ii) rules operate on them, usually enforced by a social hierarchy; iii) subscribes to the Thomas theorem by presenting its members with real consequences of their behaviour.
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Information, Communication and Society, 2019
This essay explores knowledge claims about Big Data/BD from an ethnographic viewpoint. This epist... more This essay explores knowledge claims about Big Data/BD from an ethnographic viewpoint. This epistemological exploration was triggered by social scientist/BD analyst Seth Stephens-Davidowitz' best-selling book Everybody Lies (2017). In my reading, it portrays BD in a way that evokes affinity with ethnography: as a naturalistic research practice that makes visible small subpopulations and discloses people's hidden motives. This threefold assertion rests on misguided conceptions however. To the ethnographic researcher, 'naturalism' refers to a reflexive practice, but the BD researcher associates it with researcher invisibility. The term 'population', which has a statistical meaning in BD, has a theoretical connotation in ethnography. Finally, 'motives' in BD are about direct interpretation of revealed preferences as social facts, whereas the ethnographer considers them to be expressions of social behaviour that require a Verstehende interpretation. A BD revolution may be unfolding, but that does not make ethnography obsolete; ideally, both can be combined in a symphonic social science.
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European Journal of Development Research, 2018
This paper considers the economic behaviour of smallholder farmers in eastern Ethiopia and its ef... more This paper considers the economic behaviour of smallholder farmers in eastern Ethiopia and its effects on their poverty status, looking specifically at how farmers deal with production risk and various time horizons. Earlier studies in rural Africa suggested that these are interlinked but that remains analytically dissatisfactory. Through experiments, we seek to disentangle risk preferences and time horizons in their impact on poverty. We find that the studied farmers are highly risk-averse and time impatient; few farmers make longer-term investments. This appears to be covariant with wealth and household indicators: poorer, less educated farmers with smaller landholdings make less risky investments, thus yielding smaller returns, which shorten their time horizons. This finding is relevant for rural development policies, in particular suggesting how untying the Gordian knot of risk and time that spawns rural poverty depends on the simultaneous operation of market and state forces.
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By taking an ethnographic viewpoint, this essay explores knowledge claims of Big Data (BD). Trigg... more By taking an ethnographic viewpoint, this essay explores knowledge claims of Big Data (BD). Triggering that exploration is social scientist (and BD analyst) Seth Stephens-Davidowitz’ best-selling book Everybody Lies (2017). It portrays BD in a way that evokes affinity with ethnography: as a naturalistic research practice that makes visible small subpopulations and discloses people’s hidden motives. But this threefold assertion appears to rest on misguided conceptions. For the ethnographic researcher naturalism refers to a reflexive practice, yet the BD researcher associates it with researcher invisibility. And the term population, which has a statistical meaning in BD, has a strong theoretical connotation in ethnography. Finally, motives in BD are about direct interpretation of revealed preferences as social facts, whereas the ethnographer considers them to be expressions of social behaviour that require a Verstehende interpretation. A BD revolution may be unfolding but that does not make obsolete ethnography; instead, it raises critical questions about methodological symphony.
[PAPER IN DUTCH]
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Low-return livelihood strategies are crucial drivers of food insecurity that may cause irreversib... more Low-return livelihood strategies are crucial drivers of food insecurity that may cause irreversible long-term damage to livelihoods. Experiments and survey results were used to examine the relative importance of risk preference and socioeconomic characteristics for households' decision to engage in specific livelihood strategies in rural Ethiopia. Agricultural intensification and diversification are prevailing strategies, and farming households who participate in non-farm activities are better off than others. Education, information access, household income, and cooperative membership correlate significantly with high participation rates in non-farm activities and on-farm diversification. Risk preference is an especially important barrier to households' participation in these strategies. Therefore, policy interventions that help to expand farmers' asset base and reduce entry barriers to these strategies are required to improve smallholders' welfare.
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African Studies
This article discusses the impact of cell-phone use on social life in Africa, and it explores its... more This article discusses the impact of cell-phone use on social life in Africa, and it explores its implications for field research. It focuses on new frontiers of economic activity associated with newly emerging product markets, showing how the popularity of cell-phones coincides with a shift in the meaning of social ties. Young Africans in particular see in emerging markets an opportunity for personal advancement, and the cell-phone is key in their navigation of this. The resulting privatization of social relations impacts on the rapport researchers seek to establish in the field, as they too become part of the life-projects of aspiring Africans.
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This article argues that anthropologists in the field are often attributed the role of jester. An... more This article argues that anthropologists in the field are often attributed the role of jester. Anthropologists are transient figures in the societies they study, and they stand out in behaviour or in physical appearance. Society symbolically resolves their strange presence with humour: anthropologists involuntarily elicit joking remarks and laughter. Over time, the role of jester may shade into one of accepted outsider, and that promotes direct observation. There is, however, a false romanticism attached to anthropological fieldwork that overlooks the anthropologist's role as jester. Such romanticism is reproduced by the forces of rationalization in higher education that threaten students' exposure to genuine anthropological fieldwork; and this compromises the depth of anthropological inquiry. Anthropology thus risks becoming the jest in the social scientific theatre: an exotic anecdote that is nice over drinks, yet without real scientific punch.
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Modern food retail outlets rapidly develop in Africa, yet their diffusion into the semi-processed... more Modern food retail outlets rapidly develop in Africa, yet their diffusion into the semi-processed and perishable sector is not well understood. Looking at consumption holds a lot of promise for that. Applying this novel demand side perspective to the dairy sector in Ethiopia, we show how increased economic ability, the presence of educated adult women, and retail outlet attributes are key factors shaping household purchase behaviour. Nevertheless, contrary to previous studies, we found a varied effect of these factors across dairy products. It suggests that modern retail diffusion into dairy supply chains is limited by the lower prices, the perceived quality of dairy products, and the reputation of traditional retail channels. Thus we add to discussions of how African households shop an analysis of non-price factors in the development of retail channels.
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Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Anthropologists adhere to the ideal of blending in their fieldwork environment, denoted as ‘glass... more Anthropologists adhere to the ideal of blending in their fieldwork environment, denoted as ‘glass presence’ or becoming a ‘nobody’. Yet, in reality they stand markedly out from their informants. Anthropologists more often than not elicit laughter and humorous joking, to make familiar what is strange. The essay argues that this resembles the role of the court jester, and it advocates making our students more aware of it as part of their reflexive training.
[PAPER IN DUTCH]
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East Africa’s Lake Victoria provides resources and services to millions of people on the lake’s s... more East Africa’s Lake Victoria provides resources and services to millions of people on the lake’s shores and abroad. In
particular, the lake’s fisheries are an important source of protein, employment, and international economic connections for the whole
region. Nonetheless, stock dynamics are poorly understood and currently unpredictable. Furthermore, fishery dynamics are intricately
connected to other supporting services of the lake as well as to lakeshore societies and economies. Much research has been carried out
piecemeal on different aspects of Lake Victoria’s system; e.g., societies, biodiversity, fisheries, and eutrophication. However, to
disentangle drivers and dynamics of change in this complex system, we need to put these pieces together and analyze the system as a
whole. We did so by first building a qualitative model of the lake’s social-ecological system. We then investigated the model system
through a qualitative loop analysis, and finally examined effects of changes on the system state and structure. The model and its
contextual analysis allowed us to investigate system-wide chain reactions resulting from disturbances. Importantly, we built a tool that
can be used to analyze the cascading effects of management options and establish the requirements for their success. We found that
high connectedness of the system at the exploitation level, through fisheries having multiple target stocks, can increase the stocks’
vulnerability to exploitation but reduce society’s vulnerability to variability in individual stocks. We describe how there are multiple
pathways to any change in the system, which makes it difficult to identify the root cause of changes but also broadens the management
toolkit. Also, we illustrate how nutrient enrichment is not a self-regulating process, and that explicit management is necessary to halt
or reverse eutrophication. This model is simple and usable to assess system-wide effects of management policies, and can serve as a
paving stone for future quantitative analyses of system dynamics at local scales.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijqrm International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management
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This article discusses the role of mobile phones in anthropological fieldwork. Based on researc... more This article discusses the role of mobile phones in anthropological fieldwork. Based on research around Lake Victoria (Uganda), this article shows that in the local fishery, mobile phones play a crucial part. At the same time, it appears that increasingly mobile social relations are difficult to observe, that new social rules emerge, and that the mobile phone introduces new forms of exclusion. This imposes new requirements on the fieldworker, and the article argues that the mobile phone as a research instrument offers new, often unexpected, opportunities. As a result, the mobile phone might acquire a key position within the craft of anthropological fieldwork.
[PAPER IN DUTCH]
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KWALON, 2015
The author discusses problems in the ethnographic study of online, virtual worlds through a prese... more The author discusses problems in the ethnographic study of online, virtual worlds through a presentation of his research of the internet game EVE Online. It attracts many millions of players worldwide, who navigate in a sciencefiction type of environment in which they compete for dominant positions and scarce resources. The author problematizes three aspects of EVE, that are relevant for discussions of ethnography in online, virtual worlds: (1) the place of interaction, (2) the design of the game, and (3) access to the EVE corporations: organisational units in which players collaborate. Based on this, the author advocates a novel methodological approach in the study of online, virtual worlds, which he terms ‘virtual-organisational ethnography’. It combines elements of organization science and Christine Hine’s virtual ethnography, and that presents a step away from classical ethnography. Fred Wester and Joost Beuving present a reply to the article, and the author responds to this.
[PAPER IN DUTCH]
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East Africa's Lake Victoria provides resources and services to millions of people on the lake's s... more East Africa's Lake Victoria provides resources and services to millions of people on the lake's shores and abroad. In particular, the lake's fisheries are an important source of protein, employment, and international economic connections for the whole region. Nonetheless, stock dynamics are poorly understood and currently unpredictable. Furthermore, fishery dynamics are intricately connected to other supporting services of the lake as well as to lakeshore societies and economies. Much research has been carried out piecemeal on different aspects of Lake Victoria's system; e.g., societies, biodiversity, fisheries, and eutrophication. However, to disentangle drivers and dynamics of change in this complex system, we need to put these pieces together and analyze the system as a whole. We did so by first building a qualitative model of the lake's social-ecological system. We then investigated the model system through a qualitative loop analysis, and finally examined effects of changes on the system state and structure. The model and its contextual analysis allowed us to investigate system-wide chain reactions resulting from disturbances. Importantly, we built a tool that can be used to analyze the cascading effects of management options and establish the requirements for their success. We found that high connectedness of the system at the exploitation level, through fisheries having multiple target stocks, can increase the stocks' vulnerability to exploitation but reduce society's vulnerability to variability in individual stocks. We describe how there are multiple pathways to any change in the system, which makes it difficult to identify the root cause of changes but also broadens the management toolkit. Also, we illustrate how nutrient enrichment is not a self-regulating process, and that explicit management is necessary to halt or reverse eutrophication. This model is simple and usable to assess system-wide effects of management policies, and can serve as a paving stone for future quantitative analyses of system dynamics at local scales.
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Traders in Cotonou (Bénin), a prominent hub in the Euro–West African second-hand car trade, tradi... more Traders in Cotonou (Bénin), a prominent hub in the Euro–West African second-hand car trade, traditionally sold cars imported from Europe. Since the 2000s however, more and more cars are being imported from the United States. Anthropological study of one group of entrepreneurs active in this new business, traders from Niger, reveals an African entrepreneurship at work that follows a distinct social pattern: traders are groomed in close kinship ties in West Africa and then develop new social ties with overseas migrants. Their trade thus becomes embedded in more globalised networks, yet at the same time it loosens and that works against profitable business. Close analysis of their careers reveals a cultural pattern that compels entrepreneurs to become traders, economic opportunity notwithstanding. Whether this is representative of Africa’s changing place in the global economic order remains to be seen; however, this article suggests how culture in entrepreneurship may be key to
understanding that.
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Forum Qualitative Social Research (FQS), 2021
The contestation of ethnographic authority in the post-truth era revolves around the credibility ... more The contestation of ethnographic authority in the post-truth era revolves around the credibility of ethnographic evidence. This doubting of ethnographic evidence is usually explained as the consequence of postmodern relativism coupled with political opportunism and the social impact of the internet. I argue, however, that evidence in ethnography comprises a much older unresolved methodological problem that arises because: i) ethnographers' unique observations are difficult to marry with the scientific ideal of replication, but what other tests are then available to support direct observation?; ii) social proximity to the community studied is essential for making direct observations, but how does that correspond to the ideal of outsider verification?; iii) facts are considered central in credibly reporting ethnographic thick description, but is it possible to write ethnography in an interesting way without resorting to the instruments of fiction? These methodological challenges are explored by juxtaposing two ethnographic controversies: Margaret MEAD's Coming of Age in Samoa (1973) and Alice GOFFMAN's On the Run. Fugitive Life in an American City (2014). I conclude with a proposal for methodological rules of thumb for conducting ethnographic research in the 21 st century in a way that is (hopefully) both effective and convincing.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Review of Development Economics
Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa often mitigate production risks through cooperative mem... more Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa often mitigate production risks through cooperative membership: institutionalized arrangements where they pool resources and collectively manage production and marketing chains. Cooperative membership has a significant advantage: it cushions detrimental effects of external forces, placing a premium on risk-seeking behaviour (experimenting and innovating), which can yield greater accumulation. However, cooperatives are self-selective institutions: relatively better endowed farmers, who are usually less risk-avoidant than poorer ones (a consequence of their broader material bases), tend to be overrepresented. These two realities complicate the causal assessment of the relationships between risk attitudes, farmers' socioeconomic status, and cooperative membership that is essential to comprehend the role of cooperatives in local capital accumulation. To help resolve this thorny analytical problem, an experimental study was carried out in eastern Ethiopia-a risky production environment where cooperatives feature prominently and relatively affluent farmers exist alongside poorer ones. It unveils the working of specific path dependences: poorer cooperative members are less risk-seeking than non-members, but at an interval much less than observed for affluent farmers. For development policies, this suggests that a greater payoff can be expected from investing in farmers' material bases than from further improving cooperative membership.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Kwalon, 2019
A major methodological problem in the ethnographic study of international business elites is to m... more A major methodological problem in the ethnographic study of international business elites is to make visible the social relations they draw and depend on. Business elites constitute a highly mobile social category and they mediate a growing portion of everyday social interaction via on-line, digital means. They are elusive, therefore, and that compromises the possibility to make direct observations of their social practices, which erodes the scope to ethnographically study this important economic actor in the world economy. The essay shows how fieldwork on business events such as conferences, expositions, and trade fairs can help to overcome this problem. Such events constitute concentration points and moments of crystallization in globally operating social networks, making visible a part of the international business theatre that normally remains hidden. By presenting excerpts from recent fieldwork carried out in the Belgium, Greece and the Netherlands, I give an impression of observables in this theatre, aiming especially at fostering an awareness of social behaviour in the backstage with a view to formulate further questions. The essay concludes with a plea to include business events as ‘field schools‘ in study programs looking at international business elites such as business schools and/or business economics.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences (LATISS), 2019
This article discusses how the teaching of qualitative research in higher education is threatened... more This article discusses how the teaching of qualitative research in higher education is threatened by the effects of new public management, by academic culture wars, and by a growing belief in big data. The controversy over Alice Goffman's book On the Run presents one recent example of this. In an effort to counterbalance these developments, this article stresses the importance in social science curricula of 'naturalistic inquiry'-the artisanal core of qualitative research. Explicitly acknowledging emic viewpoints, naturalistic inquiry upholds the emancipatory ideal of making society transparent to its members. Teaching naturalistic inquiry as a craft may be the best way to assure 'qualitative literacy' among graduates in their various careers as socially responsible professionals.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Kwalom, 2015
Ethnographic researcher working in on-line communities face special methodological problems perta... more Ethnographic researcher working in on-line communities face special methodological problems pertaining to community formation without physical proximity. This paper discusses how 'netnography' must nevertheless come to terms with the social facts of on-line community: i) how they may produce a shared identity and correspond to the maxims of an imagined community; ii) rules operate on them, usually enforced by a social hierarchy; iii) subscribes to the Thomas theorem by presenting its members with real consequences of their behaviour.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Information, Communication and Society, 2019
This essay explores knowledge claims about Big Data/BD from an ethnographic viewpoint. This epist... more This essay explores knowledge claims about Big Data/BD from an ethnographic viewpoint. This epistemological exploration was triggered by social scientist/BD analyst Seth Stephens-Davidowitz' best-selling book Everybody Lies (2017). In my reading, it portrays BD in a way that evokes affinity with ethnography: as a naturalistic research practice that makes visible small subpopulations and discloses people's hidden motives. This threefold assertion rests on misguided conceptions however. To the ethnographic researcher, 'naturalism' refers to a reflexive practice, but the BD researcher associates it with researcher invisibility. The term 'population', which has a statistical meaning in BD, has a theoretical connotation in ethnography. Finally, 'motives' in BD are about direct interpretation of revealed preferences as social facts, whereas the ethnographer considers them to be expressions of social behaviour that require a Verstehende interpretation. A BD revolution may be unfolding, but that does not make ethnography obsolete; ideally, both can be combined in a symphonic social science.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
European Journal of Development Research, 2018
This paper considers the economic behaviour of smallholder farmers in eastern Ethiopia and its ef... more This paper considers the economic behaviour of smallholder farmers in eastern Ethiopia and its effects on their poverty status, looking specifically at how farmers deal with production risk and various time horizons. Earlier studies in rural Africa suggested that these are interlinked but that remains analytically dissatisfactory. Through experiments, we seek to disentangle risk preferences and time horizons in their impact on poverty. We find that the studied farmers are highly risk-averse and time impatient; few farmers make longer-term investments. This appears to be covariant with wealth and household indicators: poorer, less educated farmers with smaller landholdings make less risky investments, thus yielding smaller returns, which shorten their time horizons. This finding is relevant for rural development policies, in particular suggesting how untying the Gordian knot of risk and time that spawns rural poverty depends on the simultaneous operation of market and state forces.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
By taking an ethnographic viewpoint, this essay explores knowledge claims of Big Data (BD). Trigg... more By taking an ethnographic viewpoint, this essay explores knowledge claims of Big Data (BD). Triggering that exploration is social scientist (and BD analyst) Seth Stephens-Davidowitz’ best-selling book Everybody Lies (2017). It portrays BD in a way that evokes affinity with ethnography: as a naturalistic research practice that makes visible small subpopulations and discloses people’s hidden motives. But this threefold assertion appears to rest on misguided conceptions. For the ethnographic researcher naturalism refers to a reflexive practice, yet the BD researcher associates it with researcher invisibility. And the term population, which has a statistical meaning in BD, has a strong theoretical connotation in ethnography. Finally, motives in BD are about direct interpretation of revealed preferences as social facts, whereas the ethnographer considers them to be expressions of social behaviour that require a Verstehende interpretation. A BD revolution may be unfolding but that does not make obsolete ethnography; instead, it raises critical questions about methodological symphony.
[PAPER IN DUTCH]
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Low-return livelihood strategies are crucial drivers of food insecurity that may cause irreversib... more Low-return livelihood strategies are crucial drivers of food insecurity that may cause irreversible long-term damage to livelihoods. Experiments and survey results were used to examine the relative importance of risk preference and socioeconomic characteristics for households' decision to engage in specific livelihood strategies in rural Ethiopia. Agricultural intensification and diversification are prevailing strategies, and farming households who participate in non-farm activities are better off than others. Education, information access, household income, and cooperative membership correlate significantly with high participation rates in non-farm activities and on-farm diversification. Risk preference is an especially important barrier to households' participation in these strategies. Therefore, policy interventions that help to expand farmers' asset base and reduce entry barriers to these strategies are required to improve smallholders' welfare.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
African Studies
This article discusses the impact of cell-phone use on social life in Africa, and it explores its... more This article discusses the impact of cell-phone use on social life in Africa, and it explores its implications for field research. It focuses on new frontiers of economic activity associated with newly emerging product markets, showing how the popularity of cell-phones coincides with a shift in the meaning of social ties. Young Africans in particular see in emerging markets an opportunity for personal advancement, and the cell-phone is key in their navigation of this. The resulting privatization of social relations impacts on the rapport researchers seek to establish in the field, as they too become part of the life-projects of aspiring Africans.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
This article argues that anthropologists in the field are often attributed the role of jester. An... more This article argues that anthropologists in the field are often attributed the role of jester. Anthropologists are transient figures in the societies they study, and they stand out in behaviour or in physical appearance. Society symbolically resolves their strange presence with humour: anthropologists involuntarily elicit joking remarks and laughter. Over time, the role of jester may shade into one of accepted outsider, and that promotes direct observation. There is, however, a false romanticism attached to anthropological fieldwork that overlooks the anthropologist's role as jester. Such romanticism is reproduced by the forces of rationalization in higher education that threaten students' exposure to genuine anthropological fieldwork; and this compromises the depth of anthropological inquiry. Anthropology thus risks becoming the jest in the social scientific theatre: an exotic anecdote that is nice over drinks, yet without real scientific punch.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Modern food retail outlets rapidly develop in Africa, yet their diffusion into the semi-processed... more Modern food retail outlets rapidly develop in Africa, yet their diffusion into the semi-processed and perishable sector is not well understood. Looking at consumption holds a lot of promise for that. Applying this novel demand side perspective to the dairy sector in Ethiopia, we show how increased economic ability, the presence of educated adult women, and retail outlet attributes are key factors shaping household purchase behaviour. Nevertheless, contrary to previous studies, we found a varied effect of these factors across dairy products. It suggests that modern retail diffusion into dairy supply chains is limited by the lower prices, the perceived quality of dairy products, and the reputation of traditional retail channels. Thus we add to discussions of how African households shop an analysis of non-price factors in the development of retail channels.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Anthropologists adhere to the ideal of blending in their fieldwork environment, denoted as ‘glass... more Anthropologists adhere to the ideal of blending in their fieldwork environment, denoted as ‘glass presence’ or becoming a ‘nobody’. Yet, in reality they stand markedly out from their informants. Anthropologists more often than not elicit laughter and humorous joking, to make familiar what is strange. The essay argues that this resembles the role of the court jester, and it advocates making our students more aware of it as part of their reflexive training.
[PAPER IN DUTCH]
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
East Africa’s Lake Victoria provides resources and services to millions of people on the lake’s s... more East Africa’s Lake Victoria provides resources and services to millions of people on the lake’s shores and abroad. In
particular, the lake’s fisheries are an important source of protein, employment, and international economic connections for the whole
region. Nonetheless, stock dynamics are poorly understood and currently unpredictable. Furthermore, fishery dynamics are intricately
connected to other supporting services of the lake as well as to lakeshore societies and economies. Much research has been carried out
piecemeal on different aspects of Lake Victoria’s system; e.g., societies, biodiversity, fisheries, and eutrophication. However, to
disentangle drivers and dynamics of change in this complex system, we need to put these pieces together and analyze the system as a
whole. We did so by first building a qualitative model of the lake’s social-ecological system. We then investigated the model system
through a qualitative loop analysis, and finally examined effects of changes on the system state and structure. The model and its
contextual analysis allowed us to investigate system-wide chain reactions resulting from disturbances. Importantly, we built a tool that
can be used to analyze the cascading effects of management options and establish the requirements for their success. We found that
high connectedness of the system at the exploitation level, through fisheries having multiple target stocks, can increase the stocks’
vulnerability to exploitation but reduce society’s vulnerability to variability in individual stocks. We describe how there are multiple
pathways to any change in the system, which makes it difficult to identify the root cause of changes but also broadens the management
toolkit. Also, we illustrate how nutrient enrichment is not a self-regulating process, and that explicit management is necessary to halt
or reverse eutrophication. This model is simple and usable to assess system-wide effects of management policies, and can serve as a
paving stone for future quantitative analyses of system dynamics at local scales.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijqrm International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
This article discusses the role of mobile phones in anthropological fieldwork. Based on researc... more This article discusses the role of mobile phones in anthropological fieldwork. Based on research around Lake Victoria (Uganda), this article shows that in the local fishery, mobile phones play a crucial part. At the same time, it appears that increasingly mobile social relations are difficult to observe, that new social rules emerge, and that the mobile phone introduces new forms of exclusion. This imposes new requirements on the fieldworker, and the article argues that the mobile phone as a research instrument offers new, often unexpected, opportunities. As a result, the mobile phone might acquire a key position within the craft of anthropological fieldwork.
[PAPER IN DUTCH]
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
KWALON, 2015
The author discusses problems in the ethnographic study of online, virtual worlds through a prese... more The author discusses problems in the ethnographic study of online, virtual worlds through a presentation of his research of the internet game EVE Online. It attracts many millions of players worldwide, who navigate in a sciencefiction type of environment in which they compete for dominant positions and scarce resources. The author problematizes three aspects of EVE, that are relevant for discussions of ethnography in online, virtual worlds: (1) the place of interaction, (2) the design of the game, and (3) access to the EVE corporations: organisational units in which players collaborate. Based on this, the author advocates a novel methodological approach in the study of online, virtual worlds, which he terms ‘virtual-organisational ethnography’. It combines elements of organization science and Christine Hine’s virtual ethnography, and that presents a step away from classical ethnography. Fred Wester and Joost Beuving present a reply to the article, and the author responds to this.
[PAPER IN DUTCH]
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East Africa's Lake Victoria provides resources and services to millions of people on the lake's s... more East Africa's Lake Victoria provides resources and services to millions of people on the lake's shores and abroad. In particular, the lake's fisheries are an important source of protein, employment, and international economic connections for the whole region. Nonetheless, stock dynamics are poorly understood and currently unpredictable. Furthermore, fishery dynamics are intricately connected to other supporting services of the lake as well as to lakeshore societies and economies. Much research has been carried out piecemeal on different aspects of Lake Victoria's system; e.g., societies, biodiversity, fisheries, and eutrophication. However, to disentangle drivers and dynamics of change in this complex system, we need to put these pieces together and analyze the system as a whole. We did so by first building a qualitative model of the lake's social-ecological system. We then investigated the model system through a qualitative loop analysis, and finally examined effects of changes on the system state and structure. The model and its contextual analysis allowed us to investigate system-wide chain reactions resulting from disturbances. Importantly, we built a tool that can be used to analyze the cascading effects of management options and establish the requirements for their success. We found that high connectedness of the system at the exploitation level, through fisheries having multiple target stocks, can increase the stocks' vulnerability to exploitation but reduce society's vulnerability to variability in individual stocks. We describe how there are multiple pathways to any change in the system, which makes it difficult to identify the root cause of changes but also broadens the management toolkit. Also, we illustrate how nutrient enrichment is not a self-regulating process, and that explicit management is necessary to halt or reverse eutrophication. This model is simple and usable to assess system-wide effects of management policies, and can serve as a paving stone for future quantitative analyses of system dynamics at local scales.
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Traders in Cotonou (Bénin), a prominent hub in the Euro–West African second-hand car trade, tradi... more Traders in Cotonou (Bénin), a prominent hub in the Euro–West African second-hand car trade, traditionally sold cars imported from Europe. Since the 2000s however, more and more cars are being imported from the United States. Anthropological study of one group of entrepreneurs active in this new business, traders from Niger, reveals an African entrepreneurship at work that follows a distinct social pattern: traders are groomed in close kinship ties in West Africa and then develop new social ties with overseas migrants. Their trade thus becomes embedded in more globalised networks, yet at the same time it loosens and that works against profitable business. Close analysis of their careers reveals a cultural pattern that compels entrepreneurs to become traders, economic opportunity notwithstanding. Whether this is representative of Africa’s changing place in the global economic order remains to be seen; however, this article suggests how culture in entrepreneurship may be key to
understanding that.
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This PhD thesis explores entrepreneurship in the Euro-West African second-hand car business. Fiel... more This PhD thesis explores entrepreneurship in the Euro-West African second-hand car business. Fieldwork was carried out in multiple locations, showing the impact of sociocultural factors on entrepreneurial decision-making. The thesis was defended in 2006 and its chapters were published as journal articles.
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This paper discusses the consequences of mobile phone usage in sub-Saharan Africa, showing how it... more This paper discusses the consequences of mobile phone usage in sub-Saharan Africa, showing how it results in a privatization of social relations. In addition to sketching its social consequences, the paper also explores methodological challenges in fieldwork resulting from it.
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This book chapter presents three ethnographic case studies of African second-hand car dealers ope... more This book chapter presents three ethnographic case studies of African second-hand car dealers operating from Cotonou, Benin
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New high-value food export crops have been emerging across Africa since the 1990s and are replaci... more New high-value food export crops have been emerging across Africa since the 1990s and are replacing traditional cash crops as the mainstay of African economies. Taking the macroscopic view, these global food exports appear promising as they can lift ordinary Africans out of poverty by creating new career opportunities, but a closer look at the local level unveils a situation of mixed fortunes. By looking at fishermen, traders and other economic actors making a living in the Nile perch export sector at Lake Victoria, Uganda, the chapter shows how local frames of meaning underpin their fortunes. Ethnographic analysis of their professional tra- jectories uncovers a tendency to perceive the business and other people in individu- alistic terms, and this compromises successful local careers. The chapter thus raises critical questions about conventional interpretations of Africa’s globalizing food exports that emphasize institutions/structures over African agency.
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Social Anthropology, 2020
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More than half a century ago, British social anthropology dissociated itself from structuralism a... more More than half a century ago, British social anthropology dissociated itself from structuralism and embraced a new ideal: to understand social reality from the viewpoint of social actors. To convey their empirical findings, ethnographers working in this post-structuralist perspective crafted new narrative techniques, such as the description of social situations and/or social dramas. This paper aims to contribute to this development by presenting case material from a recent anthropological study on West African second-hand car dealers. In this case study, the reflections and considerations of these dealers feature prominently. Although this narrative practice is commonplace in fiction, ethnographers are hesitant to do likewise for methodological reasons: it is obviously not possible to directly observe mental processes. This paper argues, however, that reconstructing such processes is key to an interpretative understanding of social reality, focusing on the way value orientations inform social behaviour. Reporting motivational aspects of the behaviour of social actors in the ethnographic text therefore presents a next logical step in developing an ethnography that takes the actors’ point of view as its point of departure.
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Traders in Cotonou traditionally sold cars imported from Europe. Since the 2000s however, more an... more Traders in Cotonou traditionally sold cars imported from Europe. Since the 2000s however, more and more cars are being imported from the United States. Anthropological study of one group of entrepreneurs active in this new business, traders from Niger, reveals an African entrepreneurship at work that follows a distinct social pattern: traders are groomed in close kinship ties in West Africa and then develop new social ties with overseas migrants. Their trade thus becomes embedded in more globalised networks, yet at the same time it loosens and that works against profitable business.
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In this presentation we explore the various commonalities between qualitative research in academi... more In this presentation we explore the various commonalities between qualitative research in academic practice as in narrative journalism. This is discussed based on Truman Capotes acclaimed In Cold Blood, published 50 years ago. It argues that, whereas journalists and social scientists service different audiences, and may have a different approach to data, they both aim to make the world more transparant, and are committed to Verstehende interpretation.
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The global frontier of Lake Victoria's commercial fish export economy is drawing in scores of – e... more The global frontier of Lake Victoria's commercial fish export economy is drawing in scores of – especially young – African men and women. The multitude of their experiences and social practices are difficult to marry with two prevailing discourses. One associates the continent's global frontiers with strategically navigating, hypermobile individuals ingenuously making use of new economic opportunities, those of post-reform markets in particular. The other stresses how the global frontiers bring in a predatory, corporate capitalism that creates an underclass of disenfranchised dependents locked in economic enclaves. Africa's global frontiers might be enmeshed in such political–economic realities, yet my ethnographic work on the careers of boat captains, their crews, and small investors in fishing trips, instead suggests the working of sociocultural forces. In this paper, I explore in particular how, for local African actors, the Lake Victoria export frontier signifies personal aspiration, expressed in networks of multi-ethnic relations and in the strategic manoeuvring of kinship ties. Capturing these symbolic aspects of social life is expected to advance our understandings of the continent's day-to-day engagement with broader, more globalised, frames of economic reference beyond jaded notions of extraversion and/or market integration.
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This video presents a short discussion about the Arc of Naturalistic Inquiry, the central substan... more This video presents a short discussion about the Arc of Naturalistic Inquiry, the central substantive model of the book 'Doing Qualitative Research. The Craft of Naturalistic Inquiry' (Amsterdam University Press, 2015), by Beuving & de Vries.
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This article is concerned with the neoliberal reform agenda currently engulfing the European marg... more This article is concerned with the neoliberal reform agenda currently engulfing the European margin in the wake of the so-called Eurozone crisis, particularly looking at its effects on entrepreneurship. These reforms arrive in the shape of extreme austerity measures that seek to restore market autonomy in highly politicized economies, and they subscribe to a strong, yet problematic belief in the possibility of engineering an entrepreneurial supply response: the spontaneous, mass emergence of profitable business in a conducive investment climate. Thus seeking to disembed market economies from the societies in which they function in a sweep of economic reform measures is expected to create room for entrepreneurship, promoting capital accumulation and, eventually, economic growth.
Recent anthropological fieldwork carried out in three prominent economic sectors in the European margin (farmed fish, Greece; electronics, Ireland; red wine, Portugal) suggests there are few major entrepreneurial successes to report, however. Understanding this puzzling reality brings the discussion to the heart of appreciating entrepreneurial behaviour. In a conventional, economic interpretation, entrepreneurs are supposed to form rational expectations of the future: they can project profits based on known distributions of factor prices. Reform, in this view, aims to restore predictability in an uncertain business climate by untying the Gordian knot of state patronage capturing political economies in the European margin, to which entrepreneurs respond by investing and innovating in the pursuit of self-interest.
The overall lack of a supply response in the studied sectors raises critical questions about this conventional model of entrepreneurship and the article finds an alternative in an anthropological interpretation that makes central entrepreneurs’ perceived expectations of an uncertain future: Keynes’ ‘animal spirits’. That term has been rightly critiqued as elusive. Yet, by viewing it as embedded in entrepreneurs’ on-going social networks, making tangible the - for entrepreneurship important - twin social forces of power and prestige as well as imitation of success and rivalry, the article shows how such expectations materialise as a self-fulfilling prophecy of business pessimism that make the studied entrepreneurs wary to invest and innovate.
Considering entrepreneurship thus as a social practice makes one appreciative of how indeterminacies in the business climate are shaped by social forces that are formed by actors’ interpretation of social behaviour. The article therefore contributes to an emerging theoretical perspective on economic reform that moves beyond facile interpretations and self-images of entrepreneurship as rational action, instead focusing on entrepreneurs’ socially shared choices. It shows in particular the contribution of studying critical turning points for entrepreneurship as that fosters the discovery of novel theoretical ideas about the meanings that entrepreneurs attribute to an uncertain future, promoting new academic reflection on entrepreneurial behaviour under extreme austerity - in the European margin and beyond.
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Studies looking at how multinational companies (MNCs) operating in the globe’s marginal regions i... more Studies looking at how multinational companies (MNCs) operating in the globe’s marginal regions impact on the formation of local firms generally provoke two interpretations. MNCs are either seen as impeding local firm activity by suppressing domestic entrepreneurship, or local entrepreneurs are expected to benefit from MNCs, for instance through technological spillover and investments. This paper adds to that dissensus an interpretation of entrepreneurial behavior that makes central how entrepreneurs form expectations of an uncertain future: Keynes’ ‘animal spirits’. It reports from anthropological field research carried out in three strategic sectors in the margin of the EU which saw a sizeable influx of foreign capital - ICT in Ireland, red wine exports in Portugal and farmed fish exports in Greece. It shows how MNCs’ operations culminate in turning points: moments in time when domestic entrepreneurs’ perceived expectations of the future shift, producing either investor optimism or pessimism. The study of these points present a special challenge for research, a point that the paper explores by way of conclusion.
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The teaching of qualitative research in higher education is being eroded by new public management... more The teaching of qualitative research in higher education is being eroded by new public management and delegitimized by a growing belief in big data. This paper first analyses both trends. It then advocates a greater role in social science curricula for naturalistic inquiry: studying people in everyday circumstances by ordinary means. Naturalistic inquiry is the artisanal core of qualitative research. It explicitly acknowledges emic viewpoints and upholds the emancipatory ideal of making society transparent to its members. The paper ends with a plea for training students in the principles and practices of naturalistic inquiry. These are essential for their future as socially responsible professionals, both inside and outside academia.
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Alice Goffman’s recently published On the run. Fugitive life in an American city (Chicago Univers... more Alice Goffman’s recently published On the run. Fugitive life in an American city (Chicago University Press, 2015) reignites academic controversy over the fate of ethnography: a new frontier for truly understanding society, or sloppy social science? Attracting a sizeable literature from both opponents and proponents, the implications of Goffman’s ethnography for teaching qualitative research have thus far been neglected, however. Special questions to consider for that purpose include: How does Goffman's work resonate with professional ideals in qualitative research practice, in i) particular grounded theory/thick description, ii) member checking/triangulation and iii) note –keeping / reflexivity? How can such ideals contribute to the intellectual craftsmanship of students in qualitative research and foster their verstehende interpretation of society, and thus make society more transparent? How can we cultivate such ideals in the practice of teaching qualitative research,
especially without canonising them into a formal methodological framework (e.g. the ubiquitous ‘methods courses’ format)? The paper draws on our joint teaching experience in qualitative research at various Dutch universities and it is informed by the academic textbook we published based on it (Doing qualitative research. The craft of naturalistic inquiry. Amsterdam University Press, 2015).
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