An Ethnographic Investigation of Contexts of Trust and Distrust

该奖项支持的研究考察了普通公民、国家政府和国际组织如何利用欺诈指控。通常，欺诈一词适用于非法行为。然而，在全球范围内，欺诈指控似乎越来越多地提供了一种更一般的语言，以表达对机构和个人的极端不满，因为这些行为从仅仅是误导到真正非法。这项研究调查了为什么欺诈语言的使用会扩大，这带来的政治和社会影响，以及人们如何在感知背叛后重建信任。这项研究很重要，因为信任对于健康的经济和健全的民主政治制度是必要的。因此，研究结果将引起寻求促进公民参与和经济发展的决策者和公民的兴趣。这项研究将在玻利维亚的拉巴斯和埃尔阿尔托联合城市进行。之所以选择这个地点，是因为玻利维亚长期以来一直有捐助者赞助（包括美国支持的）法治改革，同时也有鼓励创业和穷人金融包容性的项目。事实上，玻利维亚的欺诈指控经常是两个目标的交汇点：敦促人们通过创业来摆脱贫困，并持续努力遏制经济犯罪。该项目建立在该研究人员在玻利维亚长达十年的实地工作的基础上，允许纵向分析和比较数据收集以及有效利用资金。研究人员将通过结合定性研究方法收集数据，包括民族志参与者观察，访谈和档案研究。将与监管官员、法学家、外国捐助者和非政府组织代表进行面谈，以调查经济犯罪，特别是欺诈作为干预对象的优先次序。档案数据将提供对不断变化的法规、历史传销案件和与欺诈有关的刑事案件模式的见解。人种学研究将集中于金字塔计划和准合法的多层次营销公司。这项研究的结果将阐明欺诈指控的历史、用途和影响，并有助于将欺诈作为一个不断变化的全球类别的社会科学理论。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The research supported by this award examines how ordinary citizens, national governments, and international organizations make use of accusations of fraud. Ordinarily, the term fraud is applied to illegal behavior. Globally, however, fraud allegations seem increasingly to provide a more general language to express extreme dissatisfaction with both instiutions and individuals for actions that range from the merely misleading to the truly unlawful. This research investigates why the use of the language of fraud has expanded, the political and social effects this entails, and how people re-build trust in the wake of perceived betrayals. The research is important because trust is necessary for healthy economies and robust democratic political systems. Research findings will therefore be of interest to both policy makers and citizens who seek to promote civic participation and economic development.The research will be undertaken in the conjoined cities of La Paz and El Alto, Bolivia. This site was chosen due to Bolivia's long history of donor-sponsored (including American-backed) rule-of-law reforms and concurrent projects encouraging entrepreneurship and the financial inclusion of the poor. Indeed, Bolivian fraud accusations frequently sit at the intersection of these two objectives: urging people to embrace entrepreneurship to lift themselves from poverty and ongoing efforts to stem economic crimes. The project builds on the researcher's decade-long fieldwork in Bolivia, allowing for longitudinal analyses and comparative data collection and the efficient use of funding. The researcher will gather data through a combination of qualitative research methods, including ethnographic participant observation, interviews, and archival research. Interviews will be conducted with regulatory officials, jurists, foreign donors, and NGO representatives to investigate the priority given to economic crimes and specifically fraud as an object of intervention. Archival data will provide insights into shifting regulations, historic pyramid scheme cases, and patterns in criminal cases related to fraud. Ethnographic research will focus on pyramid schemes and quasi-legal multilevel marketing companies. Findings from this research will illuminate the history, uses, and effects of fraud accusations and contribute to social science theory of fraud as a changing global category.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.