AHRC-NSF MoU: Scale, Ambiguity and Experimentation: A Collaborative Ethnography of Regional Government in Peru

在这一合作项目中，人类学家普尔（美国国家科学基金会）和哈维（美国人权委员会-英国）探索了新形式的监管和技术实验，通过这些实验，库斯科地区政府谈判其作为秘鲁国家新形成的分层的合法性。该项目将通过对两个专业知识领域进行详细的民族志研究，加深对新自由主义国家的人类学理解，其中现代国家权力通过与全球或国际知识，流通和价值舞台的衔接而同时巩固和瓦解。第一个领域是法律，更具体地说，是规范民族国家如何管理土著居民和环境的国际条约和公约。第二个竞技场是基础设施工程，更具体地说，是工程的度量标准、技术和标准，这些标准构成了现代国家改造公共空间和基础设施系统的方式。通过发展比较和分析这两个国家权威领域的方法和理论框架，本研究探讨了：（1）合作民族志如何更好地告知我们对国家作为一个“多尺度”或“跨地方”实体的理解;（2）“国家”的概念如何在地方、区域和跨国实践模式之间的界面上获得政治和情感力量。将与当地机构和两名研究助理合作，在库斯科进行为期十个月的人种学研究。民族志将侧重于围绕世界银行资助的一个公共工程项目中的技术做法、法律的解释和专家知识的争议，该项目由库斯科地区政府管理，并受国际土著、环境和监管法律的约束。研究将追踪这些争议，因为它们与项目中的两个具体活动有关：在一个重要的考古遗址周围建造一条旁路，以及一个旨在重新组织和合理化城市和农村土地的领土测绘计划。该项目为文化人类学和新自由主义的理论工作贡献了方法和理论创新，通过其新颖的组合，从人类学的法律，科学和技术的角度得出。从方法论上讲，通过追踪民族国家不同层面的专家实践的平行领域，合作将扩大和完善人类学的能力，以便在构成现代国家的多尺度和分散的实践和生活领域进行比较思考。作为对国家和国家权力的跨学科讨论的人类学贡献，该项目将提供关于新自由主义国家如何部署和依赖专家知识的详细经验说明。该项目有助于影响和政治的理论工作，探索“国家”的想法如何在地方，区域和跨国要求专业知识之间的接口模糊的空间内获得政治和情感力量。最后，该项目将作为第一个关注秘鲁地区治理和权力下放运作的人种志，为拉丁美洲研究做出贡献。更广泛的影响：该研究将推进美国、英国和秘鲁的学术机构和研究中心之间的合作模式。将在与秘鲁学术界、政府和民间社会研究人员，包括库斯科地区政府、Plan Copesco和Centro Bartolome de Las Casas举办的讲习班上分享和发展研究成果和方法。研讨会将产生期刊出版物，将推进人类学研究的现代国家。根据项目调查结果编写的非专业出版物将有助于对秘鲁关于区域政府运作和国家权力下放的公共辩论和关切提供具有文化敏感性的人类学见解。还将通过一个项目网站传播研究结果，我们将在该网站上以西班牙文和英文公布研究结果的详细情况和进一步的研究资源。该项目将有助于秘鲁一名女性人类学家的职业形成，并有助于联合王国一名年轻研究专业人员的职业发展。这两个年轻的研究人员将获得国际网络，除了新的研究技能和研究管理经验。最后，研究将加强和扩大PI的研究生和本科教学与合作民族志方法，视觉和法律的技术，影响，和国家的新材料和文献。

In this collaborative NSF-AHRC project, anthropologists Poole (NSF-US) andHarvey (AHRC-UK) explore the novel forms of regulatory and technical experimentationthrough which the Regional Government of Cusco negotiates its legitimacy as a newlyformed layering of the Peruvian state. The project will deepen anthropological understandings of the neoliberal state through a detailed ethnography of two domains of expert knowledge in which modern state power is simultaneously consolidated and undone through its articulation with global or international arenas of knowledge, circulation and value. The first of these arenas is law, and more specifically the international treaties and conventions that regulate how nation states govern indigenous populations and the environment. The second arena is infrastructural engineering, more specifically the metrics, techniques and standards of engineering works that frame the ways in which modern states transform public space and infrastructural systems.. By developing methods and theoretical frameworks for the comparison and analysis of these two domains of state authority, the research explores,(1) how collaborative ethnography can better inform our understandings of the state as a'multiscalar' or 'translocal' entity, (2) how the idea of "the state" acquires political and affective force at the interface between local, regional and transnational modes of practice. A ten-month ethnographic study in Cusco will be conducted in collaboration with local agencies and two research assistants. The ethnography will focus on controversies surrounding technical practices, legal interpretation and expert knowledge in a World Bank funded public works project that is both administered by the Regional Government of Cusco and subject to international indigenous, environmental and regulatory laws. Research will trace these controversies as they unfold in relationship to two specific activities within the project: the construction of a by-pass around an important archaeological site, and a territorial mapping program designed to reorganize and rationalize urban and rural land.Intellectual Merit: This project contributes methodological and theoretical innovations to cultural anthropology and to theoretical work on neoliberalism, through its novel combination of perspectives drawn from the anthropologies of law, and of science and technology. Methodologically, by tracing parallel domains of expert practice across different layers of the nation state, the collaboration will expand and refine anthropological capacities for comparative thinking across the multi-scalar and dispersed domains of practice and life that make up the modern state. As an anthropological contribution to interdisciplinary discussions of the state and state power, the project will provide detailed empirical accounts of how the neoliberal state deploys and relies on expert knowledge. The project contributes to theoretical work on affect and politics by exploring how the idea of 'the state' acquires political and affective force within ambiguous spaces at the interface between local, regional and transnational claims to expertise. Finally, the project will contribute to Latin American studies as the first ethnography to focus on the workings of regional governance and decentralization in Peru.Broader Impact: The research will advance models for collaboration between academic institutions and research centers in the US, Britain and Peru. Research findings and methodologies will be shared and developed in workshops held with academic, government and civil society (NGO) researchers in Peru, including the Regional Government of Cusco,Plan Copesco , and the Centro Bartolome de Las Casas . The workshops will generate journal publications that will advance anthropological research on the modern state. Non-specialist publications based on project findings will contribute culturally sensitive, anthropological insights to public debate and concern in Peru about the workings of regional government and state decentralization. Findings will also be disseminated through a project website on which we will post details of research findings and further research resources in both Spanish and English. The project will contribute to the professional formation of a female anthropologist in Peru, and to the career development of a young research professional in the UK. Both these young researchers will acquire international networks in addition to new research skills and experience of research management. Finally, the research will enhance and expand the PIs' graduate and undergraduate teaching with new materials and literatures on collaborative ethnographic methodologies, visual and legal technologies, affect, and the state.