Insights from Ethnographies of Meeting

I recently co-edited a special issue of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute on 'Meeting: ethnographies of organisation, bureaucracy and assembly:

The volume contains comparative ethnographies from various geographical and institutional contexts.

We describe the overall contribution as follows in the abstract to the Introduction:

'This introductory essay describes a novel approach to meetings in relation to broader literatures within and beyond anthropology. We suggest that notwithstanding many accounts in which meetings ïŹgure ,little attention has been given to the mundane forms through which these work. Seeking to develop a distinctively ethnographic focus to these quotidian and ubiquitous procedures, we outline an approach that moves attention beyond a narrow concern with just their meaning and content. We highlight some of the innovative strands that develop from this approach, describing how the negotiation of relationships ‘within’ meetings is germane to the organization of ‘external’ contexts, including in relation to time, space, organizational structure, and society. The essay offers a set of provocations for rethinking approaches to bureaucracy, organizational process, and ethos through the ethnographic lens of meeting.

The Introduction is available open access here:

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You’ll be happy to find that your special issue has already been discussed here (at least briefly):